Blenheim 1F accident (in 1939)

The one point I would make is that it appears (certainly before Sept 1939) that even the most slight incident caused an aircraft to be classified as DBR and then (maybe) shipped off for Instructional Purposes.. Such as this incident.

11-08-1939 L1475 64 Squadron: tyre burst while taxying at Duxford and aircraft tipped up: DBR

There is no Maintenance Serial for this one (or I can’t find it) .. but there are others.. my assumption is that they needed ‘modern’ metal fuselaged monoplanes for instructional purposes asap it was easier to pack them off to a training station and get a new one from those coming off the production line than repair it….

You’re right, galdri. I posted them in the hope that, amongst the vast knowledge assembled on this site, there might be some who recognise the photograph and/or incident and thereby could have offered additional information. In the absence of this – which currently appears to be the case – the statement that you make is most likely to hold true.

I´m trespassing here AA, but I think with damage like that, you would not be able to find out the details UNLESS you know which aircraft was involved – and that is the problem! I don´t think you can identify the machine from the damage – but if you know the machine you can find out about the damage. If you know what I mean!;):D:D

Thank you all, I’ll pass that information on to the poster on the other thread.

Would I be correct in assuming that if it was a relatively minor incident – such as Paul and Pogno suggest – there might not now be any record of it from which to identify the aeroplane and the date and circumstances of the accident?

It looks like a case of too much power while taxing from the grass onto the concrete parking area. A contributery factor could have been the ground being a bit soft right at the edge of the concrete which required more power and up went the tail.
They may have just replaced the props but a shock load check of the engines would normally be carried out which would be a engine workshop task.

Richard

The Bristol Blenheim: a complete history Graham Warner – 2002

13-07-1939 L1510 25 Squadron Mk IF: u/c collapsed during heavy landing at Hawkinge; became 1637M

01-08-1939 L1241 25 Squadron: overshot landing and hit bank at Hawkinge; P/O B.J. Rofe unhurt, airframe became 1635M

Suggest that both of these should be eliminated as it looks like the accident does not fit the description and incident does look repairable so no need for them to be Instructional Airframes

Nothing in ORB…

By odd coincidence I looked at the microfiche for the card for L1241 (from the RAF AHB) earlier today and it shows that it was taken on charge with 25 Sqn on 19/12/38 but there is nothing after that.

Sorry, my fault, the original poster on the other site said that it was a 25 Squadron aeroplane. Apparently the provenance of the photographs is Roy Humphreys. A subsequent poster has suggested that the aeroplane is either L1510 (crashed 13 July 1939) or L1241 (crashed 1 August 1939). Any thoughts?

The lack of codes or any discernible serial number doesn’t help….but I am sure I have seen these before somewhere.

I’d suggest 25 Sqn might be a starting point, though.

More than likely I’ve messed up somewhere. So maybe it would be better if I put the images up here as thumbnails. Hopefully this will make things a little easier!

When I go to that link, I get the forum…but no images AA.