Garden Use of Aircraft relics

[QUOTE=N.Wotherspoon;1241321]Recall this site & visiting it with members of the Pennine Aviation Museum – the farmer was very friendly & pleased some blades would be going to be preserved & by prior arrangement we had turned up with a trailer full of brand new fence posts. This was all he wanted in exchange + we removed the blades and fitted the new posts of course 😀

I later heard that as word got around “enthusiasts” were turning up after dark & just helping themselves, leaving gaps in his fence and potentially allowing livestock to escape 😮 A new fence post and half an hours work was all it would have taken to keep the farmer happy, yet for some even this was too much effort!:mad:

Mine was legally aquired and is still pride of place in my lounge after 30 + years in my ownership.Does anyone know what they would have fitted ?

If anyone comes across a Gloster Meteor F8 nose cone, please let me know. Can’t find one anywhere to fit my cockpit section yet there were literally hundreds of this type of aircraft scrapped in the 50’s/60’s.

Anon.

We might be able to help you out here as we do seem to have a rather large collection of Meteor parts and I know we have at leas one F8 nose cone.

Mark Jones
Meteor Flight Managment and Founding member

I found “my” tyre when I was about 14 and cycling around the peri-track of an old WWII airfield in Gloucestershire. I was so excited at having found an actual aircraft tyre I bungeed it to my pannier and made off with my haul.

Had the thing in my wardrobe for the next 18 odd years and even lugged it with me when I moved abroad. Was really deflated when Duxford told me it was from a Harrier and my “WWII aircraft tyre from a WWII airfield” wasn’t. I threw it out about a week later. 🙁

Can’t remember who I spoke to as if was a few years back. I called the general number and asked if I could speak to someone from the engineering team and got put through. Apparently they looked up the numbers on the tyre in “The Boy’s Own Bumper Book of Aircraft Part Numbers” which gave it the Harrier outrigger ID.

Ritch & Max were looking for a hub assembly as they already had some Harrier outrigger tyres. So I guess they could confirm it one way or another.

See http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=74300

John

I don’t think it’s big enough for a Harrier main or nose wheel (though where I think it came from there were a load of tyres with the twin-rib tread. Now all gone, sadly). In the original post there’s a boot in one pic for scale – it’s only about twelve to fourteen inches across.

If it is light aircraft, it’s presumably something “official” as it has a broad arrow on it. Anyone any ideas from the numbers?

Adrian

Now there’s an idea! I don’t think this is Harrier as it has a smooth tread (oxymoron, I know) and I’d expect the outrigger tyre to have a twin-rib anti-shimmy tread. But DX will know. Who did you contact there?

Adrian

Two tyres in use on a neighbouring allotment to weigh down black plastic sheeting. No idea as to provenance – ideas as to what they might have been on much appreciated!

Spooky. I found the exact same type of tyre once and puzzled for ages what it was. I eventually contacted Duxford and they asked if I could send some pictures and the codes. They told me it was the outrigger tyre off a Harrier.

Saw a load of Rotol wooden prop blades in use as fence posts south of Mcr airport/Knutsford area a few years back. Still there I suppose. Apparently ex-Woodford.
I have seen many an aircraft wheel in use on farm trailers too. Anon.

Recall this site & visiting it with members of the Pennine Aviation Museum – the farmer was very friendly & pleased some blades would be going to be preserved & by prior arrangement we had turned up with a trailer full of brand new fence posts. This was all he wanted in exchange + we removed the blades and fitted the new posts of course 😀

I later heard that as word got around “enthusiasts” were turning up after dark & just helping themselves, leaving gaps in his fence and potentially allowing livestock to escape 😮 A new fence post and half an hours work was all it would have taken to keep the farmer happy, yet for some even this was too much effort!:mad:

As for the trailers, I recall being told that a firm in the Southport area had bought up a load of ex USAAF wheels & tyres sometime after WWII from Burtonwood & for many years after fitted them to trailers they built – they were apparently ideal for the soft ground in the area – If you look carefully you still see the odd one, though as replacement tyres are now hard to find and I should think bearings and alloy wheels are long past their best, their days are probably numbered.

Saw a load of Rotol wooden prop blades in use as fence posts south of Mcr airport/Knutsford area a few years back. Still there I suppose. Apparently ex-Woodford.
I have seen many an aircraft wheel in use on farm trailers too.
If anyone comes across a Gloster Meteor F8 nose cone, please let me know. Can’t find one anywhere to fit my cockpit section yet there were literally hundreds of this type of aircraft scrapped in the 50’s/60’s.

Anon.

This prop came from a farmer in Cheshire.My late Father came home with it after asking the farmer if he could give one of the props to me as i was aircraft mad !

If anyone comes across a Gloster Meteor F8 nose cone, please let me know. Can’t find one anywhere to fit my cockpit section yet there were literally hundreds of this type of aircraft scrapped in the 50’s/60’s.

Anon.

There is one that came from Chivenor in a Barnstaple garden. And before you ask, the owner will not part with it, but i do check up on it from time to time. 😉

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Garden Wrelics

Saw a load of Rotol wooden prop blades in use as fence posts south of Mcr airport/Knutsford area a few years back. Still there I suppose. Apparently ex-Woodford.
I have seen many an aircraft wheel in use on farm trailers too.
If anyone comes across a Gloster Meteor F8 nose cone, please let me know. Can’t find one anywhere to fit my cockpit section yet there were literally hundreds of this type of aircraft scrapped in the 50’s/60’s.

Anon.

Pagen01 thanks for the info. Not certain how long the Spit has been there, I must have first seen it sometime last year. I suppose you could call it a ‘back-gate’ guardian 🙂

I spotted this the other day near Kidderminster,i must of been past this 100s of times but after a lorry went though the hedge ,hence new fence,you can now see it from the road,

I think it could be from a Vickers Valiant,…there cant be too many about !

Back in the 1970’s I found a Valiant radome in bushes on the South Downs at Westmeston. It was a bit crunched and had evidently fallen there. I am sure I read somewhere of a Valiant that lost its radome over SE England but cannot recall the details. Often wondered if my find was that very one! No idea otherwise how it came to be there.

Interested to know more about Barry Wallond’s Spitfire at St Mawgan. I have often seen it from a Dash 7 window on finals to the west. What is the history?

I spotted this the other day near Kidderminster,i must of been past this 100s of times but after a lorry went though the hedge ,hence new fence,you can now see it from the road,

I think it could be from a Vickers Valiant,…there cant be too many about !

As far as I recall two Hamilar sections were recovered from a farm near Lyneham. One has been restored complete with a mocked up centre section and is on display at Middle Wallop the other Hamilcar remains unrestored in the tank museum at Bovington (with a Tetrach tank in it).

Just a few cases off the top of my head…

The section of Wellington fuselage on display at Brooklands was recovered from a garden where it had been covered in polythene and used as a greenhouse.

57Rescue recovered a number of Halifax bomb-doors from a convent where they were being used to line the flower beds!

Oh and not forgetting the Horsa fuselage that was the basis of on old lady’s bungalow at the bottom of her family’s garden. It was dismantled and the Horsa bits saved just a few years ago (within the last five years?)

Going back a bit further, didn’t a major museum (YAM?) recover a Hamilcar fuselage that had been in use as a garage? This would’ve been 20ish years ago now. What’s become of it since?

I don’t know who recovered the Hamilcar, but South Yorks Aircraft Museum (Aeroventure) recovered a Horsa section (complete with cargo door) from a garden in Doncaster in the early 1980’s. It had been used as a shed & prior to that as a caravan, was covered in galvanised sheets which had protected the fabric.

We exchanged this with Middle Wallop for an Auster V fuselage (RT520) which we still have.

attn. Kiteflyer

For some years we knew of a Lancaster wing tip in a garden at Hollesley in Suffolk, but the owner wasn’t keen to part with it. As boys he and his brother had dragged it home from the crash, a few yards a day over the course of a school holiday. Ever since it had stood in the garden as a rather large ornament. However just before he moved house we got a call to come and get it if we were still interested.

It has a few pock marks from air rifle fire but didn’t suffer too greatly otherwise.

It’s from ND453 of 635 Sqn, crash landed on 6th October 1944 near Bussocks House, Hollesley.

Jeff

Hello Jeff

I have sent you a private message.

The guy is artist Barry Wallond, who also has a Canberra cockpit (WD954) and other items at his residence just outside St.Mawgen.

More HERE

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Any idea of the history of WD954. We had some of the WD95 series on 617 Squadron at RAF Binbrook in the early fifties, I may have worked on it

Ken

Good stuff Jeff