My Father in Law served in Malta and Iraq during his National Service. I have been scanning a few of his pictures.
Iraq
Lebanese Siai Marchetti not sure which model with a couple of Iraq Furies and a Vampire T11?
Meteor Mk8 followed by a line up of Lebanese Vampires T11 and two seaters.
The Valiant was pictured in Iraq during its mission to drop a test H bomb on Bikini Atoll.
Malta
Group shots on Meteor and Vampire.
He has a lot more which I will be scanning in the next few weeks. Will post them if people are interested. More of the Furies to come as previosly promised.
By: Andy in Beds - 13th August 2004 at 12:07
Excellent Stuff…
Tim
Excellent Stuff.
Keep them coming please.
Andy 🙂 🙂 🙂
By: merlin70 - 13th August 2004 at 11:57
Flood and Mike
Indebted.
tc
By: Flood - 13th August 2004 at 11:56
APC = Armament Practice Camp
PAI = ? Practice or Permanent Armament Instructors?
Flood
By: merlin70 - 13th August 2004 at 11:52
Target flown for ten weeks for Egyptian AF to practice Air gunnery. Did not receive a single hit in all that time. Tug pilot had to go and find attackers as invariably they couldn’t find target. :rolleyes:
Some photos of area outside RAF Habbaniya and inside Bagdad, to give a flavour of the location in 1956.
Bridge crossing River Tigris in Bagdad
Euphrates River as seen from 9000ft
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Local Taxi – a Plymouth
By: merlin70 - 13th August 2004 at 11:40
A few more pics have been found but unfortunately only a handful of aircraft. Will share more if and when available.
Do any of our Historiographers know what APC and PAI stand for. APC was something to do with target training. PAI was to do with the instructors.
Note the bat hanging from the APC sign.
G-ANBE, first visit by Brittania to Iraq
By: planejunky - 5th August 2004 at 10:13
Great pictures Tim, thanks again for sharing. Now about those Fury shots you mentioned? 😀
Keep’em coming!
By: Andy in Beds - 4th August 2004 at 23:52
Pictures…
Wonderful Stuff Tim.
Thanks 🙂 🙂
By: merlin70 - 4th August 2004 at 23:35
A few more as requested. Hope that keeps you going until the colour slides arrive.
Mixture of Iraq and Malta, all 1956.
By: merlin70 - 4th August 2004 at 20:59
I have a few more black and white prints I will scan and post later this evening. I will be seeing my Father in Law on Sunday and hope to have some more pics to share Monday evening.
regards
tc
By: Andy in Beds - 4th August 2004 at 20:45
Next Batch…
Tim
when are we going to get some more???
All the best
Andy 🙂
By: willy.henderick - 4th August 2004 at 14:37
Wonderful pics.Just waiting for the next shipment
By: Arabella-Cox - 3rd August 2004 at 13:16
Jaw-dropping stuff! Keep ’em coming Tim… 🙂
By: Dave Homewood - 3rd August 2004 at 07:16
Excelent photos, thanks Merlin.
Yes, the Sea Fury that used to be in New Zealand was also Iraqi.
By: Steve T - 3rd August 2004 at 03:03
Hi all–
Terrific pix, especially the S.M.79, which would already have been quite the rare bird at that time. (I wondered about the apparent backward Ls; figured they were some sort of Arabic character…!)
You’re right, a LARGE proportion of the surviving Fury/Sea Fury population is ex-Iraqi AF, from the famous Jurist/Tallichet mass recovery in the 70s. And usually any attempt to pin down the ID of any of those Furies is an exercise in banging one’s noggin against a wall; some were denavalised FB.11s, some were new-build “Baghdad Furies”, and probably none of the current survivors has all the same components it left the Hawker line with. Even the serials and construction numbers are a real stew. I’ve seen copies of some of the Jurist recovery paperwork, for instance, that indicates fairly clearly that those five-digit 3**** numbers were related to ENGINES rather than airframes; then there are the Hawker “41H/” c/ns, the Iraqi batch numbers (ISS**), the Iraqi AF serials, and (for the ex-FAA Furies) the British serials…which may or may not be reliable. (For instance, the late lamented FB.11 N56SF which crashed three years ago here in Ontario was reported to be ex-FAA TF987; but I have no idea how that ID was arrived at, the only serial I’ve seen linked with that airframe being one of the 3**** engine numbers.) But ultimately, Iraq yielded two dozen restorable Furies…and that is more than good enough for me!
Steve (slightly Fury-obsessed) T
By: Mark12 - 3rd August 2004 at 02:51
Merlin70,
Stunning material.
Mark
By: Flood - 3rd August 2004 at 01:22
About half the survivors of that design came out of Iraq… And so (controversially?) most of them cannot, truthfully, be classed as Sea Furys since most of them were new-build for Iraq.
Its a bit like all those Seafires masquerading as Spitfires.
Erm…
Flood.â„¢
By: Swift - 3rd August 2004 at 01:17
Cracking piccys keep ’em coming.
By: Andy in Beds - 3rd August 2004 at 00:24
Southern Cross…
Sea Fury Southern Cross now owned by our own Steve Patterson came out of Irag too.
So there’s at least two.
Cheers
Andy
By: Flood - 3rd August 2004 at 00:04
Flood
I take it the slides need to be reversed as below?
Thats the way!!! Its so much easier when the things are bigger and the registrations not so easily confused with Arabic.
Anyway, if they are slides (and not glass mounted) then the shiny side should face you for them to be the right way round. Generally the logo will also be on the side facing you, too (Kodak, probably).
I once printed (from b/w negative) a pic of a local polititian who had a facial disfigurement (can’t rightly remember, could have been a strawberry-type birthmark or maybe a vivid scar) from a flipped neg! He didn’t notice but his wife did – he was used to seeing himself that way in the mirror, but she wasn’t…
Think the SM.79 was discussed in relation to an uncovered wreck in the desert? Whatever!
MORE!
Flood.â„¢
By: planejunky - 2nd August 2004 at 23:53
Furies? Yes please! 😀
Those at legends this year will know that John Bradshaw brought his Fury in for the weekend. In theory that machine could be in the photo above as it was an Iraqi AF machine built in 1953 S/N 37539. Apparently these aircraft were known as “Baghdad Furies”. It would be great if one of those slides turned out to be this actual aircraft.
Thanks for sharing these pictures, they are something special.
Cheers
Justyn
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August 2, 2004 at 11:18 pm