Visit to the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, Brandon

Robert.
If you are planning on seeing our Lanc at Nanton next summer will be the best time as we hope to have 2 engines running on Lancaster Fm159

Things to do before you die

No 1 Go to Canada (again) and visit the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, Brandon and the Nanton Lancaster etc etc

Bolingbroke 9944

But is this the original 9944? If it crashed, how badly damaged was it? The sign alongside it at Brandon suggests it is painted as 9944. So was it rebuilt, or what is the real identity of this plane?

Bolingbroke 9944

Hi there. I’m excited by the photograph of Bolingbroke 9944 which you posted above. I’ve only recently discovered the existence of this plane, but the registration number holds particular meaning for my family. When Boly 9944 crashed in Manitoba, it killed my granduncle, Russell David Mathers and two pilots he was training at the time. When I showed what few photographs I had of this plane to my grandfather (Russell’s brother) and explained it’s significance, he was understandably emotional. Russ is buried alongside his parents at a cemetary in Stayner, ON.

I am wondering if you by-chance have any other photographs of this plane? I have been scouring the net to try and find one suitable in size to have printed and framed, and have been unable to make the trip to Brandon myself as of yet.

Any information you can offer would be greatly appreciated! You can contact me at:

[email]dan.mathers@rogers.com[/email]

Thank you.

No, Michel, we spent so much time admiring the reserve and display collections, and the restoration sheds that there was no time for more. I shall put up a thread on the museum later, when I’ve sorted my captions out.

Did you get a chance to visit their storage area ?

It is a couple of miles from there on a rural road.

To behold……………..6-7 Boly airframes in various degree of completeness and decay.

Also, a lot a various other birds and parts. Like a Lanc wing.

I believe that Hurricane is a rebuild of 5461. I was under the impression it was a replica, but I am told it started with the center section and possibly the tail of 5461. I didn’t know it was so far along.

Thanks for the pics,

Jim

Very nice, Peter. Thanks for posting 🙂

I think I hear a echo……… 😎

J.V.

Fort text duly corrected, thanks again.

Thanks very much, Steve T, just the sort of information I’m looking for, as I am writing detailed captions for the 720 photos I took during the trip. I’m up to 50 pages for the captions so far!
The Anson must be a Mk 1 since that version is mentioned on the Museum web site.
The roadside Boli is owned by the Museum and mentioned on its web site, so that perhaps was the one you saw. I remember it is a composite, like most Boli restorations in Canada, consisting of parts of many different airframes.

Hi PL–

Nice pix–especially given the tight conditions that prevail inside CATPM’s period hangar. (Reminds me of CWH in the old days!). And that Boly parked outside by the road must have been an arresting sight! I missed that one entirely when I visited nine years ago–if indeed it was there yet. (There was a project Boly in the shop with the then-half-finished Hurri–maybe that was 9944 before she went on show?)

Anyway, two points from the captions. That Annie isn’t a Mk.V; she’s either a I (British-built with AS Cheetahs) or a II (Canadian-built version with Jacobs L6MBs). I forget which. The frame fuselage is a giveaway: the V, as you note in the caption, had a molded-plywood fuselage (with porthole windows; the V was P&W R985 Wasp-powered). And the Fleet 60K Fort was indeed built by Fleet at Fort Erie, Ontario–but not under licence: the Fort was the one and only aircraft designed in Canada during WWII. Intended as an intermediate trainer, a step in the syllabus soon discarded as unnecessary, the Forts mostly ended up as radio-operater trainers (alongside the NAA Yale). The stepped rear cockpit arrangement was ahead of its time. 101 Forts were built and very few survived; I knew of two (the prototype, flyable at CWH, and a production hulk partially restored cosmetically, also at CWH, to show the “before and after” of restoration), the one in your Brandon pic being a considerable surprise!

Cheers

S.

“I swam across, I jumped across for you, Oh what a thing to do. Cos you were all Yellow” 😀

Good stuff. I was going to ask about the Hurri, but you’ve answered my question already 🙂