Comper CLA7 Swift

Sorry if I seem to be hogging this thread at the moment!

It appears that not two but four Swifts went to Argentina – more particularly to C.H.A.Taylor of Aerofotos, Buenos Aires. The four were the following:

S.30/2 G-AAZA/R222/LV-FBA
S.30/6 R232/LV-YEA
S.31/9 ?
S.32/6 ?

Apparently it was S.30/2 which made the 18000 ft. crossing of the Andes. Can anyone identify the registrations carried by S.31/9 and S.32/6 and give anything of the history and/or fate of the quartet?

My father, Vicente Bonvissuto was the last owner of a Comper Swift S.32/6 in Argentina. He had an accident with the plane in 1950 and the plane was destroyed in the crash. It was the LV-FCE. My mother has yet parts of the plane, but my father didn’t want to restore it never. My mother gave the motor to a friend of my father after his dead, but he has it yet. The entire plane (wood and another parts flammables), were destroyed by fire. My father wanted to be the first parachutist to jump in the antartic continent with that plane in 1950 (he was a recordman ii that year), but with the crash, he couldn’t do that. His life, you can read it in his autobiographic book “Cuando el ejército me enseñó a volar” (“When the army taught me to fly”). There, you can find photos of his plane too.
Another Comper Swift, was LV-YEA and had an accident in 1952, too. I don’t know his actual location. I know that it was named as S.32/6 too, but I don’t know if it is real.
If you can investigate this, please, reply me.
Excuse my english, but I don’t write better.
EB

Thank you, edubonvi. It’s pieces of information such as yours that make fora such as this worth the time that many of us spend on them. You’d never find that sort of information on the net or in books (says he, waiting to stand corrected). If you can tell us more about LV-FCE when it was owned and operated by your father – as well as more about LV-YEA – those like me, with a passion for obscure british aeroplanes (well, yes, I accept that obscure is hardly an appropriate description for the Swift), will be exceptionally grateful. Better still if you have and can post photos of LV-FCE when operated by your father or the remains of it held by your mother or the engine (was this a Pobjoy Swift?) which is held by your father’s friend, then I think that you’ll find there is a great deal of interest in them.

edubonvi………Welcome to the Forum,

Please do not apologise for your English, I am sure we all understand you very well.

Very interested to hear about your fathers exploits with a Comper Swift in Argentina.

Planemike

Thank you edubonvi. Welcome to the forum.

I will also be interested to hear any more information on the Comper Swifts in your country.

Roger Smith.

PS. If we could speak/write your language as well as you write English the World would be a better place. 🙂

Is their any news of the new built Comper Swifts? I saw one being built near Leighton Buzzard a few years ago. It looked very nice.

Dave

Hmmmmm…..Something does not seem to quite add up here. Just been looking through AB Archive Autumn 2004.

For S32/6. the following info is given:-
CofA 3536 issued 28.6.32 to Aerofotos Ltd Argentina Delivered to Charles Bell after Andes flight of R222. Registered R232 to Gustavo Einar Roth. Based Buenos Aires (5.33). Registered LV-YEA (9.38) to same owner. Regd LV-FCE 11.7.50 to Sociedad IPT. Destroyed 29.9.50.

AJJ BCA 1919 -1972 quotes S.30/6 as R232/LV-YEA

To me it does not look very likely there was a second accident in 1952. If there was which a/c was involved?

Archive shows a photo of Charles Bell with R 222 & R 232. There is also a photo of LV-FBA previously R222.

Any more information anyone ????

Planemike

Three replica Swifts have been registered in the UK. One has flown, but appears not to have flown many hours, 37 hrs by 2008. Sadly it does not attend many fly-ins…pity, I have yet to see it. The other two, including the one you mention Dave, have yet to fly. I know of one other underway but it is at an early stage apparently……

Planemike

Three replica Swifts have been registered in the UK. One has flown, but appears not to have flown many hours, 37 hrs by 2008. Sadly it does not attend many fly-ins…pity, I have yet to see it. The other two, including the one you mention Dave, have yet to fly. I know of one other underway but it is at an early stage apparently……

Planemike

I’ve placed myself at the bottom of the class but I was unaware of any replica Swifts being built in the UK, let alone one having flown. Can you please enlighten me, Planemike, as to their identity and the engines they use.

edbonvi…………

What an interesting story. If you have any photos would it be possible to share them? Seems little doubt your fathers a/c was indeed S32/6.
If there were another two Swifts exported to Argentina it is would be most likely they went there in the 30s.

I am trying to obtain a copy of the full production list that appeared in Archive to if it contains any more information agains the other c/ns.

AA………

Blue Max has “spilt the beans” on the three replica Swifts that have been registered in the UK. G-LCGL has a Pobjoy Niagra engine.

Planemike

Hmmmmm…..Something does seem to quite add up here. Just been looking through AB Archive Autumn 2004.

For S32/6. the following info is given:-
CofA 3536 issued 28.6.32 to Aerofotos Ltd Argentina Delivered to Charles Bell after Andes flight of R222. Registered R232 to Gustavo Einar Roth. Based Buenos Aires (5.33). Registered LV-YEA (9.38) to same owner. Regd LV-FCE 11.7.50 to Sociedad IPT. Destroyed 29.9.50.

AJJ BCA 1919 -1972 quotes S.30/6 as R232/LV-YEA

To me it does not look very likely there was a second accident in 1952. If there was which a/c was involved?

Archive shows a photo of Charles Bell with R 222 & R 232. There is also a photo of LV-FBA previously R222.

Any more information anyone ????

Planemike

I talked with my mother about the Comper Swift.
She said to me the following things (and excuse my english, please. I will try to said all as clear as possible):
My father saw the Comper Swift in “El Palomar”, Buenos Aires at 20 of march 1947. He loved the plane at moment.
It was a Comper Swift Serie 32/6 LV-YEA with an engine Pobjoy. I remember that the LV_YEA wasn’t what I saw in the photos that my father had.
My mother said that LV-YEA was change to LV-FCE in 1950.
The owner before was Javier Molina. He sold the plane to my father, but saying the plane had time without flying.
My father investigate in that moment and there was 2 planes that came to Argentina. He wrote that one of them, came to Argentina 23 of march 1932.
This one came from Chile flyed by Cirilo H. Taylor, but it isn’t the plane of my father.
The 2 of June 1950, my father paid $4000 (of argentina). He was then, the new owner.
He bought a magnetic needle O.M.I. type B.1.2. Number 65103 and another instrument Filotecnica Number 02236 that indicates if the plane goes to left or right (“Indicador de virajes”, in spanish), to Javier Molina too.
The 1 of August of 1950, my father received the history and Certificate of Matriculation of the plane. The papers were signed by Brigadier Francisco José Velez (General Director of Civil Aeronautic).
The plane, had till that moment only 185 hours flying.
In that moment, the plane was re-called LV-FCE.
Several people worked on the plane:
Juan Gimenez, Esteban Manuel de Pascuali, Oscar Felix Sanchez, Cesar “Tito” Galimberti and of course, Vicente Bonvissuto, my father.
They prepaired the plane to fly for the last time, because he wanted to jump with parachute (The first in the antartic continent history). Think it was 1950.
They made an extra gasoline reservoir, like a seat for the pilot (I remember I saw it when I was very young).
The 27 of september 1950, the Comper was taken to the San Justo Aerodrome (most of people know it like “Aero Club Argentino” too) by road from his home, where he repaired the Comper Swift.
The inspection date was 29 of September 1950.
Mario Gemello, was the inspector that verified the general state and how worked all the plane. He said that it was necessary to complete the examination of the plane, he needed see it flying.
My father take off landing and flied the plane without problem at first time, but in the middle of the flight, around the aerodrome, one cilinder of the engine exploded, and my father put inmediately the noise down to fly without engine.
He didn’t found an apropiante place to take off landing, but a place between several houses and crash landing.
The undercarriage (both wheels) was broken, and the support of the engine too.
The floor of the plane dissapear in the crash and the legs of my father were out of the plane.
He never walk well again and almost he lost the right leg.
The first thing that my father had after the crash was knowing what happened with the engine. What happened in flight.
When he returned home and saw the plane, he investigated all the plane and put the engine on the floor.
He tried to move the propeller and it didn’t move.
He thought that something happened in the engine properly and seeing more carefully, he saw the fifth cilinder exploided, and not seeing it because of the place of the oil pump.
The hole has the tall of all the cilinder and has almost 3 inches by side. It never was open to see what happened. I could (with my little hand, when I was young, said to my father that the piston wasn’t but the pin (or bolt) and the connecting rod was there.
There wasn’t parts of metal or parts that we could see, and my father supposed that the parts were atomized.
My father several times told me that “The engine has a soul, and “he” made it to prevent worst things and to do things that I am in debt with my life”.
He solicited the down or out of service in 1951, and took several things to conserve.
Without place at home, my father was burning a lot of the plane, with a lot of pity and crying at that moment. This things makes my father hard with my development like man, I supose.
His love about planes is the only thing that made him go on living.
Some parts, my mother said are at home.
The oil manometer and a gasoline faucet or **** are in an electric compressor built by him.
Parts of the wings (like a triangle or strut), is yet a part of a gate in front of my mother’s home, that I’m trying to repair each summer when I saw her at holidays.
At last (and excuse my long mail), Agustín Marini, a ciclyst friend of my father, said in the moment when my father expressed his idea of jump in antartic, that LV-FCE, was only “Loco Vicente – Ferro Carril del Estado” (something like “The Mad Vicente that lives near the State Railway”, because of the distance to the railway where he lived and the purpose of the last fly of the plane). He bought a plane only to that purpose.
This is the real story of this plane. You must correct anything wrong in your register about this plane.
The other Comper Swift is in Aeroparque Museum of Aeronautic History (LV-FBA). Both planes are the only Comper Swift till 1950. But I don’t know if another Comper Swift was sold after this date in Agentina from another country.

Again, excuse my worst and horrible english. In spanish I write better, I suppose.

Regards

EB

Three “New” swifts currently registered.

G-LCGL built by John Greenland a few years ago but not flown that much, has a current permit.

Others currently regitered include G-OBUU and G-ECTF. ECTF will be the one you saw at Leighton Buzzard. These were both started in 2007 so may be a way off yet. I do know of another that is not registered yet!

I have a full set of drawings and intend to build one some day;) althought i would much rather rebuild an original. My father used to fly G-ABUS many years ago.

edbonvi…………

What an interesting story. If you have any photos would it be possible to share them? Seems little doubt your fathers a/c was indeed S32/6.
If there were another two Swifts exported to Argentina it is would be most likely they went there in the 30s.

I am trying to obtain a copy of the full production list that appeared in Archive to if it contains any more information agains the other c/ns.

AA………

Blue Max has “spilt the beans” on the three replica Swifts that have been registered in the UK. G-LCGL has a Pobjoy Niagra engine.

Planemike

Planemike:
I don’t have any photo of the Comper flying. I said that my father crashed in the first flight. The only two photos of the plane (one in his home garage and the other destroyed), were published in the book “Cuando el ejercito me enseñó a volar”, and the original photos were lost in a moment between edition and now. Only my father knew what happened, and he is dead.
Both photos, I remembered them, were 2 inches X 2 inches aprox.
All I know about the Comper Swift’s in Argentina, I wrote before. I haven’t doubt about S.32/6 origin and destiny, accident date and register like LV-YEA and then LV-FCE. You can see all I say in the autobioghaphic book wrote by my father and published by edivern in 2003.
You can look for it in internet if you have a little doubt yet.

Sincerely

EB

I, for one, am most grateful for the trouble that you have taken, edubonvi, to write so much – and not in your mother tongue – about your father’s Swift and his fascinating adventures with it.

Planemike, do you know the provenance of the Pobjoy in G-LCGL and what powers the other two replica Swifts?

Thank you appreciating my effort with english.
I’m trying to give some light about the Comper Swift’s history in Argentina. I don’t want some else, but if anyone knows more about the accident my father had (photos, especialy), I would be gatefull for ever.
My father was in a hospitar 6 month because of this accidente and he couldn’t get a lot information (diary, magazines, etc.).
Ian Callier are trying to help me in this way, but I want to receive more if anybody has them.
When I go to my mother’s home I see part of the Swift in the gate. Next time, I will take a photograph to send to this forum, if anyone want it, and I ‘ll recopilate all the information she has at home.
It’s all I can do.

A pleasure to mail to you and the forum.
And thanks again for your effort to understand my poor english.
EB

I, for one, am most grateful for the trouble that you have taken, edubonvi, to write so much – and not in your mother tongue – about your father’s Swift and his fascinating adventures with it.

Planemike, do you know the provenance of the Pobjoy in G-LCGL and what powers the other two replica Swifts?

From memory the skeeter has a Gipsy Engine.

I could be wrong, but I think the Pobjoy in ‘CGL is ex-SARO Skeeter, converted back to ‘normal’. Don’t know about the others.

I know that I’m at the bottom of the class (see #102) but I can’t trace any reference, in my rather limited library, to a Pobjoy being installed in a Saro Skeeter or even in the Cierva W.14 from which it was derived. Furthermore as Pobjoy had effectively ceased to exist – as an engine manufacturer – shortly after the outbreak of the last war, by the time the earliest Skeeter saw the light of day, any Pobjoy engine installed in one must have been secondhand.

Alder tag,

VH-ACG has it,s origional Gipsy 3 up front so there is no conection to the Skeeter at all.

We also have VH-UVC in long term restoration with the possibility of 3 – 4 Pobjoy engines being restored and the core of another couple.

We will need them all for our Short Scion. VH-UTV.

Edubonvi – it would be fascinating to see photo(s) of your mother’s gate with the Swift part in it.

Roger Smith.

AA……………

Sorry I cannot help you with the provenance of the Pobjoy that powers G-LCGL. Just as a general comment, engines have a habit of surviving better than airframes: more valuable, take up less space, can be reused probably explains part of why they survive. Several hundred Pobjoy engines were built, as you know they were used to power a range of pre-war light aircraft and not so light ones: see below. Over the years several PFA ( whoops should that be LAA ) members acquired / found Pobjoy engines for just such replicas. Needless to say the expression….”hens teeth” comes to mind in the connection !!

Of course should anyone have four Pobjoys secreted away we could think about a Scion Senior replica or even a scale Stirling replica, yes one original was built………..!!!

I have no info on the projected power plants for G-ECTF or G-OBUU.

Planemike

Many thanks Scion, I’ve deleted my previous posts accordingly. If anyhone wants me I’ll be over in the corner with the dunce cap on…:D

Good luck with ‘UVC, it would be fantastic to see a Pobjoy and a Gipsy Swift up together.

Could you tell us more about the Scion project??