Just found this in my Inbox and I’m surprised it isn’t posted here. Now, does this leave the Spence with another Swordfish hulk or not? Anyone have any info on the current locations of all the ex-RCN ‘fish survivors?
Jim
from the Times of Malta
A Fairey Swordfish, one of the rarest World War II airplanes which the
Ta’ Qali Aviation Museum bought from Canada, has now arrived and is
awaiting restoration as another long-term project by the museum.
Ray Polidano, director general of Aviation Museum Foundation, said the
restoration of the Swordfish would take about 10 years and cost close to
half a million liri.
“The museum is extremely grateful to its volunteers who carry out
painstaking restoration which commercially costs about £m 30 an hour,”
Mr Polidano added.
The Swordfish was one of the most unusual combat aircraft of World War
II. It was a big, slow, and cumbersome biplane. It looked obsolete but
managed to serve until the end of the war. At first, Swordfish planes
operated from the large fleet carriers but later operated from escort
carriers and were most effective against U-boats.
Only 12 of this plane remain worldwide and the Aviation Museum will give
its plane pride of place with other aircraft at the Battle of Malta
Memorial Hangar which the museum is planning to build.
Out of the 12 surviving Swordfishes in various stages of restoration,
one is in flying condition in Canada, two are in the U.K. with the Fleet
Air Arm. and there is another also at the Fleet Air Arm which is being
restored to flying condition.
The Swordfish was bought by the museum from Bob Spence, a Canadian
collector of planes.
The Swordfish, HS491, which the museum bought, was made in February 1943 for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It had been dumped in a scrap yard after it was written off in 1946. Mr Spence bought it in the 1970s,
cannibalising it to restore another Swordfish.
The versatility of the Swordfish was immortalised in its moniker, the
Stringbag. The planes became famous for the attack on Taranto, where the battleship Littorio was sunk and two others were heavily damaged.
In May 1941, Swordfish planes from HMS Ark Royal crippled the
Bismarck — a most impressive success for such an old-fashioned
aircraft.
The museum has for the past nine years also been restoring a Hurricane
which was fished out of the sea close to Wied Iz-Zurrieq.
Mr Polidano said Mr Spence had been greatly impressed by the restoration
work the museum had done on the Hurricane and offered to sell them the
HS491.
The aircraft parts were purchased for 50,000 Canadian dollars, or £m
13,000. The money came mainly from a hefty donation by DavidDalton, a
British flying enthusiast.
The proceeds from the sale of a 1982 Cadillac donated by the late
Charles Puglisevich, former honorary consul general of Malta in
Newfoundland, also went towards the purchase.
The Swordfish the museum will restore had not operated in Malta. The
third model ever produced in Britain, the K5934, was delivered to the
anti-aircraft cooperation unit in Malta, along with another good number
of Swordfish planes.
“The planes operated mainly at night because of their remarkably low
speed and some were equipped with floats to operate from the water,” Mr
Polidano explained.
By: Mark9 - 30th September 2004 at 12:05
Don’t worry Mike, Flood’s been feeding lines to Anna to shore up his position.
Toys back in the pram and do your own posting Flood, there’s a nice chap.
😀 Rubbish, its the much researched Anna at the controls 😉 :rolleyes: 😀 😀 Anna 😮
By: JDK - 29th September 2004 at 23:03
Having just done an article on the Swordfish, I’ll pop in a quick tuppence. First off, great news.
I’d like a quick show of hands who think there’s too many survivors. Thank you. Now is it rare? Yes, indeed thank you. Is that your own hair you are splitting? How madly fascinating.
As of this year, there is one flyer worldwide (C-GEVS) plus two normally airworthy, one theoretically airworthy, but grounded, and one under active restoration, long term, to fly. That’s hardly tripping over them in the supermarkets, and compared to the equally important Avenger (Tarpon if you must) where a doz airworthy turned up at a show recently, not common. Can we settle for adequately rare?
Cheers!
Tracking down reliable data on the ex-Simmons airframes would be a worthwhile task on the other hand, and to the best of my knowledge, no-one, myself included has REALLY got it sorted. It’s a problem all bolt-together a/c of the late thirties seem to suffer from – Glad, Hawker biplanes, etc…
By: Mark9 - 29th September 2004 at 22:48
Messerschmitt Me 209 V1, PZL P.11C , and ernst udets Curtiss hawk II which are not quite WW1 left overs! :p :p Anna 😀 😀 😀 😀 :dev2: :dev2: 😎 😎
By: Mark9 - 29th September 2004 at 21:08
We have already discussed the Berlin Museum survivors, and nearly all of them are sole survivors of their type. So the swordfish could hardly be discribed as “one of the rarest ww2 aircraft” . :p :p Anna 😀 😀 :dev2: :dev2: :dev2: 😀 😉
By: MRP - 29th September 2004 at 19:46
Further clarification- Mark 12’s picture is of the Swordfish now restored and displayed at the Shearwater Aviation Museum in Dartmouth NS. This and another example used in the restoration came from Ontario and were not part of the Simmonds collection.
One of them had come from a farm owned by Cameron Logan, (where Jack Arnold had obtained a number of Hurricane center sections from).
The combined components of the two aircraft were restored at Downsview in Toronto, shipped down to Shearwater NS , where it was flown once and put in to the museum.
MRP
By: Flood - 29th September 2004 at 19:45
16 or so survivors
http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/Aircraft/Preserved/Swordfish.html
So quite rare compared with the much more common Spitfires, Hurricanes, B-17s, P-51s, etc, Flood 😉
My mind does not revolve around such common types (common as in populous) and I would have thought that you might have understood that, as opposed to treating my reply with obvious disdain or scorn. Hope you had a side-splitting giggle as you typed it in…
And so:rolleyes:, therefore, the Swordfish is not as rare as…(just a small sample selection):-
Avro Lincoln
Curtiss SB-2 Helldiver (unless more are dredged up…)
Fairey Albacore
Fairey Battle
Fairey Fulmar
Fiat CR42
Gloster Gladiator
Handley Page Halifax
Handley Page Hampden
Hawker Typhoon
Martin Marauder
NA F-82 Twin Mustang
NA P-64
Northrop P-61 Black Widow
Short Sunderland, Solent, Sandringham
Vickers Wellington
Any Aichi, Arado, Blackburn (pre and WWII), Blohm & Voss, Boulton Paul, Brewster, Dornier (pre and WWII), Focke Wulf (last I heard the FW190 had 16 survivors), Heinkel, Junkers (except Ju52), Kawanishi, Kawasaki, Macchi (WWII), Messerschmitt (WWII, not Bf109 series), Mitsubishi (WWII except A6M series), Nakajima, Riggione, Savoia-Marchetti (WWII), aircraft (except those noted) which are all either at or below the survival levels of the Swordfish. This is without even mentioning civilian types that are down to ‘rare’ levels, or first and inter-war military types either. Or those types that are definately extinct.
But you would happily call the Swordfish “one of the rarest World War II aircraft”, would you Mike?:rolleyes: That was my point – that a museum can give the impression that they have a rarity: yes, 16 (or 18?;)) is not a huge amount from a huge production run but you could halve that number and there would still be more survivors than quite a few of the types/manufacturers named above.
Flood
By: MRP - 29th September 2004 at 19:31
My understanding is that the Reynolds aircraft came via Calgary and prior to that it was with Enzenhofer. It had been offered as a trade .
Kermit Weeks has a Swordfish as well. It is stored in his Hanger across the road from FofF. This is also an ex- Simmonds bird. I dont know the number.
Didnt the Bristol(US) bird come from Dave Tallichet.
MRP
By: Mark12 - 29th September 2004 at 19:08
I think Enzenhofer had HS498. I also see some listings showing NASM having a Swordfish, but they don’t have it listed on their web site.
See the confusion?
Jim
Thanks Jim,
I can’t locate the Enzenhofer photo but I did find this one. It is from Jack Arnold and reads on the back:-
“Found this Swordfish in 1979 and donated it to the Navy at Halifax”
This is one of two located and recovered by Jack Arnold in Canada and donated by him to the Fleet Air Arm at Halifax in 1980.
Does this tell us anything we didn’t know?
Mark
By: AirJimL2 - 29th September 2004 at 17:43
I think Enzenhofer had HS498. I also see some listings showing NASM having a Swordfish, but they don’t have it listed on their web site.
See the confusion?
Jim
By: Mark12 - 29th September 2004 at 17:39
Didn’t Carl Enzenhofer in Vancouver, either singly or as part of a consortium, have a Swordfish there in the early 1990’s?
I think I have the photo he sent me somewhere.
Mark
By: D. Bergstrom - 29th September 2004 at 17:31
Here’s what I was told about the Bristol Heritage Swordfish:
RCAF serial #813, F/A #1155 or 1849
Dennis
By: AirJimL2 - 29th September 2004 at 17:20
Guys,
Thanks for the listing of survivors, but I still wonder about a few planes:
HS509 – could this be the other Spence hulk?
HS517
One airplane sold from Simmons to Waco Texas, USA
One airplane sold from Simmons to Spruce Goose Memorial, CA, USA – is this the now CAF restoration project?
A couple of planes that went from Simmmons to Luther Young in FL USA
One airplane that was on display with Niagria Museum of Flight, Canada in the 1970s
What plane does Bristol Heritage have?
Where did the Reynolds plane come from?
Is there a Swordfish at the Aero Museum in Calgary?
Jim
By: Papa Lima - 29th September 2004 at 16:49
1939 Fairey Swordfish RCAF HS498 parts, awaiting restoration. Powered by a 690 hp Bristol Pegasus 9-cylinder radial engine and known affectionately as the “Stringbag”, this particular aircraft last flew in 1948.
Photographed at the Reynolds reserve collection, Wetawaskin, Canada
By: Mark12 - 29th September 2004 at 16:48
Swordfish to Malta
Photo and report in the November 2004 Flypast.
Mark
By: Flood - 29th September 2004 at 16:44
I am sure that anyone with a current/recent Warbirds Directory would be able to fill in the survivor gaps…
A Fairey Swordfish, one of the rarest World War II airplanes which the Ta’ Qali Aviation Museum bought from Canada, has now arrived and is awaiting restoration as another long-term project by the museum.
There just has to be rarer aircraft out there – a type that (much as I love it) has three flyers and another well on its way to flying can not be classed as rare, can it?
Flood
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September 29, 2004 at 4:31 pm