Hanging around in Belgrade – March 1990

Thanks very much for wasting my evening (…right-clicking and saving all these beauties!!! :dev2: :p)

@Evzen Vsetecka: Thanks for posting your nice G-2 photos!

Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2 Part (3)

Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2 Part (2)

Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2 Part (1)

Thanks for the extra info Mike.

Woody

Thanks again

I think this is the one the ‘Veltro’ gets quite excited about. 🙂 Mark

Many thanks Dave and Mark for the i/d. 🙂

I have been researching the G.50 following your responses. Do you know if the survivor is a G.50bis or a G.50ter?

In addition, its successor, the G.55, looks quite beautiful. A quick trawl of the internet suggests that there are no G.55 survivors, save for a replica based on a G.59. Does anyone know of any G.55 survivors?

TIA

Woody

“JK448/W”

Perhaps before this thread slips into the archive, it should be noted that a restoration by the National Airline JAT, some twenty years plus ago, revealed what appeared to be the code ‘W’ under the paint. As there was a period photograph of ‘W’ as JK448, this was thought by the Yugoslavs to be the RAF serial at that time and it was applied, as can be seen in this photo at the museum during the assembly stage.

Mark

In the seventies, there was a Li-2 bound for the museum according to Bob Ogden. Does someone known what happened to her?

PS

I quick flick through the build schedules shows that MH592 appears to be one of the last dozen Mk V Spitfires built and this in my view accounts why it has the Alfred Davies Ltd data plate

Some may ask if all this is important. I just happen to think it is.

It is dark and lonely work and somebody has to do it. 🙂

Mark

And there are those who envy the work you do and really appreciate it 🙂

So is that the ‘newest’ production Mark V out there? Something ‘tough’ looking about a tropical Vc. Beautiful in an ugly sort of way 🙂

BTW, haven’t forgetten the T9 profile. The Johnson clan is finally coming out from under getting clobbered by one virus or another and between the kids, the Mrs. and I, we’re finally getting healthy again.

Dan

PS

I quick flick through the build schedules shows that MH592 appears to be one of the last dozen Mk V Spitfires built and this in my view accounts why it has the Alfred Davies Ltd data plate

Some may ask if all this is important. I just happen to think it is.

It is dark and lonely work and somebody has to do it. 🙂

Mark

To wind up this thread

The principal reason for this trip to Belgrade was to confirm the RAF serial and to understand why it now carried the RAF serial “JK808/B”.

The museum were happy to co-operate with removing engine cowlings etc to study data plates and what ever.

The first disappointment from an historical analysis was that the refurbishment had been very thorough, going deep into the structure. This was not a superficial external refinish.

All the cowling had been fully stripped both externally and internally and there was not the slightest evidence of any hand painted identities on the internal surface as is quite normal.

There was not the expected CBAF data plate in the cockpit. In fact the plate just read 17-545.

’17’ is code for the Castle Bromwich dispersal site of Alfred Davies Ltd at Leicester . This ’17’ code on Spitfire data plates is carried by several of the survivors, particularly the Czech/Israeli/Burmese Mk IXs with serials in the TE500 series. My interpretation of this is that as Castle Bromwich changed production to later marks the last of the IXs were displaced or finished in Leicester whilst the factory changed production and fixtures to the later 20 series aircraft. If I am correct, logically the change from Mk V to Mk IX would leave some sweeping up of the very last Mk Vs to be finished at Leicester.

I therefore think the Yugoslav Mk V is one of the very last Mk V’s built.

Enquiring why the museum now considered the aircraft to be “JK808”, they advised that had located the museum register of aircraft and components and the first item in the register and dated 24 July 1961 was Spitfire “9489”. The Yugoslav Airforce records show that 9489 was JK808/B – no problem.

Well there is a problem actually. In the early 1960s the Spitfire had been repainted and carried no serial, save for the code H as it was transferred from Kalemagdon Park, to Zemun and finally Surcin. During this period the tail flash transfered from being horizontal to vertical.

Although I can’t prove it I suspect that at the time the register was written the the aircraft carried no external Yugoslav serial at all. What I do know is that in April 1961 Ken Smy photographed both sides of this machine at Kalemagdon and it carried the Yugoslav serial 9486. 9486 equates to RAF serial MH592. A close examination of that serial shows it to have been applied with identical stencils as others in service and scrapped examples. Indeed it would seem that the boxing of the serial was due to a repaint at Kalemagdon or earlier where the serial was masked off, rather than go to the bother of stencil re-application. This was a common ‘in service’ practise.

The museum’s response to this is flat and unwavering. The register is correct, the aircraft must have been wrongly painted at Kalemagdon as at April 1961.

Not surprisingly I favour the theory that the register scribe inadvertently inverted one of his digits writing ‘9’ instead of ‘6’. The museum will not budge.

Subsequently I have noted a photograph of the last Yugoslav Spitfire to participate in an airshow in 1951 at Pancevo. Interestingly it is 9486.

Here it would have rested save for the recent publication of an excellent book by Tino Jelavic on 352 Squadron. My understanding is that Belgrade is the centre of Serbian culture. It was interesting to note that in the book there are several photographs of MH592/G in service, including shots of the serial MH592 boxed, as the camouflage was changed. MH592 was the personal aircraft of the unit commander Sqd/Ldr Soic, I believe a noted Croation War hero.

It has occurred to me that therein might lie the root of the problem.

For me the aircraft is MH592/G beyond reasonable doubt.

Mark

Photos:-

Current

Museum register

Both sides of 9486, boxed, at Kalemagden

For comparison the serial stencil and style 9476 in service

MH592, boxed, in service with 352 Squadron.

liked the photos.looks a very interesting museum.pity about the slight mishap with the USAF.
Glad to hear it’s still there though.

Fiat G.50….one of a kind.

Dave

I think this is the one the ‘Veltro’ gets quite excited about. 🙂

Mark

Fiat G.50….one of a kind.

Dave

Fw190. Just the one I think.
Mark

Many thanks, Mark, for these fascinating photos.

Like Merlin 70, I thought that there were at least two FW190s.

What is the aircraft with the three bladed radial engine behind the p38 cockpit shown in the first and second photo of #53? It does not appear to be the same machine as the FW 190 shown in the third and sixth photos of that post (and in the seventh and eighth photos in post #52)?

Woody

Nice Stuka windscreen frame as well

Cees

http://www.yumodel.co.yu/history_of_yugoslav_aviation/p38_ligthning.htm

Dave

P-38

What’s the story behind the P38 cockpit pod? Wartime vet that bellied in or something similar? Dan

Dan,

From the full typed listing that they gave me of everything they have, including the store, it reads:-

Lockheed P-38L-5LO Lighting (sic)

From one of Bob Ogden’s great directories it reads:-

Lockheed 422 Lightning (P-38L) 9751 422-6790 44-25786 – Incomplete

Who can tell us more from this?

Mark

What’s the story behind the P38 cockpit pod? Wartime vet that bellied in or something similar?

Dan