What happened to the Bristol Hercules (and other engines) after scrapping airframes

Hi Pagen,

I do have other photos but do not really want to hijack this thread. As mentioned earlier a good article on the subject appeared in the Jan 2004 edition of Aeroplane…. (Myself the author)!

Lots more pics and the full story, so maybe worth trying to track down a copy. Some while back I did put a post into the ‘Scrapyard Photos’ thread, asking about BKL, alas no response.

Chumpy.

PS Thanks for your offer of info, might take you up on this.

Superb shots Chumpy, would like to see any others you may have, though might be best posted on the scrapyard thread.

I can offer plenty of info on Llandow if needed, but I don’t know serials of aircraft scrapped there.
Like I say, over 500 aircraft were reduced there after the war, the biggest problem ws local nicking fuel from the Lancaster tanks, an inquiry was set up to see if it would be more prudent to move and deliver aircraft to another site in England somewhere!

Looks like Mossies behind the Lanc.
Similar stories here of burning them.

Yup indeed they are Mossies behind, chaps up on the Lanc wings chopping out the upper skins to remove the fuel tanks.

Whilst researching the subject several years back I seem to recall that Llandow was mentioned as one of the places that BKL was involved. At the time could not find any definate info on the place.

Chumpy.

Looks like Mossies behind the Lanc.
Similar stories here of burning them.

My ex-boss worked for BKL in the early fifties. He told me of buying Mossies for half a crown each (12.1/2p in litres) and burning them to get rid of the wood and leave the metals behind.

Thanks Chumpy, the verticals I have of the two Welsh airfields show lines and lines of white topped Lancasters.
Be interesting to know if the railed out stuff from St Athan reached Kings Norton.

I have a picture of a field next to St Athan full of dumped aircraft, including Stirlings. In the same field there is now a digger and plant training outfit and they have been digging over the whole site for 5 years and to an average depth of 5ft, they have found absolutely nothing aviation related, no shreds of alluminium or nuggets of iron.
St Athan even had a railway from its scrap compound and this included a weigh bridge, so Im guessing any sort of metal that came out of there was important.

Three miles away at Llandow over 500 wartime aircraft were scrapped, very little has been found.

In fact the pic above looks like it could have easily been taken at St Athan or Llandow, do you know where it is Chumpy?

Hi there,
Location is Cosford.

BKL had a rail branch line running into their compound at Kings Norton, this received bite-sized chunks of aircraft, engines etc from all over the country…Don’t bother going to Brum the site long since cleared and built on!

As well as this I beleive that they had a processing plant north of the border, that dealt with the stuff from Kinloss and Lossi etc. But have not been able to confirm the location?

Chumpy.

I have a picture of a field next to St Athan full of dumped aircraft, including Stirlings. In the same field there is now a digger and plant training outfit and they have been digging over the whole site for 5 years and to an average depth of 5ft, they have found absolutely nothing aviation related, no shreds of alluminium or nuggets of iron.
St Athan even had a railway from its scrap compound and this included a weigh bridge, so Im guessing any sort of metal that came out of there was important.

Three miles away at Llandow over 500 wartime aircraft were scrapped, very little has been found.

In fact the pic above looks like it could have easily been taken at St Athan or Llandow, do you know where it is Chumpy?

Thanks Chumpy. Same happened to the turrets?
Questions questions I know
Cheers

Cees

Yup props , turrets etc all went the same way.

Guns and other sensitive / useful military equipment removed prior to the scrappy’s taking over. The attached photos relating to a company by the name of BKL Alloys Ltd, who were based at Kings Norton to the south of Birmingham.
They disposed of vast numbers of ex RAF a/c in the late 1940s. No nothing much got buried or chucked down mine shafts, as is the case today far too valuble for that to happen!

Many metals and alloys were at a premium and as a consequence a lot of materials were re-used – despite the many stories that might indicate otherwise.

This might be a bit off topic but you only need to read structural reports on some Second World War building steelwork to appreciate how marginal the integrity often was – that having been said many were only really meant to be temporary structures.

Recall going to the scrap yard at Siddal, near Halifax (appropriate!), many years ago & there was an embankment just below the yard made up of thousands of sleeve valve liners – presumably the metal was such that it was not worth recovering & they were all that remained of hundreds of Hercules engines – there was another bank made of thousands of WW2 British helmets too – many with painted finish still intact (then!) but none had liners – as others have said everything was reduced to its seperate metals.

Lordy lord Pete, Yes stuff was buried, most MUs and stations with scrapping areas dumped some stuff, but it dosen’t mean there’s a pot of gold waiting the first person to come along with a shovel.

Makes you wonder if anything was dumped and buried!

Several years ago Peter Kirk complied a list / survey of the UK preserved aero engine stock for the British Aviation Preservation Council [BAPC]; I don’t have a copy of the list and as far as I can see it’s not listed on the BAPC website at present.

Just an idea looking at this post..

Has there ever been a survey done or any kind of work that gives an idea of production numbers against numbers of engines that actually survive? It seems interesting to me that we can track an aircarft’s history, yet not an engines.

Regards

Ric

Thanks Chumpy. Same happened to the turrets?
Questions questions I know
Cheers

Cees

The short answer in the case of the many engines Hercs & Merlins etc, at places such as Kinloss, Losi, Brackla etc..they were scrapped.

The engines were stripped down to their component parts on site, this to seperate the different materials ali, steel, phos bronze etc. The material carted away and smelted down.

A good article on the subject to be found in the January 2004 edition of Aeroplane.

Cheers. Chumpy.