H Deterding and his Tiger Moth

I’d love to but i dont know which way he came in!!!!!!! The Sywell book is no longer available, but it does come up on Ebay now and again!
Gipsys wings fold in about 5 min flat for easy storage, the idea was that you kept it at home in your garage and towed it down to your local farmers field to go flying!

Oi Bod! help the chap out will ya!

TT

Having been Elstree based from 1975 until 2002 I can confirm that Richard Deterding was Henri Deterding’s son (I knew Richard fairly well) I know fully that Richard owned G-ARAW the Cessna 182 for a short while, but I wasnt aware that he had owned G-AHZT which was sold onto Robert King, Mike Lucas, Murray Silverman and Wally Green.
I know all the above named people and have flown with all of them at some point.
Richard sadly has passed away and no longer will we exchange memories, but the one thing I wasn’t ever sure of was how significant his dealings were in Sywell Airfield.
I do recall that Richard had this rather strange lady who was referred to as his wife called Rikki who always said if you land at Sywell “Tell them I said you don’t have to pay a landing fee as I own the bloody airfield” Never did I try this as I was never really sure about her?

Happy times though,
Peter
www.ferryair.com

Brief history of the Messenger G-AHZT follows:

c/n 6334 Miles M.38 Messenger Mk.2A ‘Messenger No.6’; appln for C of A and reg made by Miles Aircraft Ltd, Woodley 19.7.46; reg G-AHZT to Henry Deterding, Daventry (based Elstree) 19.7.46; first test flown (also first flight), as ‘6th’ Messenger, with ‘B’ mark U-9, by S/L S.E.Esler 15.10.46; C of A No.8127 issued to H.Deterding 19.2.47; del 12.4.47; C of A renewed 13.2.48, 2.3.49, 27.2.50, 22.3.51,
20.3.52 and 6.2.53; attended the Aero Club Rallye at Le Zoute between 15/17.6.57; canc 17.2.61 and re-reg to Richard Deterding, London (based at his strip in the Midlands) 3.3.61; Lloyd’s Register of Aircraft Accidents; London, 12.7.66 reported: Miles Messenger G-AHZT, owned by R.Deterding, was damaged at Redhill Aerodrome on 10.7.66; canc 10.7.67 and re-reg to R.Green, R.F.King, M.R.Lucas & M.J.Silverman t/a The Zeta Group, Stanmore/Edgware, Middx (based Elstree) 16.10.67; suffered a
minor accident at Rotterdam on 27.4.68 when it ran off the runway; canc 14.6.70 and re-reg to E.Pratt, Reigate (based Biggin Hill) 1.7.70; GAHZT’s last C of A expired on 24.7.70 and Mr. Pratt, an electrical engineer from Reigate, told me in 11.85 that: “at 40 years of age I had the urge to fly, so I bought a Messenger (G-AHZT) for £350 and made a few flights from Biggin Hill, where it was based. However, following a pretty substantial ground loop, I developed a yellow streak and sold it locally to get rid of it,
as I never wanted to see it again!”; it was reportedly still at Biggin Hill in 1975, but nothing further has ever seen of G-AHZT, either at Biggin Hill or anywhere else, and no subsequent owner was recorded; reg canc 9.9.81 as PWFU.

Any ideas on its fate would be most welcome!

Peter – The Miles Aircraft Collection

I have not found anything on Richard Deterding but Henry’s grand-daughter Zoe has a webpage with a link to her e-mail so she might be worth contacting http://homepage.ntlworld.com/trevor.barker/zoe/deterding/introduction.htm

I have a little more info on the Gipsy Moth G-AAWS. It was c/n 1239 and crashed at Nursling 31.3.36. No idea if it was still owned by Henry at that time or if anyone was hurt. As far as I can find out Nursling is a village just NW of Southampton.

HTH

Paul

Good stuff, thanks Peter.

I wonder who Richard Deterding was? Son, brother? I’d imagine the Messenger would have been kept in our hangar. As I said before, that’d be a great sight to see. I can imagine it now 🙂

Brief history of the Messenger G-AHZT follows:

c/n 6334 Miles M.38 Messenger Mk.2A ‘Messenger No.6’; appln for C of A and reg made by Miles Aircraft Ltd, Woodley 19.7.46; reg G-AHZT to Henry Deterding, Daventry (based Elstree) 19.7.46; first test flown (also first flight), as ‘6th’ Messenger, with ‘B’ mark U-9, by S/L S.E.Esler 15.10.46; C of A No.8127 issued to H.Deterding 19.2.47; del 12.4.47; C of A renewed 13.2.48, 2.3.49, 27.2.50, 22.3.51,
20.3.52 and 6.2.53; attended the Aero Club Rallye at Le Zoute between 15/17.6.57; canc 17.2.61 and re-reg to Richard Deterding, London (based at his strip in the Midlands) 3.3.61; Lloyd’s Register of Aircraft Accidents; London, 12.7.66 reported: Miles Messenger G-AHZT, owned by R.Deterding, was damaged at Redhill Aerodrome on 10.7.66; canc 10.7.67 and re-reg to R.Green, R.F.King, M.R.Lucas & M.J.Silverman t/a The Zeta Group, Stanmore/Edgware, Middx (based Elstree) 16.10.67; suffered a
minor accident at Rotterdam on 27.4.68 when it ran off the runway; canc 14.6.70 and re-reg to E.Pratt, Reigate (based Biggin Hill) 1.7.70; GAHZT’s last C of A expired on 24.7.70 and Mr. Pratt, an electrical engineer from Reigate, told me in 11.85 that: “at 40 years of age I had the urge to fly, so I bought a Messenger (G-AHZT) for £350 and made a few flights from Biggin Hill, where it was based. However, following a pretty substantial ground loop, I developed a yellow streak and sold it locally to get rid of it,
as I never wanted to see it again!”; it was reportedly still at Biggin Hill in 1975, but nothing further has ever seen of G-AHZT, either at Biggin Hill or anywhere else, and no subsequent owner was recorded; reg canc 9.9.81 as PWFU.

Any ideas on its fate would be most welcome!

Peter – The Miles Aircraft Collection

Yes the wings on Gypsy Moths do fold back, we had one at Sywell (G-ATBL ex Swiss) that I saw on several occasions folded away in the hangar.

I would love to meet with you sometime but it will not be for a while yet as I am living in Paris these days. Having said that there is a possibility that I might be getting my old job back at Heathrow after 20 years away so I’ll let you know.

Paul

Ta!

Jeremy seems to thinkk the first, smaller and narrower hangar was for the Gypsy. I seem to recall from Shuttleworth that the wings are de-riggable?

The later and larger hangar could have been for the Cessna.

I think you’ll have to come up to see me and the Hodges some time 🙂

After a little searching, I have “found” the Messenger…

Messenger 2A c/n 6334 G-AHZT
CofA issued to H. Deterding, Sywell 19 Feb, 1947 as G-AHZT. To the Zeta Flying Group, Elstree in October 1967.

Paul

Glad to be of help 🙂

I suspect that he kept the Gypsy Moth for a number of years, maybe up to the start of the war, but cannot immediately put my finger on anything in the book to confirm it.

I have never seen anything fly at Newnham but certainly saw the Messenger at Sywell at weekends when the Deterdings often used to fly over for lunch.

Could it be that the original hangar was replaced at some stage, and why did they need two? :confused:

The book was published in 1978 (when I bought my copy) by Sywell Aerodrome Ltd so they might still have one on a shelf somewhere. Maybe TexanTomcat might have one at the Museum?

Paul

Waaa! Useful stuff, cheers! 🙂

The Tiger was only a guess. The owner of the strip was shown some photos by family members so only guessed at it’s type. I wonder if the GM was a long-term affair? Would have been great to see the Messenger in an dout of Newnham. Speaking of which, I didn’t realise the hangar was that old.

Where can I get the book from? Sywell?

Neil

Hi Neil,

As someone that was often hanging around at Sywell in the 60s and 70s and who had family at Daventry I can fill in some information on Henry Deterding but cannot answer your main question!

Henry first became associated with Sywell around 1930 when both he and his wife learned to fly there. He bought Gypsy Moth G-AAWS in June 1930, initially based at Sywell until they built their own hangar at the farm strip at Newnham. At the end of 1931 Henry took over the running of the social club at Sywell. In WWII he served as a Lieutenant in the Fleet Air Arm flying a Swordfish from HMS Furious during the invasion of Norway in 1940. In 1945 he was as a Director of Sywell Aerodrome Ltd becoming Vice-Chairmain in 1952 and Chairman in 1960 until he resigned at the end of 1961.

As to later aircraft owned by Henry, I know that he had a Miles Messenger, blue and cream from memory, but I have forget the registration, and moved on to a Cessna later, G-ARAW sounds familiar though my source for a lot of this talks of a 172 not a 182…

And finally to give due credit, this information is mainly extracted from “Sywell: The story of an English Aerodrome 1928-1978” written by Christopher Paul.

HTH,
Paul