airspeed Oxford Help

Hi Peter,

The first one is a wartime printed card, I’d deduce that it’s probably RAF, and on the other side it has a photo of a yellow/silver-nosed Magister going training – perhaps pre-war?

The second is a photograph, and may well be RAAF or possibly RAF, but neither are likely to be from elsewhere I’d guess.

I can let you haver higher res versions – confirm yourt current e-mail with me by PM!
Cheers
James

terrific shots JDK thanks very much! I wonder if they are both raf ones?

Apologies for bringing this thread back.

While looking for something else (as ever) I found these two wartime shots of Oxford cockpits. Some variation on the r/h side!

Its a pity – RAFM once had three of the things

I believe one of the Oxfords was exchanged for the Ventura II (Ex SAAF-RAf AJ469) and has been for many years stored in a hangar on the airfield at Cosford. I remember seeing it when it first arrived with the RAFM at RAF Henlow.

It would be nice to think that one day she could make her way over to the restoration centre.

Good morning!
Peter, there are no “bosses” in our group of volunteers – just great guys! This is not the place to tell stories but for the other forum members, Peter lives 2000 miles away from the museum we both volunteer at. Once a year for 14 years he and his dad have traveled to spend two weeks working on various projects. We hope to see them here again in May.
Our Oxford project hasn’t really got going yet – the panel which Peter started restoring last May is about the only item underway at the moment due to lack of space. Funding for an addition to our museum is presently underway which will make room for this project and others. I’ll try to attach some photos of the Saskatchewan Oxbox project to my next note.
Cheers
NLS Curator (Bob)

Uh oh the Boss has found me… 😮

Welcome to the Forum NlsCurator! The members here are a great bunch of guys and if it wasn’t for their help over the years, I probably wouldn’t have been able to accomplish as much as I have!

Posting photos is quite easy to do just scroll down to where it says manage attachments and click onto the manage attachments button under advanced options when you post a thread or make a reply. Be sure the attachments are under 90Kb in size and are jpg pr bmp format.

Hi All:
An interesting forum – thought I’d join. Just so there is no confusion – I’m a volunteer with the same museum that Peter is asking for info about the “missing” Oxford instrument panel. I note that Stuart has offered some options, but will let Peter deal with that for now.
Just a bit of info to add regarding an Oxford “rebuild” that is presently underway at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. A group of volunteers connected to the Western Development Museum there, are well underway with this project. As of May 2005 they had the fuselage, wing centre-section, empennage, well along. Also the outboard wing spars were being completed. This restoration is being done for a private collector. The finished aircraft will be a static display when completed. So you can add that one to your list of Oxfords. Not sure how to attach a photo of this project or I would.
There is also a dormant Oxbox project at Calgary, Alberta. Enough for now
Cheers NLS Curator

Thanks for that interesting post Stuart. Sounds like an interesting project. Good luck and keep us updated when you can please.

Dave,
As I have been told by the previous owner the remains, and I say remains were collected from various farms in the South Island of NZ. Windwhistle had the most parts and an “identity” was able to be found on them ( being NZ2155 ). The biggest pieces were the engine firewalls main wheels and engine cowls, all of the parts were off surplus aircraft not crashed or damaged except by the farmers who cut them up for parts. Some of the parts were buried in farm dumps and as a result are only good for samples…. they would not even suit static due to corrosion. The RNZAF museum in Christchurch got all the good parts from the farms years ago so I guess I will be catching up with them in good time. I have managed to work magic on a lot of the items, as I am going airworthy as much as possible where I can but often a better item comes to light later. Instruments were not a problem for me as I already had most of them plus “Ebay” solves that problem, with the only major item being the pilots seats and the captains inst panel to get for the cockpit. All the woodwork is gone, but I do have a rudder and most of the elevators, which are in very tidy condition. Most of the Hydraulic and Pneumatic and Electrical system components are all there however I will need more to make airworthy units in the future ( these did not come with the project, I had most of them given to me by Gyln as they were not compatable with his Mosquito ). At this stage I am trying like most restorers to get all the parts so that I can set up to do the woodwork a while down the track.

Peter, I would be more than glad to help, as I am sure I will need yours too. As for the panel you have two options…
1: I measure it up and send the dimensions (cheap option).
2: Make a panel for you out of the material you specify ( 2024 Alum etc ), this makes it easy for you and I can trade for something.

With the Oxbox I have found no two were the same in the cockpit so we would have check what panel layout your aircraft had. I am after the pilots panel behind the blind flying panel so you may have something to exchange there, I do not need the bomb switch control panel. I also need heaps of drawings too, like you do. I will have to chase up your Email. Cheers Stuart.

Hello Stuart and Welcome to the forum! Would it be possible to obtain a drawing of the panel you have on loan or share the cost and have one made for our project?
You can pm or email me if you like.

Welcome Stuart,

Thanks for filling us in on that. Can you tell us a little more please? Albert stated your Oxford was ‘recovered’, was it on a dump? Or crashed? Or merely on a farm, etc? Where exactly is Whistlewind?

I’m looking forward to hearing updates of your project in the future, good to hear you plan to restore it. Feel free to drop into the NZ Aviation forum too, at http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/ if you like.

Cheers
Dave

Sorry Chaps, I forgot that my name is not displayed being new to this. My name is Stuart Atkinson.

Furthur to that Windwhistle Oxford, I am the lucky chap who bought it off Trademe. As it happened I really bought it to add to my cockpit collection as it was really cheap but found that there was more aircraft than I thought so I have decided to make a project of it ( plus finding out that only 6 exist also encouraged me, I like a challenge ). I am not new to this game however as I overhaul WW2 instruments in my spare time plus help restore Gyln Powel’s Mosquito here in Auckland. I have an original R/H panel on loan from the Subritzky’s as a sample to copy for my own aircraft.

Lovely pics James Thanks very much! They are basically the same as our panel except the undercart indicator is different.
I can’t believe they would remove the right hand panel and not replace it as it has all the key guages for boost and rpm etc fitted.?

Let’s consider the evidence.

I’m presuming the panel was removed for bomb-aimer trainers, as it’s very difficult to get into the nose compartment otherwise. Full dual-pilot fit isn’t as usably flexible as a single panel, I’d guess, and you can probably manage with one panel and two sets of controls if you need to occasionally. Obviously pilot training Oxboxes would keep full dual, but I think many were used a s crew trainers?

The Oxford was built as a standard configuration allowing the desired roles to be supported by fitted but inaccessible parts. Hence the ex-civilian Skyfame Oxford, which had no significant service has the bulkheads and window fitted for the bomb-aimer’s instruments (see my pic 135 above) the turret ring mounting inside the rear fuselage for the never fitted gun turret, and a full dual control setup. (Ref the conservation staff at the IWM – thanks)

I’m guessing that the pilot’s position (on the starboard side) had panel, column, rudder pedals and stick removed if the nose compartment was intended to be used, as, it seems was normal (given the survivors discussed above) in the Canadian aircraft. (Phew, rotten sentence, but I’m not being paid, so I’m not recasting it…)

Cheers

Mmmm, Oxfords

Its a pity – RAFM once had three of the things, including the Consul that went to Singapore. Two of them were traded out of the UK before museums such as ours got going enough to be able to put a case for having one.

I really must see if I can find enough to make a decent project for the museum. There seem to be plenty of ‘bits’ out there.

Picked up a Consul manual on Ebay the other day – nice!

Bruce

………Strangely enough all of our oxford wrecks are missing the right hand side panels…?!

Peter,

Just for info’ the Oxford’s brought back to the UK where also missing their panels…….

(Photo source Mark Evans/MWM)
.

The Singapore Oxford is currently under restoration at Croydon Aircraft Company in Mandeville NZ (although it has halted presently until Singapore Airlines finalise what they want to do, well find out more in the New Year), as Dave mentioned. And the Oxford parts collection sold on Tradme was the same machine on warbirdsite.com, Im not sure who it has gone to but hopefully it will help in someones work.

In fact, you’d no doubt find this thread from my forum interesting about surviving Oxbox’s in NZ, which was sparked by that TradeMe one

http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Wartime&thread=1124411605&page=1

Just remembered also the Wigram one was a Consul, formerly and Oxford, and will be an Oxford again very soon.

Here is another thread you might enjoy a look at
http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Wartime&thread=1128490330&page=1

Is the Singapore Airlines one not at Mandeville, New Zealand any more then? Ryan? Or is this another one?

Yes, I was thinking of the Gulf Air Anson, sorry, the memory was blurring over on that one.

As for your list of Oxfords you’ve missed the example at the RNZAF Museum, Wigram which is being restored from a Canadian example using parts from RNZAF examples. Also the Subritzky family have a complete, immaculate absolutely wartime one which they’re reassembling at Dairy Flat in NZ.

There was the remains of another Oxford sold recently on TradeMe.co.nz as a restoration project kitset, and there’s another agin in an Australian museum sourced from NZ, in kitset form.

I’d like to know more about the Windwhistle one please – I’ve never heard of that place, and I have lived in Auckland. Maybe a country district in Auckland province?