Seafire 17s Lee on Solent

Again, the Jim Summerlee photo is taken at Culdrose, not Lee.

Can’t recall the Aeroplane photo. I know Brown took some nice shots of aircraft on board Illustrious during RNVR summer camp training from Yeovilton, but I’ve not seen any Lee-based aircraft.

If anyone has any 781 NAS Seafire photos then I’d love to see them too!

[EDIT] – the photos of 3NFW at Lee (note the roof-less, bombed-out Dunning Hangar in the background) are the ones reproduced in ‘Neptune Summer’.

The American side of the spotting pool is covered here http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/airfields/los2.html and there are odd photos that turn up.

There is a 15 here http://www.naval-history.net/WXMemoirSummerleeJB12b.JPG and there is a Charles Brown photo of a 17 from Lee that has turned up as a side profile in a recent Aeroplane.

I was given the Airfix 17 and I feel like making an unusual Lee on Solent one.

Seafire 17

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205125791

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205125790

And more

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=Seafire&items_per_page=10&page=1&submit=

The photo of NL879 is actually taken at Culdrose, not Lee.

Melv

Good luck with that one!

Firstly, the only Seafire III photos I’ve seen from No.3 Naval Fighter Wing were reproduced (at photocopy quality) in the Gosport Aviation Society’s ‘Neptune Summer on Gosport Peninsular’ by Jock Egan in 1994.

781 only had Seafire 17s for a brief period in 1949 and would therefore almost certainly all have been in the Pattern 2 scheme (EDSG upper decking, Sky side and lower surfaces). Certainly I’ve never seen any images of them. Indeed the only Lee-based Mk.17 I’ve seen is the well-known SX299, formerly of 766 NAS being used as a ‘sit your kid in for his photo’ static exhibit at Lee Air Day in 1955.

I do have a photo of Mk.15 LA488 (‘568/LP’) of 771 NAS.

An intriguing request. Any particular reason?

Lee

Thanks Tony, I had seen that one. The Otter in question was parked over on the north side by the fence when I was a kid. This was not far from whee the crash investigation hanger was and more or less opposite my infants school, although I don’t remember it then so it may have been gone by the winter of 1962/63 when I started there. I have often wondered what it’s fate was – well obviously scrapped but when.

From

http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/daedalus/Aircraftsurvivors.html

Any good?