St Athan. Not open to public collection of the 1990s

Ha ha cheers, no probs.. i must have taken a good couple of rolls of film as usual when visiting a place like this.. If it was a modern camera i would have hundreds n hundreds of shots

Thanks Mike J for the correction, duly amended.

Also thanks to pistonrob for starting this thread, it’s been nice looking back through all the photos, although a DSLR would have been handy at the time!

Cheers

Si

SL674

Here’s a page from my website about SL674. Thanks to S-8 for the photos (which you have posted a few posts back on here).

http://www.bigginhill-history.co.uk/spitfiresl674.htm

Tony.

Early swept wing design?????. Probably aimed at the early flying clubs for easier storage but i expect there was an Air ministry reason behind it somewheres??

…..
Percival Proctor III LZ776 – Duxford

The Proctor is Z7197, presently stored at Stafford I believe. The Duxford example, LZ766, came from Skyfame and was never part of the RAF Museum collection

Just occured to me what a well engineered wing fold the Percival Procter had, what was the reasoning behind it?

Aha yes i seem to remember there were a set of wings kicking around outside but i had no idea they were off a Battle. Im amazed that so much important stuff has passed through that hanger, im just glad i managed to capture some of it :D..

Nice to see the Battle outside as well

Thanks nuuumannn,

Of course, senior moment there! Getting my Battles mixed up, pretty sure the wings went to Australia though stand to be corrected. There is another in Lincolnshire which I haven’t heard about in some time as well….

Cheers

Si

Fantastic photos.

Subritsky(?) Battle in Australia

Don Subritsky’s in New Zealand; here’s a pic of his Battle in its present state.

There is a Battle under restoration in Australia somewhere.

The Me 163 at Gatow is 191904.

Hi James

That’s right, I believe Len Woodgate, ex Cosford curator was also involved. The wings of P2183 were in between the hangars, I think these are now with the Subritsky(?) Battle in Australia. Looking at these shots there were a hell of a lot of movements in the 4 years I was there!

Cheers

Si

Fantastic shots Si!
I take it the Battle is L5343, which was recovered by a team under Flt Lt Erik Mannings?

Thanks nuuumann, how could I forget LA198, I have one of her conrods!

Definitely RW393 from Turnhouse, post above amended.

Last couple…

Ki 46 – Cosford

Fairey Battle (with a young me in front :eek:) – Hendon

Overall view of main hangar – MK356, Vampire Me410, He162, 1, FW190, RW393, PK624, Blue Steel and Fairey Battle to left. Taken from on top of the fuel bowser

Cheers

Si

…..
Percival Proctor III Z7197 – Stafford
Meteor EE549 – Tangmere
Meteor WS843 – Cosford
Mosquito TJ138 – Hendon
Me410 420430 – Cosford
Me262 112372 – Hendon
Me163 191904 – Gatow (Handing over ceremony)
Ki100 – Cosford
He162 120227 – Hendon
BMW 003 – RR Heritage Derby (Helped restore this one :D)

A couple of additions to the SWpitfire list based on Pistonrob’s photos:

Mk.21 LA198 wearing RAI-G codes, formerly gate guard at Leuchars, now at Kelvingrove museum, Glasgow

LF.XVIe RW323 wearing XT-A codes, formerly gate guard at Turrrnhoose, now in store at Stafford.

…..

Provost WV499 – Weston Zoyland?
Watkins Monoplane – Swansea Maritime Museum
Messerschmitt TG500 – possibly Cosford
Flying Flea – not known
Whirlwind XR486 – Helicopter museum Weston Super Mare
Vulcan XM602 – Scrapped at Picketston 1993 with XH558 flying ovehead 🙁

Here’s Quepees’ thread, http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=107830 some good pics of the Heinkel 111, Beaufighter, and dumped Shackletons at Saints.

Let’s see if I can get all these right….

Starting off with the Spitfires:

Thats definitely EP120 in the nude – TFC
MK356 – BBMF
SL542 – Canada, currently on sale?
SL674 – Stafford – Spent most Sundays lying prone in the back of this one scraping tar off the inner skins. 🙂
PK624 – TFC
RW393 – Stafford
PK664 – was at the Science Museum, back to Stafford or to TFC?
LA198 – no photo – Glasgow

Other aircraft to follow….

The Canberras look like part of the seven ex FRADU Canberra T.22s that were stored for a few years at Picketston, shame a whole one didn’t survive – Spitfireman here has the cockpit section of one.
I can’t find any Argosy listed into the 1990s, though 4 SoTT did have at least one for a while, maybe the other one was in use with the paint apprentices.

Dusted off a few more shelves and found these extra few from around the same time.

The Tornado had just been brought back from the Gulf after it had run off the runway and broke in half just around the Nav seat. There was still loads of sand stuff in it.

Not too sure what was happening to the Argosy aircraft?, the one in bits seemed to be in epoxy primer and being restored rather than being scrapped. Bit of a mystery that one

Rumour had it that the Canberra`s were sold of £1 each. I think they were all ex RN aircraft??.

That Phantom went round n round

It was definitely on show at RAFM Cosford (next to the Me262), unsure if it’s still there or not.