Heyford Parts Supposedly In A Lake Or Pond

From memory some of the Albermarle parts were recovered from the quarry at Aspatria by the RAF museum, these parts consisted of the remains of 2 steel tube forward fuselage sections, some wing & other parts, they were given to the now defunct Pennine aircraft…. Cheer’s.
Mark.

Yes the parts went to the now defunct Pennine Aviation Museum – they had been in store at Hendon and I believe due to the loss of storage space were in danger of being scrapped. The parts consisted of two lorry trailer loads of tubular steel remains- mainly wingspar and centre section – probably representing the remains of two aircraft. However the Albermarles had been burnt prior to being bulldozed into the quarry, so they were not in particularly good condition and the remains ended up being scrapped after several years storage in the open – which I have detailed previously.

Only the cockpit section frames were made up from stainless steel tubing and so were easily identified and two cockpit frames were partially reassembled – originally these frames would have been encased in a aluminium shell – none of which survived the burning. I believe Mr Stansfield still has them in storage, though now again disassembled and I believe he has been back to the quarry and recovered further smaller parts.

As well as aircraft parts (from burnt aircraft) there was a lot of other material dumped in the quarry, including vehicle remains, rubble and general refuse, making getting at the “gems” difficult as they were apparently in the bottom layer and removing the overburden of rubbish and rubble made recovery prohibitively expensive and extracting anything without doing this would be very dangerous / difficult. More recently I have also heard that industrial waste was also dumped in the quarry and the cost implications of uncovering and then having to dispose of this material properly under today’s rules and regulations also means that “official” recovery of further substantial remains is unlikely?

There were also large sections of wing structure on a crashsite as mentioned in one of the various books on UK high ground wrecks. Are these still there?

Cees

Matchbox Heyford

I have copies of the double page advert for the Matchbox 1/72 Heyford that appeared in numerous magazines such as Airfix Magazine in the late 70’s/80’s. It said something to the effect that “No Heyfords were in existence unless the one buried at the end of Cosford’s runway was counted”. I always wondered what the story behind that claim was?

Regards;
Steve

My Dad told me there’s what’s left of a Heyford buried at the end of the runway at Cosford – he read it in a mag some years ago but I have absolutely no idea when and which one and whether there’s any truth to it – can’t be a lot left if it is there I’d say.

Fact, or aviation fiction?

Fact. See my reply in this thread which links to other threads with photo’s…

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1646220

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Albermarle parts/Aspatria

From memory some of the Albermarle parts were recovered from the quarry at Aspatria by the RAF museum, these parts consisted of the remains of 2 steel tube forward fuselage sections, some wing & other parts, they were given to the now defunct Pennine aircraft museum.
I believe they are now with David Stansfield ?, who is/was trying to build up a cockpit section.
Not everything was recovered from the quarry due to the amount of large boulders & rocks that were on top of everything, Hurricane & Tigermoth etc frame parts were also found there, but not recovered.

Cheer’s.
Mark.

There was also a story in the 1990s of some Armstrong Whitorth Albermarle airframe pieces dumped in a quarry in Cumbria. Apparently they were difficult to reach because a pile of Tiger Moth airframes had been dumped on top of them!

Fact, or aviation fiction?

fact – wasn’t it at Aspatria – or something like that –

didn’t the RAFM recover parts – which were then passed on – isn’t there a cockpit section being assembled from these parts?

(edit) more reading here

http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk/ugly-duckling-that-never-really-took-off-1.764371?referrerPath=features/past-present

These rumours I always find fascinating. And usually they are not true but where’s smoke, there’s fire. The best thing would be to check any leads on them instead of talking about them over and over again.:cool:

Anyone on this forum who lives in the area?

Cheers
Cees

Add in an Albermarle or two!

There was also a story in the 1990s of some Armstrong Whitorth Albermarle airframe pieces dumped in a quarry in Cumbria. Apparently they were difficult to reach because a pile of Tiger Moth airframes had been dumped on top of them!

Fact, or aviation fiction?