On 12th September 1970 I took a photograph of the forward fuselage of an Avro Ashton at Farnborough, and recently uploaded it to the Air-Britain Pics web site – it can be seen at http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1194225/. It is generally believed that this is WB491, which was used at Farnborough by the NGTE between 1955 and 1964. The fuselage is now at Newark Air Museum.
However, I do wonder if the true identity has in fact been lost as there’s a picture on Air-Britain Pics of Ashton 3 WB492 at RRE Defford (see it at http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1047495/) with the fuselage in a condition uncannily like that of the one I photographed at Farnborough, and the information given accords with the info in ukserials.com, which states that the wreck was moved to Farnborough for structural testing.
However WB491 was definitely at Farnborough and flew from there, so I have gone with that information, which mentions that the fuselage went to Newark. But I still have a niggle about WB492, especially given its location at Farnborough!
I suppose we may never know, unless there is a maker’s plate or something in the fuselage at Newark.
Does anyone have any information on this? Is there anything on the Newark fuselage to confirm that it is indeed WB491?
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September 28, 2009 at 10:07 am