Scrapyard Photos; Any More?

A teaser…much more was at this location at the time (1995)…any ideas?

The wonderful junk on the left is mostly NAA Yale; on the right, Bolingbroke.

S.

Ernie Simmons’ farm before the auction which released a number of Swordfish for preservation ?

Or possibly Nanton museum’s storage field – but I expect the former?

Tim

“A teaser…much more was at this location at the time (1995)…any ideas?”

Not a Beaufort is it?

these photographs make me want to cry

The one that always gets me is the well known picture of a couple of air cadets posing in the remains of a scrapped Lancaster cockpit with 100+ bomb tallies marked below the glazing. It seems so ungrateful somehow that the bird could go through all that and not be venerated.

Moggy

A teaser…much more was at this location at the time (1995)…any ideas?

The wonderful junk on the left is mostly NAA Yale; on the right, Bolingbroke.

S.

Lancaster scrap

Here are a couple of pictures of Lancasters that were scrapped at Pearce Alberta.

these photographs make me want to cry :'(

Norfolk Fire Dumps

A Selection here from the Mid 90’s at Coltishall and Marham.

What happened to the massive amount of Merlins and Hercules engines after the scrappings postwar, were these stored for re-use of were these also taken apart en sold for scap?

Cheers

Cees

Perhaps not a scrapyard, but these C-47 were stored on Værløse airbase in the early 80’s.

K-687 (42-100737) might have seen D-Day action, as it was attached to 9th Air Force in march 1944. As it took part in the filming of “A bridge too far” it might actually have taken part in that action twice (I like to think so). I can with great joy inform, that the aircraft is now gloriously restored and displayed in the Danish Aircraft museum.
http://flymuseum.dk/

K-681 (42-23802) is currently on display in Helsingør Technical museum, with its former civilian identity “Svend Viking”.
http://www.tekniskmuseum.dk/

Hi Richard–

Hm, interesting: that rundown suggests 3459 left Ontario in the late 70s, while my photo (taken in Ontario in 1984) indicates otherwise! The Yale could have been with Reilly in 1978, certainly, but if so, it was back north of 49 by 1984 and, as can be seen in the photo, without any significant restoration work having happened. Hannu Halminen has owned at least four Mk.4 Harvards, each a nicer restoration than the last (the local joke is that Mr H will not rest until he has owned every surviving Mk.4 at least once!)…I’ve got it from a very good source that he briefly owned this Yale, and BTW he also owned one of the CWH Chipmunks for a time. The Harvard 4s Mr Halminen has owned are 20236/C-FGUY, 20432/C-FHWU, 20451/C-FROA and 20404.

Anyway…I’m drifting us off course here, sorry about that…more scrapyard/boneyard pix, anyone??

S.

Peter–

Almost certainly yes, but I don’t know its present location. From the location where the posted pic was taken, it passed to noted Harvard collector/restorer/pilot Hannu Halminen as a project, but Mr Halminen parted with it before completing it. It’s on the WIX registry, incidentally, but the potted history there only shows Ernie Simmons (1946-70) and Mr Halminen (early 1990s) as owners; there was, though, one more owner minimum (and probably two or three) between 1970 and about 1992…

(I spent, cumulatively, quite a lot of time back in the day trying to track all the Simmons collection airplanes; that was how I located 3459 a quarter century:eek: ago…nowadays I’m also keeping an eye out for any ex-Ernie cars, specifically any of the numerous Studebakers he is said to have kept at his farm and which would have been auctioned in 1970. I bought a ’62 Studebaker a year and a half ago, hence the additional interest in that marque of car…)

S.

According to Warbird’s Directory V, Yale 3459 has the following history…

NA-64 3459 RCAF BOC 29.11.40: SOC 25.9.46
Mk. I Ernest V. Simmons, Tillsonburg ONT .46/70
(open storage on farm, sold by auction 5.9.70)
V. O’Conner, Uxbridge ONT
Tom Reilly, Orlando FL: rest. project
N3459 reg. candidate 78
Patrick Ashura, Elbert CO: reg. 23.6.04
Aero Retro Warbirds Inc, Wilmington DE 13.2.07/08

No mention of a Mr.Halminen, but he was listed behind a couple of Mk.4 Harvards. My guess is that if it was at Halminen’s place it was there to undergo restoration for a third party.

Cheers,
Richard

Peter–

Woooo…PM me any details you have about that…if there are Studebakers in the yard you refer to, it’s a cinch some of the Stude club folks in the Hamilton and Ontario chapters would be interested in recovering spares from there during the clearout. (Me, I’d even be happy to get pix!)

S.

Steve there is a scrap yard near bellville full of old cars and it is to be cleared this spring!

Yale 3459

Peter–

Almost certainly yes, but I don’t know its present location. From the location where the posted pic was taken, it passed to noted Harvard collector/restorer/pilot Hannu Halminen as a project, but Mr Halminen parted with it before completing it. It’s on the WIX registry, incidentally, but the potted history there only shows Ernie Simmons (1946-70) and Mr Halminen (early 1990s) as owners; there was, though, one more owner minimum (and probably two or three) between 1970 and about 1992…

(I spent, cumulatively, quite a lot of time back in the day trying to track all the Simmons collection airplanes; that was how I located 3459 a quarter century:eek: ago…nowadays I’m also keeping an eye out for any ex-Ernie cars, specifically any of the numerous Studebakers he is said to have kept at his farm and which would have been auctioned in 1970. I bought a ’62 Studebaker a year and a half ago, hence the additional interest in that marque of car…)

S.

Interesting relics Steve! Does the yale still survive?

These two were seen in 1984. Again, this isn’t a scrapyard; this place was a private collection the location and owner of which I won’t divulge here. Neither of these relics is still there. Both had come from other collections that were well-known in Ontario…

NA-64 Yale, RCAF 3459, seen in 1984 looking pretty much as it had when auctioned in September 1970 at the renowned Ernie Simmons farm at Courtland, Ontario. Ernie Simmons, of course, collected vast quantities of anything and everything–cars, trucks, motorbikes, aircraft, you name it–and when he died in 1970 he was in possession of 36 Yales, seven Swordfish hulks, and some Lysander bits and Anson engines. Most of the extant Swordfish, and all but a couple surviving Yales, were once Ernie’s…so if you like either type, tip your cap to Mr Simmons next time you see one!

Anson V (the Canadian molded-plywood version) fuselage. It’s not really evident in this shot, but this fuselage was painted in the black and yellow target-tug stripes. It had formerly been in the Robert Ventress collection at Brighton, Ontario; besides this Anson, Mr Ventress owned several ex-RCAF PBY Canso hulls, one of which he converted into a versatile houseboat! This Anson relic later turned up at CWH, then disappeared. I doubt it survives. Not much useful was left of it in any case…

Once again, hope the forum enjoys this stuff…

S.

For about a decade, a disused corner of the ramp at the Brantford, Ontario, airport hosted several old “skytrucks” formerly operated by Carl Millard’s Millardair out of Toronto. Over time, four C-54s and four or five C-117s (R4D-8 “Super DC-3”) were parked in the open here. The last two C-54s present were C-GFFQ and C-GFMQ, both of which “went the way of all flesh” a few years ago. The beginning of the end came for FFQ and FMQ came when one of the pair was “beheaded”, the cockpit section slated for use, it is said, in a Christopher Plummer vampire movie! After that, the C-54s, already on borrowed time, slid rapidly downhill, and within months, excepting a few spares that were recovered for use on other C-54s, C-GFFQ and C-GFMQ were gone.

Pic taken soon after the cockpit was removed from one of the C-54s…the other one, at this stage, remains intact…

A bit later, the chopped C-54 has now lost the rest of its front end and also all four R2000s; the intact example is already minus one prop at this point…not long afterward, there would be only a few small bits of structure on this desolate bit of ramp.

Couple interesting BCATP relics to follow…

S.

OK, here are a few more…not quite scrapyard scenes, these, but similar subject matter. These are from a bushplane “boneyard” in Kenora, Ontario, in May 1995; complete aircraft were also stored in the open here (rather in the manner of boats upland from a marina)…

More-or-less complete Noorduyn Norseman on floats…this one looked yet to have some hope, actually…

Mortal remains of four DHC-3 Otters in two Canadian government liveries.

Norseman hulk and derelict Beech 18, sort of appearing to converse!

The bare frame of another Norseman fuselage, and the remains of a Stinson 108/108A Voyager.

Couple doomed Douglas C-54s to follow…

S.

Look at some of these both scrapyard pics and recovery restorations!

http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=Airshows&action=print&thread=6514

WOW! There are some fantastic pictures on that page.

Always strikes me as odd, that where-ever they are recovering wrecks from, there is always instruments missing. Even if the AC has been lost in the jungle for 60 years…;)

Whilst on the subject of scrap, there used to be a aircraft scrapyard on Finchampstead Ridges, I think it was one of Staravia’s and I also believe it was destroyed by a fire. Does anyone have any knowledge of this, its exact location or what was stored there. I only ask because I’m currently living less than half a mile away.

Yes it was Staravia’s & yes it was totally destroyed by fire, I knew it well from about ’88 as a friend of mine had a workshop there.As Dave said it is now Blackwater View off Lower Sandhurst Rd & the sheds were where the four houses are now.
Major parts were JP T-3 fuselages, Vampire T-10 pod, Hunter gun pack.

Aircraft I found parts for there ( these were boxed new/reconditioned spares not scrap) were Airspeed Oxford (main wheel tyres), Beech 18 RCAF (rudder), Vampire (loads of undercarriage units),P-80 u/c door, Seahawk, Shackleton,Canberra, camera guns

Reclaimed/scrap, F-86 panels ,Vampire panels, loads of prop. blades

Quite a few parts disappeared over the years I knew it & I know of somebody involved in the buying/selling of old aircraft parts visited the yard on more than one occasion.