Scrapyard Photos; Any More?

Please tell me to stop if you have had enough of my pictures, I do get carried away sometimes. There’s loads more if you want them.
QuePee

Certainly not and please post away! They are fascinating pictures.

Saladfingers, thanks for trying with the Valiant slide.

Hastings

I do not know which Hastings wings were used for the “Halifax” but the one at Catterick is or rather was WJ338, one of Aries aircraft.

QP

These are brilliant!!!! Keep posting, please, and thanks so much. You actually captured one of the Shacks in these images too. I wonder if this Hastings is the one YAM got the wings from?

Cheers,
Richard

RAF Catterick

Please tell me to stop if you have had enough of my pictures, I do get carried away sometimes. There’s loads more if you want them.

Anyway onto the first batch of photos from an official visit to RAF Catterick Fire Training School on 21st June 1972. Having a father in the RAF certainly had its priviledges, he got this visit for me and the only condition placed on the photograpy was that I did not include any of the recently arrived Shackletons and also did not include any buildings in the background. Unfortunately they forgot to tell the airman escorting me of these conditions. Thus I was able to take photos of every aircraft that was outside at the time but I did not manage any internal shots as I was as a poor student at the time and could not afford a flash.
The Shackletons will probably appear in later posts.

For some reason most of these shots appear rather dark, you may have to play with the brightness to get the best out of them.

QuePee

1. Buccaneer S1 XN925
2. Canberra T4 WJ881
3. Unknown Canberras
4. Unknown Canberras
5. Hastings C1 WJ338
6. Hastings C1 WJ338
7. Hunter F1 WT566
8. Hunter F6 XF307

Scrap yard Varsitys

I guess the poor old Varsity has probably got the worst record of any aircraft in post war RAF of being used for fire practice. I don’t know if the story is true buri was told by a Varsity pilot that he flew a Varsity to RAF Swinderby for fire duties. They landed about mid morning so popped to the mess for lunch prior to being collected mid afternoon to return to base. after lunch they walked out onto the Apron to see in the distance the Fire Section setting alight to the aircraft they had delivered a few hours previously- begs belief that you’d burn a perfectly serviceable complete airframe . No idea if a varsity was ever burnt at Swinderby so would love to know .

I thought that rather than using attachments you can upload pictures as a personal album in your user profile and then copy the url for each picture to post it onto a thread. It is then possible for anyone to look at the album in your user profile (if you make it public) as well as the individual picture(s) from the album on a thread. Sorry if the description is a bit vague but a bit of digging around in the rules and your personal profile should make it all a bit clearer.

It would have been a difficult journey to Coventry without them!

Thank you, QuePee, for the picture of G-ANVR. According to my youthful spotter’s notebooks and my ever less reliable memory, it seems that the last time I saw her was parked up against the fence, north of the hangar, adjacent to the access road to Lydd Airfield in the late 1960s. If only I’d had a camera then. The photos would have been a good deal more reliable than my memory!

I bet she had engines in those days too…..

Thank you, QuePee, for the picture of G-ANVR. According to my youthful spotter’s notebooks and my ever less reliable memory, it seems that the last time I saw her was parked up against the fence, north of the hangar, adjacent to the access road to Lydd Airfield in the late 1960s. If only I’d had a camera then. The photos would have been a good deal more reliable than my memory!

Hi Cees, not sure if you are referring to the Halifaxs and Lancs scrapped at St Athan, but there are various photos of this occurring in various publications including aerial shots showing large nombers of them parked in rows, unfortunately they are copywrited so can’t be posted here.
I believe there are pics of one of the prototypes or very early Halifax ending its days at Saints.

Any pics of the mass scrapping of Lancasters and Halifaxes just after the war? Or the many Sea Furies languishing at Lasham?

Cheers
Cees

Though not strictly speaking a scrapyard, I found this in the backyard of a farmer amid the odd bits and pieces of derelict farm equipment. It’s a Lockheed Hudson aft fuselage, A16-128, with the original USAAF serial showing through the Australian colourscheme. I believe this was rescued for the Tocumwal base museum, but have no idea where it is now.

Many thanks avion ancien and pagen01 for your advice. Here’s hoping this lot works OK.

The first couple are of the Varsity that used to reside on the fire pits at RAF Odiham. It was WL673 and these pictures were taken on 5th April 1972.
The last one is on G-ANVR at Coventry on 24th April 1972, I do not have too many shots of civvi airacrft being scrapped, this being one of them. There were numerous other aircraft at Coventry awaiting the chop as I remember, the two ETPS Viscounts amongst them…..

QuePee

E_Bay slide

Sorry cant find my watch list- It was a shot of 2 white valiants- i think it was wp204 prior to scrapping- the radar had been removed and part of the tail- wish id bid on it think it went for £5-6 SF

I think – and if I’m wrong, I’m sure someone better informed will correct me – that when you’ve used up your allocation by posting thumbnails, the only way to re-instate that is by going back over all the threads on which you’ve posted images and deleting those, individually and manually! I suspect that’s why the serial picture posters use a hosting site. That limits the value of a site such as this for archive purposes for whilst text may have a reasonable life, the same cannot be said for images.

when I have used up my available memory for attachments and the green bar has turned completely red (as I suspect it will after this post) how do I go about making attachments then.? Do I have use a photo hosting site and if so what is the maixmum size for a jpeg?

In short yes, it is one weakness of this site.
Personally I reduce the pictures down to 1024 wide by using Microsoft Office Picture Manager and then upload to photobuket. The image will display at 800 wide. The down side is loss in picture quality, especially so in your case as we can view your excellent pic attachments in large size with planty of detail.

edskarf
Your comments re the Auster being XN441 are very timely. Last night I tried to get a better scan of the serial from the negative. Its difficult to be sure but 440 seems unlikely to me and the only other possibility seems to be 441. I have attached the scan so that you can see.

Also I have found my coppy of the Whirlwind at Hallers, XG593 and should be below as well. Just a small question, when I have used up my available memory for attachments and the green bar has turned completely red (as I suspect it will after this post) how do I go about making attachments then.? Do I have use a photo hosting site and if so what is the maixmum size for a jpeg?

Many thanks

QuePee

Haller Auster

QuePee
The Auster is one of four possibilities, XN440 was w/o 27/7/63 and I think is probably the one in your picture(is that a ‘0’ just visible under the shrub). XN441 still survives. XN442 was broken up at Akrotiri Cyprus in 1966(could be this one if the remains were shipped home), and XN443 went to the Middle Wallop dump in 1974.
Puzzle is if its XN440 what happened to it for it to be written off as it looks whole in the picture.

Richard

The Auster 9 is almost certainly XN441 which was sold to Haller & Son in 1968. Ten years later it was registered G-BGKT to Ken Wallis and is indeed a survivor with a group at Eggesford.

PMN
I have many from that era as well as a host of the Canberra and Victor aircraft that went to the smelter at this base.
QuePee

What interesting photos. Would be interested in seeing some of the Canberra shots, when you’ve got the time to post.

abadonna

Some more pics from RAF St Athan but involving a slight thread drift. Some of these are not strictly on the scrapyard area but were being prepared for it so I guess that counts.

Thanks very much Quepee. I used to work at Mawgan and have always been fascinated by Shackletons, the local farmer there told me about an occasion where he flew in an Auster to St Athan for a wedding and saw the same Shacks being scrapped there that months before were in service at Mawgan!
Now that I work at St Athan the interest is from the other way.
If you have any Saints pics in general yyou want to post, you can always start a new thread on the place, I would think it could be quite populor.
I now collate any info, pics and items of interest for the station regarding its past. Your pics show the Cannon and MG stop butts which I have never seen picture of before.

Pagen 01 there was a colour slide of a valiant being scrapped at st athan last week on e bay I’ll see if I can get some details

Yes please salad fingers, for the above reasons.