Whirlwind Ident

Yes Paul even more food for thought I stand corrected on the number of dedicated aircraft I am confusing the number with another aircraft.Thanks Jerry and others for pointing that out.

I think we have decided that its goimg to be standard scheme of the time lets see what comes of everything else.

Interested in the aircraft mentioned as having been overlooked then I think its was Jerry who mention some bit shad actually been recovered and display in a collection.Any More details of that please ?.Either of the crash site location or the collection displaying the parts or Both.

Evening all – and an interesting thread Beermat!

First up for Mr. Blue Sky – Jerry’s memory hasn’t played tricks on him, the incident you refer to in your post was flown by 263 in Typhoons.

The picture of P7056 ‘Pride Of Yeovil’ can be found on p117 of Victor Bingham’s book ‘Whirlwind’. The picture is credited to Harald Penrose. P7056 served with both 137 & 263 Squadron’s. It crashed on 30/8/43 and was SOC. Others of you may know more, but I have not been able to ascertain an individual code for this aircraft whilst it served with either squadron.

It may be a bit cliched, but my suggestion would be for P7102, ‘Comrades In Arms’. It served with both squadrons and survived its operational career to be SOC on 30/9/44. Between the two squadrons almost every Commonwealth country was represented by one, or more pilots who flew the Whirlwind operationally. As Jerry mentioned P7102 was one of 22 presentation airframes. It was paid for by the Ellis’ of Fiji. If necessary I have found a little more info on them. P7102 was also commemorated on a pstage stamp. Please note that although Eddie Musgrave had his photo taken with P7102 he never flew it operationally.

P7123 to P7128, P7158 to P7177, P7192 to P7221, P7240 to P7269 were the next batch of unassigned serial numbers for Whirlwinds.

The argument for assigning the code P7056 also has a great deal of merit as a memorial, not only to the pilots who flew the Whirlwind, but to Petter and all the people at Westlands who designed, built and test flew it.

Hope this helps some.

Paul

The second prototype crashed only a mile from my house, little chance of a rebuild there as it cartwheeled over the field and hoovered up by the RAF recovery crew .

Hi
There used to be parts that were recovered from this and were on display in a small museum.
cheers
Jerry

……there where from memory 11 of them ….

Hi
To be historically correct there were at least 22 recorded presentation aircraft, research at the NA, etc, will provide the documentation that proves this number.
cheers
Jerry

The second proto type crashed only a mile from my house, little chance of a rebuild there as it cartwheeled over the field and hoovered up by the RAF recovery crew. One that has missed the radar is the one that crashed nr Wool dorset, this its likely to have a great deal buried as the area is very boggy.

Hi
I think from memory, at the time of the incident they were flying typhoons, not whirlwinds.

The replica (263) HE one side and (137) SF on the other sounds good.
But to me, it should be just roundels & fin flash, to remember all the units who flew & worked on the whirlwind.
cheers
Jerry

We have not got as far as this yet but my own personal thoughts are a general scheme for the period as carried by the Whirlwinds.But whatever I feel it would be good to in some way recognise our good Friend Shed man.Ray put an awfull lot into bringing the Whirlwind back to life and I think we should also recognise that without his inspiration that perhaps we would not be contemplating what we are now and not only a memorial to the guys who flew the whirlwind and the ground crews but o Ray also.I am not sure as yet how best to do this but I also think that if we represent an aircraft that was named and there where from memory 11 of them that the suggestion that we go with the “Yeovil” named aircraft has a lot of merit.I think representing the plain coloured Prototype or the hack G-AGOI or an unbuilt aircraft serial raises all sorts of issue’s in itself.

There are a number of things in the pipeline at present I currently cant go into to much detail on but it involves two crash sites where substantial remains could exist and we should therefore not discount the possibility of pulling enough material to justify using the ID of an aircraft remains recovered.

So now we have gone all round the houses and still not got a definitive answer so I suggest we wait until we have metal cut and the project well under way then we look at the merits of it being either one aircraft or another.There is techinialy I suppose enough material from Steves recovery in Scotland to raise an identity but we shall see what happens and leave it at that for now.

Alternatively, anyone know any wealthy Argentinians?

Hi
Or one from bolivia or Uruguay, or Columbia, or Fiji, or the other fellowships there were many bellows whirlwinds.
It is also possible that there may have been a pride of yeovil II & III.
In total there were at least 22 presentation whirlwinds,( from my research )
cheers
Jerry

Hi
I think from memory, at the time of the incident they were flying typhoons, not whirlwinds.

The replica (263) HE one side and (137) SF on the other sounds good.
But to me, it should be just roundels & fin flash, to remember all the units who flew & all who worked on the whirlwind.
cheers
Jerry

Not the most brilliant of photo’s but, it’s a nice detail shot…;)

I think it would be nice to commemorate this lad and the machine he brought down in the channel to help his CO…

One per operating unit? Not a bad idea. Incidentally, I reckon the next serial after the last Whirlwind would be P7270 – it was, as Jeepman suggested it might be, unallocated.

Firebex, what are your plans for this?

As it would be a replica why not have two identities? It has been done to a number of museum aircraft before.

Yeah, I guess you are right – if we get a data plate with that wreckage, then that’s what it should be. As for ‘next serial’ – the problem is one would be forced into invention by doing this in terms of codes etc.

Answered my own question about ‘Pride of Yeovil’ – except I was hoping to see codes and the inscription..

Alternatively, anyone know any wealthy Argentinians?

Whirlwind Ident

the next number after the last Whirlwind – spaces between allocated blocks of numbers were often left for security reasons

or

the identity of the airframe from which largest piece of original material (aka wreckage) has been incorporated into the rebuild.