Portsmouth Aviation are believed to have modified a number of Ansons as ASH Radar trainers at their premises at Christchurch Airfield in early 1945.
Can anyone identify any of the aircraft involved or add any information other than the bare details that I have stated here?
In addition , I have been passed a photo taken in November 1942 of the Portsmouth Aviation (at Christchurch) works Fire Brigade.
I know this is a very long shot – but can anyone identify any of those in the photo.
You can see the photo at the link below – scroll about a quarter way down the page …click on the picture for a very large version.
By: daveg4otu - 10th February 2011 at 19:05
Thanks for that – I should have said in my original post that the total number of aircraft modified by PA was 51 aircraft according to Christopher Balfour’s Spithead Express- with possibly another 26 modification kits supplied.
Christopher has said that he never saw any Anson work done at Portsmouth (I guess that any Hamble conversions would have been done by AST-unless anyone knows differently) so the logical conclusion would seem to be that they were all done at Christchurch.
By: FRANCISCO - 10th February 2011 at 17:36
Dave
I am not sure whether this is relevant to Hamble-converted Ansons, but I have just dug out an old and dusty book from my collection – The Avro Anson by Alan W Hall and Eric Taylor, published by Almark 1972.
There is a brief reference to Ansons of 811 sqn and operations from Hamble. There are two black and white photos of ASH- equipped Ansons. The serial is only clear in one photo as DJ331. The book also has colour artwork showing another airframe as EG317 at Hamble in 1952. The book only refers to “a number” of conversions.
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February 10, 2011 at 4:30 pm