Scrapyard Photos; Any More?

Kirbys of Rochford…

..Alas no photos, but Kirbys scrapyard, the “other” side of Rochford always had a constant suppy of Hercules, and Twin Wasps and anything else Aviation Traders wanted to dispose of (and that was LOTS..) just sinking into the mud in the sixties and early seventies

Typhoon

The Typhoon, as I said in the post, is believed to be at Hawkinge, belonging to Peter Smith.

Was at Brooklands for a while in a similar state to as found.

I would be interested in seeing some current pictures of it.

If Peter Smith wants to contact me, I still have a bit of it, which fell off in the van on the way home!

I’m gutted in later life, for not trying harder to retain either cockpit section or turret. The turret picture was of it in my garage! But it was much complicated by ‘group’ ownership, which seemed to morally prevent any one individual taking it over.

It was also very large, and had been a continual headache to store. I was only 17, hadn’t two
pence to rub together, and even moving it around was beyond my means. The job of restoring it, at the time, also seemed enormous.

Still, we did save it from the smelter at least, and had some fun doing it. We also did lots of other stuff that is not for this thread.

Yes, the guy in the photo is Jim Howard.
Guy

Is the bloke in the (Typhoon)Yellow jumper Jim Howard?

Yes it is.

Typhoon..

Did the Typhoon not survive much longer after this?

That turret would be awsome to find and have “drool”

More valiant slides on ebay

Pagen 01 there is a slide on e bay now of a camo valiant with Vulcan b1 24 hrs left about £5.50 !

Wow, wow and wow again:eek:

The last series of pics is just what I had in mind when I started this thread.
Fantastic pics of the Typhoon and it just shows what was still around in the eighties (although already over 25 years ago).

That turret looks just like the one that is now under restoration at Duxford.
What happened the the other turrets?

Keep up posting these kind of pics.

Cees

The photo of the Bloch 151? is very interesting especially with the four blade airscrew. There is between the two soldiers the fuselage of a Leo Autogiro.
The wrecked flying boat is a Do 24.

Is the bloke in the (Typhoon)Yellow jumper Jim Howard?

John

Brownhills 1977 ish

I was fortunate to have visited the yard at Brownhills in the mid Seventies.

I was a member of anaviation society, and we had grand designs.

We recovered Mk1 Car Door Typhoon, which ended up at Southend, and thought to now belong to Peter Smith, nr Hawkinge. T the time we could find no ID, but believe it now has been. It had remained there we think, because somebody had put a lorry on it, and we had a great deal of trouble jacking it off.

The yard was amazing….off the top of my head, I recall a seafire cockpit section (Burnt out) a pile of York wings. A pile (literally 30ft high) of Wellington rear turrets. Searchlights, a WW2 RAF fuel bowser.

An internal room with the sawn off engines and props from a Lincoln, still complete with cowlings. A B17 cowl. Several Harvard fuselages. Lots of Meteor Nose/cockpit sections.

We recovered a Wellington rear turret, also went to Southend, wherebouts unknown.

I kick myself for not taking more pics but here are the few that I have.

Guy

Many thanks for the Valiant picture Salad Fingers, it is the first tome that I have seen pics of them being scrapped at Saints – much appreciated.

QuePee those Porton Down shots must be really rare, would be interesting to know why these airframes were used there.

Not strictly scrapyard photographs, more like photographs of scrap !!!

Not sure of the type, possibly a Bloch being inspected by the new owners !

Blenheim V5595 being looked over by the merchants !

Grossenbrode Germany August 1947

Varsity WF410 and Dove ANAP – Lulsgate airport near Bristol sometime after 1983.

With reference to G-ATAB, it was a DC 7B

It was often reported as a DC 7C probably because the tail was misread

near the top of the fin they had DC 7 writted as D7C

Garry

Some more from my collection.

Back onto the military theme again. This time with some shots at 5 MU as was at RAF Kemble and also a couple of Whirlwinds at Porton Down, Wilts. the two helicopters were on MOD land and not accessible to many people except those of us priveliged enough to have signed the Official Secrets Act. Thus I have not seen much info on these aircraft and certainly never seen photos elsewhere. Does anyone know what trials they were used for?

A couple of Meteors to start off with, T7 VW478 and then a TT20 WM151. Both taken 24 Jan 1974.

Now the Whirlwinds with XJ445 first and then XG573. I believe that were scrapped on site a few days after these pictures were taken. Can anyone confirm? Both were taken 31 March 1974.

In the Comet pictures posted recently, I believe that the nose in the first picture was that of an East African Airways example although I am not sure which one. The only tool used to scrap these magnificent beasts seems to have been an oxy acetylene torch. There were dead cylinders everywhere.

QuePee

Found!

Pagen 01 – I knew id made a copy somewhere! – Valient at St Athan Rgds SF

Great pictures QuePee.
In the last pic it looks like the Comet in the foreground has been butchered to death in quite a morbid way, sections have been gas torched out, the carcass dismembered, and the nose turned over.

Good photos, QuePee. They are given added poignancy by being monochrome.

Comet pic

As fascinating as these pics are it still makes me shudder when I see once-proud aircraft being subjected to such processes as are otherwise only found in a charnel house.

Piles of parts are one thing but great recognisable chunks of dead and dying machines, especially now-rare or extinct types, is not pleasant:(

The invisible transition from a cherished and meticulously cared for machine, where every blemish is attended to, to slaughter house at the stroke of a completely unsentimental pen is still, for me, a difficult one to come to terms with.

I accept, though, that it has to happen.

(Squeamish) Anon.

Nice pictures QuePee, I remember wandering around the DanAir scrap heap, they seemed to be always chopping something up.
G-ATAB is a DC7B I believe, although G-INFO says its a 7CF.

Richard

Trying to keep the pictures flowing despite the requirements of work,…..

Here are a few civilan scrapyard pictures for you, all taken at Lasham on 18th March 1973.

Interior shot of Bristol Freighter G-APAU

Dan Air Comet 4 G-APDD

and finally
Dan Air Comet G-APDD and DC6 G-ATAB.

QP

In the 70s a small scrap yard next to the railway bridge immediately to the east of Christchurch (Hampshire – now Dorset) had a large number of small parts of Meteors including several noses, nosewheel doors and other bits and pieces .

For a very long time I had one of the nosewheel doors- sadly it was virtually destroyed when my kids decided to use it as a toboggan – but without snow and towed behind a pushbike.

I always presumed the stuff probably came by some means or other from Tarrant Rushton – about the only source of chopped up Meteors locally.