Cotswolds Aircraft Restoration Group (CARG) Innsworth

CARG disbanded some years ago when the RAF left Innsworth, and the Army took over. The Halifax section went to RAF Stafford where it is probably still languishing in deep storage. Three of the original  CARG members are now with The Jet Age Museum, Staverton (with a possible fourth shortly to join us)… and the surviving members of CARG still meet on a monthly basis in The Aviator pub on Staverton Airport.

I have just been rereading my copy of Lost Aviation Collections of  Great Britain and came across mention of CARG finding this in a “local scrapyard”.

In fact members of the Kinloss Aviation Society retrieved this relic (identifiable by the serial no stamped on the middle of the control column), from a scrapyard near Kinloss in mid April 1977. This was during my first weekend in RAF service at Kinloss and unfortunately my slides of this and a Buccaneer, Harvard frame, oleo legs, Neptune turrets, an Avon engine and a Jumo004 that had crashed under power and were also in the same scrapyard are missing from my fully indexed slide folders. The scrap yard (DS Metals or GW Williamsons?) was being cleared for a supermarket (Sainsburys IIRC). According to ASN, R9371 ran off a wet runway and hit a hangar at RAF Lossiemouth on 9 March 1942.

Together with the much more substantial remains of 19 OTU Whitley N1498 collected earlier from the crash site (rear fuselage and outer wings) the Halifax cockpit portion followed me to Brize Norton in February 1981 courtesy of the JATE Hercules. It joined the SR53 that we were restoring for Cosford at the time (rolled out 30 November 1981 and delivered the following March. Subsequently, with the RAF Museum apparently not interested, the Whitley went to the Midland Air Museum and the Halifax section and Whitley rear turret went to Tony Southern of CARG at Innsworth.

HTH

Dave R

How did the cockpit section survive?

Does anyone know it’s history, how it was saved (or forgotten to scrap it) etc.?
AFAIK this aircraft also took part in one of the Tirpitz raids.

Cheers

Cees

re

It would make a great hands on exhibit, in the right setting. Elvington?

Blimey! That seat looks to be in great condtion.
In front of the seat is the undercarriage and
bombdoor console. On the left and beneath
(brownish colour here) of it is a
strangely shaped item which I have seen on
several photo’s but so far have been unable
to identify, could it be a glycol reservoir for
the glycol pump that is normally fitted close
by?

Anyone?

Hendon has W1048 on display which already has a
seat, what’s the use of this item in storage while
perhaps another museum could provide a good home
for it (not me, I have a seat:)).
Cheers

Cees

As requested heres the other side………..

Taken from Demobbed
Ok so it’s R9371, never knew it still had it’s seat.

I am very interested in the pics showing the other side.

Cheers

Cees

Of course anyone is interested!

Cees

Halifax ‘cockpit’ R9371

There’s a recent pic (Feb 2009) of the CARG cockpit, presently stored with the RAFM store at Stafford on ‘Demobbed’

I have a pic from the other side showing the internals of this relic, have to post it up tonight when back at home, if anyone is interested.

Yes me likewise.. several years ago a chap from the CARG informed me that they had a pair of Wyvern undercarriage legs, but i never heard anymore nor managed to get a response to my queries about them.:confused: