Orkney Spitfire find thread…

I imagine they had lots of new friends after it was known

The last I heard it was going to be kept locally…

Any further news on the Spitfire wing found in Orkney a few years ago?

I’m so glad I’m not the only person with a copy of Skies over Scapa. The other half practically wet herself laughing at the certificate for serving on a particular airfield!

It will be very interesting to see what else turns up – given the Orcadian reluctance to throw anything away (at least partly because you’ve got to luck the bloody stuff across the Pentland Firth), there could be almost anything in there. Don’t bother looking in the camp cinema, by the way, it’s knee-deep in sheep pirt.

Adrian

Andy/Tangmere’s first issue

Yep, I hope we won’t have to suffer his grinning mug on the first page of every copy, it’s enough to make a man cease purchasing it 😀

Interesting reading that more than just the wing was found.

A quick look in Skies Over Scapa last night only showed 1 mk Vc accident on the Islands (a forced landing IIRC) but I forgot to note the details!!

I guess that would account for why the original ‘premature’ press cutting and follow up image were edited/moderated? 🙂

The latest edition of Britain At War has just dropped through my letterbox (Andy/Tangmere’s first issue) and features extensive coverage of this find with images.

Moggy

Hasn’t Hawkinge got a pair of MkI wings from Woolwich Arsenal? Now getting a photo of those could be fun…

Adrian

Here is the best one at Chillam Castle in 1975. The other is just a leading edge as I recall.

Mark

Hasn’t Hawkinge got a pair of MkI wings from Woolwich Arsenal? Now getting a photo of those could be fun…

Orkney tourist attractions… where to start? The one remaining Z-battery on Flotta, the Albacore wreck on Hoy, the Ness Battery at Stromness, the Wireless Museum, the Italian Chapel, the blockships and the Churchill Barrriers, Stromness Museum has the remains of one of the torpedoes that sank the Royal Oak, you can drive up to the control tower at Twatt…. that’s just the ones relevant this side of General Discussion!

Adrian

Although finding this major wing structure on a former UK military military airfield is exciting, it is not unique. Not counting the buried Mk XVI at Kenley, RNAS Henstridge yielded a pair of Seafire outer wings circa 1971, one from SR630, starboard, and a port wing thought to be from SW898. They were liberated by the late Keith Fordyce for the Torbay Air Museum, and after some wrangling he was persuaded to part with them to me with a complex trade for incorporation finally in to what became the SX336 flying project.

Mark

No restriction on this image taken at Torbay. 🙂

Highland Park distillery gets my vote

Moggy

Haha, I have a tail about that place. We visited a couple of years ago (my brother lives on South Ronaldsey) and we took the tour around the distillery. We were in the malting room and I’d spotted the distillery cat wandering around outside earlier. There in the carefully raked out grain was a single line of tiny footprints from the edge of the room to the centre and then back. I guess it did look like a giant litter tray!!!

I am partial to the occasional dram of HP – current favourite is Old Pulteney Navigator…

I suppose it depends on whether you view it as merely a part of a whole, or as a historical artefact in it’s own right.

Indeed. To take it to more mundane levels, would a motor museum display just a bitof an old car, say the bonnet of a Morris Minor? if it was a bit of a notable Minor maybe, but just disjointed bits, probably not.

This wing does have historic interest, but of itself it’s just a component, albeit a large component. I can get displaying the rear section of a Lancaster, or a cockpit or rare parts of extinct types, like the last remaining parts of the Hess 110, or the Beardmore Inflexible wheels, but to me, this is a part of a whole

IMHO, as I said.

As a tourist on Orkney for a week a few years back I didn’t visit the Orkney Museum itself, possibly to my shame, but there was so much else to see. I did visit the museum on Hoy linked to Scapa Flow, which has considerable aviation and WW2 interest. There are other items of period interest on the islands, but of course much more of much earlier date… I’d have been perfectly happy to find a Spitfire wing among the displays, as being a significant part of the more recent history of the islands. As such, the people of the islands have a right to retain it (if they want to) regardless of how many tourists would or would not be bothered. I must admit finding it easier to see a Spitfire than go to Orkney, so the reverse must be equally true.

As a matter of interest, when did the BBMF last go to the Northern Islands?

There are many fine Museums and different visitor attractions.

Highland Park distillery gets my vote

Moggy

I suppose it depends on whether you view it as merely a part of a whole, or as a historical artefact in it’s own right.

I’m abivalent about this relic. It’s very interesting that this has turned up, and if there is more then that’s fantastic but on its own, it is not particularly significant in its own right.

We’ve got Spitfires that have been untouched since they were last flown (Lambeth Mk 1); original aircraft that have had a sympathetic removal of later parts (Cosford Mk 1); aircraft that have flown pretty much constantly since they were built with periodic mods and updates (MH434) and aircraft that are essentially brand new (the Mark 1 Partners aircraft, et al).

So, a Bit o’ Spit, albeit a big Bit o’ Spit is interesting but not that meaningful. If it were part of a notable aircraft – Bader’s Va, for example, then that would mean something as an exhibit in its own right but just as an original bit of an anonymous Spit, what is that giving us?

We can never have enough Spits, so my vote would be for it to be incorporated into a complete airframe, whether as a parts bin special to static condition, or parts for a flyer.

IMHO, of course. Other views are also available.

Orkney visitors already go to view the wartime remains as well as the more publicised archeological digs.
There are many fine Museums and different visitor attractions.
http://www.odinorkney.com/pages/attractions.html

No reason why an item discovered in Orkney should make its way south so that others not so near would be saved from making a long trek north. Everything does not need to be 2 hours from London. I remember receiving a phone call from Neville Franklin many years ago to say he had reached Newcastle area and would soon be in Edinburgh. How we laughed when he arrived 4 hours later.

Yes well said Rob, far too many things are going from museums to be “restored”.

I would like to see a picture of the inboard side to see if the wing attachments are intact, was it unbolted and removed, ? Or broken ?

Thank you, Bruce. And I endorse Wyvernfan’s comment 100%!