Jet Age recovery Group and WH887 website

Merkle, Can’t find any photo’s of WH887 ! So I “converted” one just for you, may be wrong type of canberra ? I know nothing about B2, TT18 etc !
just playing about with a paint programme. Keith.

BRILLIANT KIETH !!!!,:D

From What ive been told by her one of her old ground crew from RAF weston Zoyland , she would have been silver with a red Tail ,
he doesnt doubt that he worked on her in the 1950s,
Picture looks a real treat, heres the pic he sent me of the canberra colours whilst at RAF Weston Zoyland,

Magic! Looks the job to me, think it’s a PR3 or 7 looking at the two camera hatches to the rear of the nose wheel bay, but what the heck, it still looks good! Nice work 🙂

Merkle, Can’t find any photo’s of WH887 ! So I “converted” one just for you, may be wrong type of canberra ? I know nothing about B2, TT18 etc !
just playing about with a paint programme. Keith.

WH887 Update.Parts Reclemation

Hi Group, I have just done some updating on my web page ,on the News section, and I also stumbled across actual radio chatter/footage of a Canberra in Combat on You tube, so I have added a Canberra Attacks ! Page, also on the bottom is a vid of Canberra’s In Vietnam,
You may or may have seen it, but i thought i would share it with you anyway, as I have never seen or heard real footage of a Canberra in a Combat situation.

I have tried to clear up the spelling mistakes Grammar etc , but my english was never much good,LOL,:D,

Can anyone out there tell me HOW i get the likes of a search engine to recognise my little website, so I can get more People to look if they so wish ??
as i dont know how to put it on the likes of Google ,or MSN search engines, it just doesnt come up :confused:, Computers “The BAIN of My Life”, LOL.

http://www.freewebs.com/merkle/index.htm

Chris were you also in W. A .R. S and a x i s 42 😀

Ahh yes and dont forget Kompanie 1 !!,

yes , this is all a bit like the re-enactment lark on here, FW190uk, you know what i am talking about , LOL :rolleyes:;):D

And remember what you and I did with re-enactment when it got like so ??
😉

Chris were you also in W. A .R. S and a x i s 42 😀

Hi Chris

I will leave aside your comments on the “Value” of recovered material, as my views on this are well known. But one point I would like to raise re your project is that of obtaining permits to excavate aircraft that fall into your stated area of interest, in which crew members have lost their lives.

We all know that during wartime many recoveries were carried out in less than ideal circumstances and often their was little record keeping or apparent accountability with regard to ensuring human remains were fully recovered. However post WW2 there seems to have been a concerted effort on the part of the MOD to sort out this situation and they considerbly tightened up procedures. Of course though due to the nature of an aircraft crash – particulalrly a higher speed post-war crash, this did not neccesarily mean they found any more of the unfortunate airmen involved. – They did, however, in most cases, record just what they did or did’nt find! 😮

Now these records are available to the PMA and they do indeed check all available records when considering a permit application (as they should!) and this means that they will know know exactly what was found (or not) and the fact that an airman has a know and located grave is no longer sufficient proof of his recovery for the purpose of issuing a permit…..As we found out when applying to recover DH Hornet F. Mk1 PX274, which crashed at Stacksteads near Bacup on 22.12.47.

This of course means that many aircraft in your chosen area of interest, that would have been perfectly viable to consider excavating had they been wartime crashes, are likely to be denied to you when it comes to obtaining the required permit – Not that there is any evidence that those parts listed as un-recovered actually remain at the crash site – In all likelihood they were totally destoyed and certainly the post war recoveries tended to be more thorough in respect to human remains as well, but in our experience just as likely to consign useless smashed up equipment back into the hole!

But the MOD now have “proof” that remains were not recovered and they seem to be reluctant (perhaps rightly? perhaps conveniently? depending on your view) to accept that those remains are unlikely to still be present and therefore under the terms of the 1986 Act, they will deny permission to excavate, unless, of course, you can put forward a valid reason why you should proceed! – Good Luck! 🙁 and Apologies for another “Negative” response!

Hi Nick,

I fully agree with you, however, the MOD dont allways clean up very well,
even in later years, and certainly in the early 50s when air incidents were still quite common,
I dont really look at anything post 1965 anyway bcause of that reason,
I think it depends on the time of year of the crash , and how thorough the investigation, there is one near me (a sea hawk) that the pilot was involontarilly ejected, he survived with a broken ankle, they cleaned the mess up, but threw most of it into the 20ft crator, the old SWARG done a dig in the mid 80s when i was a nipper of Vampire UF300, and found loads, that had been thrown into a hole, and last year whilst visiting a friend , I visited a farm in the north east, where Vulcan XM610 crashed as late as 1971,
it was late so we couldnt do anything but the farmer was still furious about the incident, he said he was never compensated enough for the brand new cow shed the vulcan had demolished, the MOD had left so much wreckage still in his field that he to this day still cannot use it, because parts kept damaging his machinery, they left a engine there, and its still there to this day, he walked us across the field , and you could see bits an pieces ,
and as i went he gave me a turbine blade, he had a bucket of them which he had picked up over the years,,Up to a couple of years ago, he had a Huge pile of wreckage that he weighed in to the scrap man, the vulcan has caused him problems ever since it crashed ,
so from first hand experiance i know the Mod dont allway act as thorough as they would like too, for what ever reason,
I think since the 1970s things are VERY much different ,and they have proper investigations and enquiries,but i think “Pre” 1970s there was very little in the way of Recovery (sometimes) , and especailly when the aircraft has been abandoned before the crash, “or ” there is no Large ordnance that needs to be recovered,
I hope this puts a positive side to (some) jet age recoveries,
best regards
Chris C
Ex S.W.A.R.G,(defunked)
now starting “CWARG” (hopefully)

Problem is , It will be predomanantly Jet, but lets not forget the Hornets,Lincolns,Mossie’s,Beaufighter target tugs,Baliol,Sea Furys,Tempests, the list is endless,so i wont be “Only ” looking at jets,but aircraft from that “Age”

So as you can see, It needs to be something to cover the whole period of
1946 to 1975, and include Jet and Prop aircraft,:)

Hi Chris

I will leave aside your comments on the “Value” of recovered material, as my views on this are well known. But one point I would like to raise re your project is that of obtaining permits to excavate aircraft that fall into your stated area of interest, in which crew members have lost their lives.

We all know that during wartime many recoveries were carried out in less than ideal circumstances and often their was little record keeping or apparent accountability with regard to ensuring human remains were fully recovered. However post WW2 there seems to have been a concerted effort on the part of the MOD to sort out this situation and they considerbly tightened up procedures. Of course though due to the nature of an aircraft crash – particulalrly a higher speed post-war crash, this did not neccesarily mean they found any more of the unfortunate airmen involved. – They did, however, in most cases, record just what they did or did’nt find! 😮

Now these records are available to the PMA and they do indeed check all available records when considering a permit application (as they should!) and this means that they will know know exactly what was found (or not) and the fact that an airman has a know and located grave is no longer sufficient proof of his recovery for the purpose of issuing a permit…..As we found out when applying to recover DH Hornet F. Mk1 PX274, which crashed at Stacksteads near Bacup on 22.12.47.

This of course means that many aircraft in your chosen area of interest, that would have been perfectly viable to consider excavating had they been wartime crashes, are likely to be denied to you when it comes to obtaining the required permit – Not that there is any evidence that those parts listed as un-recovered actually remain at the crash site – In all likelihood they were totally destoyed and certainly the post war recoveries tended to be more thorough in respect to human remains as well, but in our experience just as likely to consign useless smashed up equipment back into the hole!

But the MOD now have “proof” that remains were not recovered and they seem to be reluctant (perhaps rightly? perhaps conveniently? depending on your view) to accept that those remains are unlikely to still be present and therefore under the terms of the 1986 Act, they will deny permission to excavate, unless, of course, you can put forward a valid reason why you should proceed! – Good Luck! 🙁 and Apologies for another “Negative” response!

name

You have a few options for a group name, simply ‘Jet Aircraft Recovery Group’ works, by their very nature most Jets are post-war, ‘Post War Aircraft Recovery Group’ etc. First one is my fave and would probably most popular on Google

Problem is , It will be predomanantly Jet, but lets not forget the Hornets,Lincolns,Mossie’s,Beaufighter target tugs,Baliol,Sea Furys,Tempests,
the list is endless,so i wont be “Only ” looking at jets,but aircraft from that “Age”

and at the end of the day when it costs you £300 + to recover a aircraft, it has to be Viable,Financailly, you cant just throw 300 and not get any valuable parts recovered,

Put Simply if you dig up a Merlin engine, etc, i am sure the Value way out strips the Cost, But if it was a very smashed “Avon” it would be pretty much worthless, Now i would like to stress VERY Strongly, i am NOT doing this for
money , But you cant keep spending that amount of money for no return, it is simple Math,

So as you can see, It needs to be something to cover the whole period of
1946 to 1975, and include Jet and Prop aircraft,

🙂

You have a few options for a group name, simply ‘Jet Aircraft Recovery Group’ works, by their very nature most Jets are post-war, ‘Post War Aircraft Recovery Group’ etc. First one is my fave and would probably most popular on Google

cockpits

What are the cockpit sections behind the Canberra in the photographs ?
Cheers.
Ben.

Hi Ben,
the cockpits are VC10, huge great things,

You may be interested to know that using Firefox I cannot see the menu items on the left frame, they only show up using iexplorer. I have found this is quite a common problem when using MS Frontpage as the web editor. It may be that you are not concerned that other browsers cannot navigate your site, but with a significant portion of the browser market, making the site Firefox friendly may be useful.

That can be a common problem with Firefox, but I have to say, I’m also using Firefox today and have no problems seeing the menu items.

Using Firefox as the browser.

You may be interested to know that using Firefox I cannot see the menu items on the left frame, they only show up using iexplorer. I have found this is quite a common problem when using MS Frontpage as the web editor. It may be that you are not concerned that other browsers cannot navigate your site, but with a significant portion of the browser market, making the site Firefox friendly may be useful.

What are the cockpit sections behind the Canberra in the photographs ?
Cheers.
Ben.

“cold War Aircraft Recovery Group !!

OK Guys, you win,
i take your Valid points,

to stop any confusion ,i will change it all tonight after work, if there s no objections, to naming it the C.W.A.R.G.

incidentally is there any of you in the south west being remotely interested in this ??
cheers
Chris 🙂

The term “Cold War” was certainly being used as early as 1947.

….i cant even call it “Cold war recovery group” a the late 40s were not in the cold war

Really ? In this anniversary year of the Berlin Airlift :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

.

Hmm… Interesting site Chris, but would it not be better to concentrate on the canberra in the title with the Jet age Recovery group as a sideline??

Hello Chris, you have a PM, sir! 😀

Best regards,

Don

I cant really call it anything else as the recoveries and investigations wil be of 50s to 70s jets
of all types, the canberra is a seperate issue really .
and “Post war” doesnt have a ring to it, i dont know what else it could be called to cover that period in time, it can hardly be called “space age” ,
and the “Gas Turbine” age recovery group sounds really Naff,
what else was i left with to cover the late 40s to the early 70s if not the jet age, i cant even call it “Cold war recovery group” a the late 40s were not in the cold war , ah its a headache,
but please any ideas i would be pleased to hear them 🙂