G-ATWZ M.S Rallye Commodore 150 fate?

Although not related to this Rallye I do have a story about one I flew in in Germany while I was working in Frankfurt. One of the chaps in the office ,hearing that I had a PPL, decided “Tonight ve go to Worms!”. So off we trot in his very smart Rallye and sure enough Worms appeared on the nose. I thought Hans was lining up for a circuit, as we were at about 1000 feet, but not a bit of it. About 500 meters out he announced “Now ve land” and he just stuffed the nose down. The slats were banging in and out and I’m sure his father must have been a Stuka pilot but we arrived. It was more in the controlled crash category than a landing but we walked away and the aircraft was reusable. Tough old birds but a shame about the corrosion.

Wessex, have you tried ebay for the Pilot magazine, there are quite a number on there, what year was it?……….Martin

Aah yes, I remember, the CURVED landing strip! 😮

The fields look much more inviting. 🙂

No!

As stated above, its the Railway bed ( 😮 ) Look near the pile of rubbish at the western end, there is a square of tarmac, and 11 is painted on, ie this is the end of the runway.

The sheds to the east must be a recent development , if a twin operated from this nightmare micro-strip !

Thanks Martin, so would that be the field to the south or bottom of the picture?

Westbury sub Mendip

Just to keep the Rallye and G-AWAW link going. I flew in G-BECC a Rallye 150ST with Janette Schönburg in the first leg of her epic journey to Australia. She took off from Denham to Lydd, overflying LHR and was sponsered by a certain red top paper, so we were looking forward to lots of pictures etc.
On the journey home we heard the news which was filled with reports of the Iranian Embassy siege, needless to say we were a few paragraphs on Page 20 and didn’t make Page 3!

Quite a tale!

”As everybody “knows”, the Cessna 150 is slow, has limited range and payload, and while it is fine to learn in and fly around the pattern, you can’t really go anywhere in one . . . Well nobody told that to Janette Schönburg because in 1980, she flew THIS 1966 Cessna 150, UK registration G-AWAW from London England to Darwin, Australia, solo.

Her trip was amazing and it could not be duplicated today. Janette and G-AWAW had to contend with sandstorms, torrential rains, political problems (at one point she was almost arrested because the authorities would not believe a woman could possibly be the pilot), physical problems (extreme dehydration), running on three cylinders and barely able to hold altitude over the shark-filled Andaman sea and more. The 11,000 mile trip was utterly hair raising but she did it!”

Now being restored in Florida

http://g-awaw.org/

G-atwz

Unfortunatly we moved house and i havent a clue where any photos are,thats why i,d like a copy of that pilot mag,did you check out g-awaw?

Do you have a photo you could upload on to here, shame it got w/o after all the work you put into her…….Martin

G-atwz

we bought the aircraft from a group at bodmin in about 86 it had been through many groups being “restored”not being flown for years. we got it back to westbury with a permit for a positioning flight to a engineering facility.i spent all my spare time preparing it (under the eye of a local caa engineer) for its c of a.i resprayed it and flew it to the jersey air rally the following year.I really enjoyed the aircraft,we did a major wing spar repair to it due to the usual rallye corrosion,its a shame it was written off,but hey ho these things happen.we then flew the cessna 150 g-awaw for about two years before i left westbury to set up franklns field.(check out g-awaw a very famous aircraft) incidently g -awtz appeared on the cover of pilot mag at the 50th anniversary jersey airport that year (i,d love a copy if anyone has one as i have very few pictures of the rallye in its final colour scheme)

Thanks for the information Wessex, i flew in Whisky Zulu a lot, many times from the right hand seat. The aircraft was based at Elstree and owned by a friend of my fathers, his name was Gerry Allen. My father got hooked and ended up getting his PPL, then borrowing the Rallye on many occaisions, one memorable trip was to Southend and back through a thunder storm. I turned round to check my mum and brother were ok in the back to find them sitting with a newspaper over their heads as the canopy was leaking and the water was running back and dripping on them! It was originally a mustard colour with white and black i think but after several years of ownership Gerry got it resprayed in the colours seen in this picture, the finish was not what you would call proffesional………
The picture was taken i think at Husbands Bosworth………..Martin

G-atwz…..westbury-sub-mendip

I owned g-atwz when it had its accident at westbury,it was an unfortunate accident,yes the strip was tight but,we flew various types from there including a t tailed seneca twin safely,it was all about flying accuratly.the chap that crashed it was just unlucky on that day,it could have happened to any one.i then moved on from there in1990 and set up franklyns field,ive often thought about writing a book on how selfish some pilots can be visiting a private strip without prior permission and causing all sorts of planning violations for the operators

That strip(accident) in Somerset sounds like a nightmare, on a length of old railway track.

This PPRuNe flyrer was not impressed.

”I found Westbury VERY dodgy on approach, it’s in a CURVED filled in railway cutting and covered in road scalpings (ripped up tarmac) that put countless dings in the rear of my prop and chipped the LH wing leading edge.

The runway also dips and slopes. Dangerous I’d say -never went in again………except to return my passenger from where he had started!”

It can still be seen on Google earth about 1/2 mile west of the village centre, with the runway numbers 11 still visible on the
railway route.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explorer#view=photo&position=1633&with_photo_id=25518602&order=date_desc&user=505643

Chalk & Cheese.

Aaah – the ‘Flying Venetian Blind’. An ideal glider-tug, but so sloooooooww. So many seem to end-up being abandoned to algie & moss. Hard to believe that they Aerospatialle followed the Rallye with the likes of the TB20….an different animal – fast, and very nice to fly too…:)

Many thanks for that………..Martin

It crashed on take-off and was written off in October 4th ’87. Fortunately there were no injuries.

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/MA%20892A-150%20Rallye%20Commodore,%20G-ATWZ%2001-88.pdf