Carvair parts :¬)

!! 2007 thread !!

Trying to get in contact with John Flanigan

I’ve got my book. :p It is brilliant, well worth the money. So much new info and so many unpublished photos a veritable goldmine. Can hardly wait for Mile High Guys DVD. Then I will be a happy bunny.:):)
Go get it folks.
Be lucky
David

Could anyone who knows John Flanagan ask him to contact me!

I am hoping for a Jan 1/08 release and the DVD will be available in both NTSC and PAL formats. I’ll post here and on my website with details.

Don’t forget to update us on availability and European distribution details.
Good luck with your project.
Be lucky
David

Hi all,
I am the guy with the Carvair DVD in current production featuring CF-AAH. Reading your posts has been most interesting, and enjoyable. I have never seen one fly myself but it was great seeing all the great video and pictures during my research. Patrick Dean could you please PM me or email me at [email]arnold@milehighproductions.com[/email]

As a spotter at Southend from the late 1960’s I remember that the first thing the ground crew did once the engines had stopped was fit a prop under the rear fuselage to stop the aircraft sitting on its tail when the cars were unloaded. the loading and unloading was usually accompanied by loud creaks and groans (which could often be heard clearly from the spectator terrace) and a series of lurches as the CG sorted itself out.
Occassionally someone forgot to remove the tail prop after loading and the Carvair was pursued down the taxiway by a van or lorry carrying someone to unclip it.
It wasn’t completely unknown for them to take off with the prop still in place but apparently it banged around so badly in the slipstream that it was best to do a quick circuit and land to get it removed.
They don’t make aeroplanes with character like the Carvair anymore.

Anymore Carvair stories to keep this on the front page??

John – I know of a U.K museum that might be interested in housing her inside
and it has a little relevance in terms of Carvair operations.

CF-EPV

Thanks for that post John, we are all indebted to you for saving the cockpit. It`s obvious you are a real carvair fanatic, would it be possible for us to organise a get together at the cockpit when the weather improves in the spring? It would be great to put names to faces………Martin

I woulde welcome the chance for interested parties to look around “Larflaith” once the warner weather returns please keep intouch.

John.

Fond memories of Ringway airport in the mid 60’s. British United Air Ferries Carvairs…and Aer Lingus ones. Parked next to Airspeed Ambassadors in the original Dan Air livery.

As for the Carvair, I knew it was a DC4 with a humpgrade from Aviation Traders…..but I didn’t know Freddie Laker owned ATL.

CF-EPV

I will, when i get time, try to dig out the photo’s i took of EPV’s flight deck when i first found her in a scrap yard in 1979.

One story you may all enjoy….on a Carvair flight the captain was advised that there was a passenger on board who was to be given the V.I.P treatment.

The captain checked the passenger list and saw there was an Air Vice Marshall on board.

After take off the captain called the stewardess and told her to tell the AVM’ that he would be down to see him soon !

The stewardess asked who the hell the AVM’ was ?

“The V.I.P passenger of course !” was the reply.

The stewardess went bright red as she told the captain that the V.I.P passenger was the landlord of Freddy Lakers local pub !

Patrick,

I have sent you a PM with Johns details.

Jamie

CF-EPV and John Flanagan

I enjoyed John Flanagan’s account of the cockpit of CF-EPV.

I am pleased to inform all of you that my book on the Fleet History of the Carvair is currently in the layout phase at McFarland Publishing and will be released in 2008. It is most reassuring to find that my account of CF-EPV and its previous life with Aer Lingus is very close to John’s account.

If anyone can put me in contact with John I would appreciate it. I attempted to locate him during the research for the book without results.

Patrick Dean

CF-EPV

Glad you posted that update John, and thanks for the email the other day, nice to hear PV is being looked after. I am sure there are some on here that will be interested.

You have the only Carvair left in the UK, until we all club together and buy one of the last airworthy ones and bring it home 😎 :rolleyes:

Welcome to the forum also. 🙂

Jamie

Thanks for that post John, we are all indebted to you for saving the cockpit. It`s obvious you are a real carvair fanatic, would it be possible for us to organise a get together at the cockpit when the weather improves in the spring? It would be great to put names to faces………Martin

Carvair Flight Deck.

CF-EPV is indeed at Halesworth Suffolk.

I bought her from a scrap yard in suffolk in 1979 for £400…she was about to be turned into a wendy house for a little girl ( By CF-EPV I of course mean her flight deck)

She was at that time painted her more natural white… i put her on display at the US8thAAF museum at Fritton Norfolk (Now sadly no longer in existence) The park at fritton was owned by a member of the local aristocracy ( The man insisted the flight deck be re painted as it was attracting too many paying visitors to his park as it could be clearly seen from the road.(Hmmm !)…so i re painted it olive drab and used its former identity as Douglas C54B USAAF Serial 42-72343…. this “calmed” its visability down ! lol. the name on its nose “Larflaith” of course comes from its other i.d as aer lingus Carvair EI-AMR St Jarleth/larflaith.

The museum closed and i allowed CF-EPV to be displayed at the 100th bomb group museum at Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk…but they were very strange people to deal with and tried to turn EPV into the nose section of a B17 Flying fortress…with out my permission!

In the mid 90s i moved her to my friend Mr J cliff’s land on the old airfield at Halesworth and she was referbished again as C54B 42-72343…only this time she bore the legend on her side with my name as her pilot…J Cliff as co- pilot and her crew chief as Tech SGT J Daubney…(A carvair ref… John Daubney was in charge of engineering at BAF southend) As well as her Air Lingus fleet name.

soon after this some idiot drove a forklift through the side of her !

I had a lot of domestic probs concirning my ex wife and a missing £20,000 at the time and im afraid i had more important things on my mind than EPV..sadly she fell into dis repair over the years.

i am hoping in the spring to clean her up and repaint her.

I have in my collection all the photos that Aviation traders “dumped” in the 70s..showing the step by step conversions of the DC4s to ATL98s

I interviewed many of the people who built them and flew them including Arther Leftley who designed the ATL 98…. along with the construction photos and the many photos of carvairs in service i started to compile a book… thats as far as i got…for now!

I was in contact with the wife of the pilot of the carvair that rolled over in the snow in Holland decapatating the crew!.. she only found out her husband had been killed when the press turned up on her door….she never knew how or why her husband died ! she asumed he caused the crash…. i put her at ease when i told her the airplane suffered a “Total White out” on landing…in the snow,they could not see the ground…the nose wheel went into a ditch and the airpland flipped over skiding down the runway on its roof..ripping the cockpit open like a sardine can!…i have the photos of aviation traders recovering the wreck….. none of the cars were damaged on board…they were all hanging from the upturned floor.

one car was damaged when a over enthusiastic recovery crew member undid the restraints..allowing the car to fall to the roof !

I was lucky enough With John Daubneys help, to visit the last carvair at southend “Big John” in 1980..i was given freedom to look around and in this fantastic aircraft..and photograph her…. i had sat in EPV’s pilot seat many times… i was now sitting in “Big John’s” pilot seat in a very familier cockpit…… only this time the ground was not 5ft below the pilots window !

One of the ex carvair pilots fought very hard to no avail to save Big John from the scrap yard…he pleaded with Duxford to take her, but they said she was not important enough in the history of british aviation !… sadly as you will know she was smashed to bits by JCB’s !

John Flanagan

Forgot to mention Wings and Wheels became a toy shop long ago but was still owned by the Oram family up until a while ago when they closed and sold the premises. It is possible that Richard Oram still lives in the area so if you haven’t already spoken to him it could be worth trying to track him down or maybe get the Southend Echo to write a piece about the model and you may find all sorts of people who have been associated with it over the years appear again. After all it must be a case of once seen never forgotten.

At the time I saw it Len Heinrich did say that it rarely flew. I think at that time he was the only person trusted to fly it as he had a lot of control line flying experience. It was also a definite no no in any kind of wind partly because it was so big and appeared a bit underpowered. If you couple all that with the problems of getting all 4 engines running properly it probably got to the flying field more far times than it ever got into the air.

Actually there appears to be minimal fuel soaking, it maybe indicates that it didn`t see an awful lot of flying. I was told that the Model had been repainted in the colours of Big John by i think the daughter of the Captain who had it hanging in his dining room. There were several photos of him standing in front of the real one in his Captains uniform………Martin