Rutland Reindeer Photo Sought

The thread isn’t that old so I thought I’d share these two pics with you. They either got scratched or hairy when still wet, but interesting to see with and without scaffolding:

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Interestingly, I saw this film, or more correctly the US release version “No Highway in the Sky” last week on Foxtel’s “Entertainment” channel in the FOX Classics section here in Australia.

FOX classics is where they re-run I love Lucy, MASH, John Wayne movies such as the Son’s of Katie Elder” and other classics from their catalogue, usually the same program airs a couple times a week and then dis-appears.

The “Reindeer” isnt listed for any more airings in May but I noticed “Gomer Pyle” and “Green Acres” are both apparantly running over the next few weeks.

Dont pity me too much though, the same channel has let me watch the “Battle of Britain” twice in the last month, and “Tora Tora Tora” twice and Midway once since Xmas smiles.

In regard to the internal cabin shots, these seemed to be too wide for any aircraft of the period and I suspect they are done in a studio and not inside either the”Halifax/Halton/Hermes” fullscale mockup or any other real aircraft.

The storyline is of a aeronautical engineer/ mathematician who works for the manufacturer and has already inspected a crash site and determined aircraft will fail due to fatigue at a set number of operating hours.

He absent mindly finds himself riding on one of the aircraft on a return flight from the crashsite and determines it will reach its target hours mid flight and crash due to metal fatigue, it however makes it to the next landing ground to re-fuel, disproving his calculations.

The Cabin consists of two rows of two seats on either side of a vey wide aisle, the seats form “compartments” seperated by clear plastic dividers to the set in front or behind. The passenger windows are wide similar to the post war DC3 “Viewmaster” configurations.

The rear cabin has a full kitchen with heavy electric oven, that forms the basis for Jimmy Stewarts Character’s theory for the only safe place to survive an impending crash of the aircraft to be in the mens toilet directly behind the reinforced wall holding the oven in place. (Interestingly the toilet door bears little resemblance to an aircraft toilet door, and looks more like a house door!)

He tells this to Marlene Dietrich who plays a film star travelling on the aircraft as well as Glynis Johns who plays the Hostess and later his wife.

After his crash theory is proven incorrect, Stewart is kicked off the flight by the pilot, who inspects the aircraft and can find no fatigue, before the flight can depart on the next leg of the journey Stewart enters the cockpit and raises the undercarriage, sabotaging the aircraft.

Strangely, despite being considered a looney by the pilot, crew and most of the passengers, the air hostess on the flight decides he needs her to marry him to look after him? and they end up married?

He later undertakes a structural stress test of a tail section in his laboratory to prove his theory, his test piece “fails” at the same time two members of the Government Ministry are visiting him, and are coincidentally told the tail of the aircraft he had sabotaged, had fallen off while the aircraft was taxi-ing for take-off and a second aircraft’s tail had also fallen off in some other incident – all with no further loss of life – he then realises his calculations had not taken into account the colder temperature of high altitude and that is the cause of the error in his predictions of the midflight failure- in the end a corny movie where every one lives happiliy ever after, and Jimmy gets the girl, and saves the day, and modern aviation is proved safe once more.

(I suspect the storyline is somehow related to the Comet 1 issues? and trying to reassure the travelling public)

regards

Mark Pilkington

Thanks Paul,

It seems the Halifax gains more fans every week, thanks to this forum.
Keep it up. One of the photographs in this thread shows the “aircraft” from a frontquarter point of view and the wings and engine nacelles scream out:
Halifax/Halton . The undercarriage lfrom the front looks different however.
Pity about her fate, but then again at that time you could get a Halifax for scrap value. The Panton brothers wanted one and could get one for 100 pounds to commemorate their brother but their father vetoed the idea. Decades later they bought Lancaster NX611, oh if only. Ok back to reality.

Oh and, my Halifax control column (being a co-pilot version) is probably from a Halton as it came from Germany, and could (speculation only) be from one of the Haltons that crashed during the Berlin Airlift. Who knows.
Cheers

Cees

Hi all,

I don’t want to knock other folks research but I’m afraid that I believe that KA Merrick was wrong to say that the Reindeer Halifax was Halton G-AHDM. It was in fact a Halifax C MKVIII G-AJNW.

An easy mistake to make as they were both owned by Westminster Airways ltd.

Halton G-AHDM (PP228) Was BOAC Halton “Falmouth”. Sold to Westminster Airways on 18/11/1948. It flew 282 sorties on the Berlin airlift (176 freight, 106 tanker) returning to Blackbushe airfield when its cofA ran out on 7/5/1950. It was sold for scrap on 18/9/1950.

Halifax C MKVIII (PP296) was bought by Westminster Airways on 27/4/1949 and completed 116 tanker sorties on the Berlin airlift. It returned to its home base of Blackbushe on 26/4/1950. It was sold on for film work and used as the fictitious Reindeer aircraft (G-AFOH) and then scrapped.

The information comes from Propliner magazine No64 Autumn 1995 and I’ve cross refed it with “The Halifax File” by R.N.Roberts.

Westminster Airways had three aircraft Two Haltons (G-AHDM & G-AHDV) and the halifax (G-AJNW). With little work for the three aircraft after the Berlin Airlift they decided to cease operations and the three grounded Halis were put in the hands of a successor maintainance company “Westminster Airways Servicing LTD”. It was this organisation that modified G-AJNW to the “Reindeer” aircraft.. Following its starring role it was scrapped in December 1950.

I’m a bit of a Civilian Halifax/Halton Anorak I’m afraid… I don’t think that the good old Halifax gets the credit it deserves for its hard work during the Berlin airlift.

Regards,

Paul.

The attached images are G-AHDM langishing at Blackbushe before scrapping in 1950, and a shot of Halifax G-AJNW before it was transformed into the Reindeer.

I remember seeing the film on TV around 1970. There was a season of Neville Shute stuff including an awful adaptation of On The Beach where several historic racing cars got trashed.

If I’m right, the Reindeer suffered from metal fatigue and to stop it killing people the film’s hero retracted the undercarriage at London Airport while the plane was on the ground.

Was this done with a model or was this the death of a Reindeer/Halton?

Three cheers for Mr Creosote:D and thank you for clearing that up so conclusively:cool:

..OK just don’t give him that ‘waffer thin mint’!!!

K.A.Merricks book (pub. 1980) on the Halifax states Halton G-AHDM Falmouth went from BOAC to Aviation Traders; then to Westminster Airways; then converted as Reindeer G-AFOH for film No Highway. So Mr. Creosote takes the prize.

Apparently the film was later released in the States, in September 1951, under the title “No Highway in the Sky“
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Highway_in_the_Sky

A rather interesting side angle to this ‘Reindeer’ thread – In 1957 the UK reg’n ‘G-AHDM’ was re-allocated (appropriately enough) to the Miles HDM.105 (High-aspect ratio winged ‘Aerovan’ (formerly G-AJOF) ).

There’s a link to a post by ‘Transportraits’ in a previous forum thread which has more info. http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1081785

Photo link: http://www.miniplane.cn/Contributions/Shumaker/3885.htm

Richard

Three cheers for Mr Creosote:D and thank you for clearing that up so conclusively:cool:

wasn’t it Halton G-AHDM, BOAC’s one time “Falmouth”?

K.A.Merricks book (pub. 1980) on the Halifax states Halton G-AHDM Falmouth went from BOAC to Aviation Traders; then to Westminster Airways; then converted as Reindeer G-AFOH for film No Highway. So Mr. Creosote takes the prize.

wasn’t it Halton G-AHDM, BOAC’s one time “Falmouth”?

I have to agree with Chumpy, LDO is very unlikely, it was in service with BOAC in 1951.
I have read as much as I can about the Hermes & have never come across any mention of one being modified for this or indeed any other film. There have been some good pictures of the Reindeer posted on this thread & they all show a single wheel bomber type undercarriage. I think a Halton is highly likely to have been the basis for the mock up.

I think G-ALDO would be unlikely, according to several sources.. Putnam H.P. a/c, British Civil Reg etc. ‘DO was in airline service during the early 50s before being scrapped at Blackbushe in 1959.

The Halton mentioned elswhere remains favourite to me.

Chumpy.

Barry Clay on his WingsoverWarwickshire forum commented:

“This was built from a Handley Page Hermes G-ALDO which languished at Blackbushe,the twin tailplane being quite like nothing ever seen on any aircraft ? there was quite a bit of skillful metalwork grafted around the nose and tail with short stubby wings and tiny propellers,the whole thing was tail heavy and had to be held with scaffolding to keep it onto the nosewheel,most of the flying shots were large models made in the film props department.”

Roger Smith.

Reindeer Photos

Those photos are great! Would “25deg south” be so kind as to contact me directly, either by private message through this forum or by email to:

skyking918(at)verizon.com

I would love to talk to you further about your father-in-law and his career and the Reindeer model.

Here are a couple of Bill Roots’s shots of the “actual” Reindeer built at Denham.
I think that Brian Stainer of APN has now retired and that his collection of shots was sold on. “JDK” who posts here occasionally might know more on that one.
I trust these are of some interest.
(Note the aircraft in the background _ I can make out two D.H. Dragon Rapides and possibly an Anson at least.)

Looking at the image of the full scale mock up its would certainly seem to fit around a Halifax/Halton. The single wheel undercarriage & broad wing would fit, it’s also propped up with a tail stand which may have been because of its tail dragging origins.
Without seeing the film again I wouldn’t like to say where the interior shots were done. I would think any airliner that was available for filming would have done. 1951 is really before Blackbushe became associated with the Hermes, but there were certainly several unwanted BOAC examples around at that time.
We need the film shown on television again. Can anyone arrange that? Please:D

Rutland Reindeer

By coincidence my late Father in Law was a model maker at Denham Studios.
Here’s a couple from his collection of the Model.
IIRC he told me the full scale beast was built up from a Halifax hulk.
I do have some ground shots of the tail somewhere I think

The whole thing looks more Hermes based than Halton, but the outer wings and engine nacelles look very Canberra to me!

Rutland Reindeer Photo Received

I received from Amy Bridges, Editorial Administrator at Ian Allan, a scan of the photo, but the quality was not the best.

Does anyone have copies of the Control Column issues mentioned by G-ASEA? Does anyone know what happened to Aviation Photo News?

I’d like to find more information on this elusive “aircraft” in order to produce some drawings which could be used as the basis of a scale model. Any material received will happily be shared.

…Seems to be a bit of confusion on what was actually used as the basis for the Reindeer..Ashton, Halton, Hermes???
Maybe a wade through the relevant type prodution lists would, produce a lead as to the airframe concerned, the A.I. article mentions it being at Blackbushe so another avenue of research I guess.

All of this reminds me that the film was based on the novel No Highway by Nevil Shute, read it many years ago, a great yarn!