Casa G-AWHB – any news?

Two went to the USA, both routed via Blackbushe 1977 ish, the first had been Franco’s personal aircraft with extra passenger windows installed and the gun positions deleted, it became part of the Commemorative Air force and they flew it until 2003 when it crashed and was destroyed unfortunately taking the lives of the two crew.
The second one followed also through Blackbushe and is now owned by the Cavanaugh Flight Museum, I did think it was potentially airworthy but the museum policy was not to fly it, see https://cavflight.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60&Itemid=119 if you read the history of that one it states it was one of the aircraft used in the making of the BoB film in 1968 and then continued in Spanish service until 1975, I didnt realise they continued in use after the filming.
Sadly a third aircraft was the one that crashed on its delivery flight from Spain to the UK taking the lives of Neil Williams, his wife and his engineer.

Richard

If I count right, there are twelve of them remaining.

Having noted the large number of 2-111s in the film, I asked Robert Rudhall some years ago what happened to them. He confirmed that sadly most of them were scrapped. The spared ones were either museum’d and a few made it to Europe or the States. Neil Williams performed delivery flights but sadly died along with others on one such flight in, I think, ‘77 (covered recently in Aeroplane magazine).

The good news is, none of them have been sprapped within the last decades. At least two of them had fatal accidents and the rest is stored or on display in museums. The most authentic example is the one in Munic. It is displayed in it ´s original Spanish livery after a long restauration.

Having watch part of Battle of Britain last week, I have to ask where did all the CASAs go?
There were a bunch in the film…surely that many couldn’t have been scrapped, after all the preservation movement was well underway by the late 60s.

I know of a couple of crashes and a few are preserved, but there should be more out there.

A reasonably intact Betty has just been recovered too, am I correct? That will be a sight for sore eyes.

Do FHCAM not have 2 CASA/Heinkel projects?

So did I, looks smashing already!

I managed to join the group, and found the photo in question very quickly.

Yep, definitely a Merlin-powered Heinkel on its gear, with full Luftwaffe paint scheme!

Thanks for the replies, I do hope they get a Casa/Heinkel up soon, would be quite a sight I’m sure, as will the Stuka!

Piston Powered Warbirds.

Thanks Daz, what’s the name of the FB group? I thought they were restoring a couple of Jumos but there might not be enough around. I’ve always considered the 111 to be one of the most graceful aircraft built, looking forward to seeing some glorious Scott Slocum HD footage sometime soon.

I found the thread about the CASA-Heinkel (although it was originally about the ex-CAF machine). There is mention of a photo, but I think you might need to be a member of the Facebook group in order to see it.

I’m sure I saw mention recently – here or maybe at WIX – of the FHCAM example looking rather sharp in Luftwaffe camouflage and with Merlins in place. I’d think that would be the next to fly, if any were to.

Which poses a question I wasn’t sure would ever be asked: will we see a Stuka or He111 fly again first?