Jagan – Congratulations on your new book

Fascinating pic. But wouldn’t that crumpled bottom cowling indicate it was ‘pushed/dragged on its nose’ or something?

PS: Is that a Gnat/Ajeet in the background? Any more pictures of these decoys with serving aircraft in the photos?

Jagan

The flattening of the nose cone has happened after the blades have been trimmed off. If a Griffon Spitfire goes up on its nose with the engine running it is a rotational wipe out and should it go up on its nose without the engine running the blades would fracture and absorb the load.

I was not on the KKD recovery but did the initial survey for the ‘other camp’ aircraft and latterly the ex KKD Spitfire at Kharagpur. Due to the season the KKD were all in long grass when recovered with no modern military visible in the shots that I have.

That is E1048 in the back ground behind TP263.

Mark

Photo credit:- Robert Jackson

Fascinating pic. But wouldn’t that crumpled bottom cowling indicate it was ‘pushed/dragged on its nose’ or something?

PS: Is that a Gnat/Ajeet in the background? Any more pictures of these decoys with serving aircraft in the photos?

Spitfire decoys.

Mark,

You raise a very interesting question. I have read the old Aeroplane issue on the Haidon Bailie Spitfire Expedition to India , It appeared that a majority of the Griffon engined Spits were outlying either in Kalaikunda or in Barrackpore right? Did these show any kind of battle damage?

Jagan,

Not obvious battle damage in the sense of fragmentation and penetration but one Mk XVIII Spitfire at KKD, TP263, had been tipped on its nose, possibly by blast.

All of the KKD decoys had had their propellers cut off to give them a more jet-like appearance. Although I have no evidence I suspect that they may have had their tails elevated to simulate tri-gear. That may of course be how TP263 came to have a flattened nose. 🙂

Mark

Photo from W H-B.

Mark,

You raise a very interesting question. I have read the old Aeroplane issue on the Haidon Bailie Spitfire Expedition to India , It appeared that a majority of the Griffon engined Spits were outlying either in Kalaikunda or in Barrackpore right? Did these show any kind of battle damage?

No.14 Squadron, which was the last unit to operate the XVIIIs flew them from these two bases (KKD and BCKPORE). And not surprisingly, a few of the Spits that have been struck off charge would have been distributed around these two. and as you said on decoy duties.

It is interesting to note that the Both these airfields were attacked by the Pakistani Air Force (And they were quite successful). On the first day of ops in the east, Kalaikunda was attacked twice, and nearly 20 aircraft were claimed destroyed. Indian records show only 8 losses. Would the decoys explain the discrepancy between indian and pakistani figures?

Similarly Barrackpore was also attacked four days into the outbreak of hostilities and two transport aircraft destroyed by the Sabres. I dont remember off the cuff if the Pakistanis claimed more than that… but atleast they did not claim any smaller fighters in that raid.

Apart from Spitfire decoys in India, there has been talk of unidentified Pakistani Aircraft Decoys, though none have been positively identified, a picture from that time shows wood and fabric models exists in one of the Pakistani history books.

A Synopsis of the book is available at this link: http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Books/Synopsis.html

Snoopy

You will be happy to know that many of your queries from Vic Binghams Gnat book will be answered in this one!

regards

Jagan

Griffon Spitfire Fleet

Jagan,

Can you post a link to a synopsis of your book and also comment on the use of airfield decoy aircraft in this conflict.

Half the current Griffon Spitfire have their origins as decoys at such places as Kaliakunda and the like.

mark

Jagan

Congratulations! I know the effort it took and lengths you guys went to cross check stuff . Interviews in 4 continents!

Cant wait for it!

Congratulations, Jagan – looking forward to your next! 🙂

Snoopy

Gee thanks guys, it really is nice to have something to show in hand for all the hobby madness we have.. and it certainly helps when supreme command starts nagging me for wasting too much time on airplanes – I can always say, Look this is serious stuff!

Mark, yes plenty of new historic aviation stuff that has always been misreported or underreported from the Indian view point. Most of the information today on that war is based on what was published in the 70s and which was not too accurate. So this was our chance to set things right. There is quite some stuff related to British Aviation – mostly the usage of the Brit Classic jets – The Vampire, Gnat, Hunter and Canberra. I am sure that any new books that are going to come out on these aircraft will start re-writing the indian involvements altogether. The Pakistani view point on the other hand has been adequately reported and written about..

Moggy, yes its reallly been ten years (maybe more) since this started . I still got my original Wordstar 4.0 files (in DOS) in which the initial chapters were written to prove that 🙂 not to mention the sheafs of typewritten pages using my dad’s portable type machine..

Well done Jagan.

The published authors are going to outnumber the rest of us soon at this rate.

Hail Jagan.. 😉

We seem to be gathering a good number of published authors here on the Forum.

Well done Jagan – was it really ten years? 😀

Moggy