Barracuda

I was talking to the Curator of Aircraft at the recent Cobham Hall open day and he mentioned an intention at some stage to layout the various Barracuda remains against the outline of a complete airframe to indicate what proportion is available. I don’t know if this is an assessment exercise or a planned display pending further restoration. While I was there, I noted two centre sections in the hangar. Outside, stored in two distinctly separate caches either side of the ex Helston Skyraider were other Barracuda remains from two airframes including substantial fuselage elements and wings. The one set of wings (at least) came from a machine in the PM*** serial range. The full serial was very clearly visible on the inside of wing root but I can’t recall it – I’ll look on my shots to see if I captured it.

Ambassador scrapping at Lasham

I recently posted a raft of photos I took at Staravia’s yard Lasham – I’ll post some more soon. In the meantime, I thought you might like to see a shot of what was happening over on the main airfield in the way of airliner scrapping. Dan-Air was converting over to more modern hardware and sadly their prop fleet was suffering the chop. The attached photo depicts Ambassador G-AMAE in it’s last throws of life. In the foreground is (if my memory serves me right) Dakota G-AMSU entering its grave. This is the “real” G-AMSU (not G-AMPP which was later painted up in preservation by Dan-Air as G-AMSU to represent it’s first Dak. G-AMPP “MSU” ended up with Aces High who shipped it off to a French theme park I believe). As you can see the real G-AMSU had no such reprieve.

Sea Furies, Sea Hawks etc in colour at Lasham

I promised months ago to post some shots from my visits to scrapyards over the years. Sorry for the delay but due to a bereavement my attention hasn’t been on aviation of late.
Anyway, here goes. I’ll start with 10 colour shots taken in the late sixties and 1970 at Lasham, Staravia yard. This was adjacent to the airfield. Airframes were moved between Staravia yards on occasions and some (the Sea Fury two-seater for example) was once at Church Crookham.
I do have the identities of most of the material but due to volumes it’s not really viable to post that level of detail. The hulks were mostly dumped in rows by type and at various times these included: Sea Furies, Sea Hawks, Sea Venoms, Sabres (RCAF), Hunters, Meterors, Vampire, Canberra, S51, DC-3 etc.! If you want to know more or see more shots then let me know!
Meanwhile over on the airfield Dan-Air were scrapping a variety of airliners including DC-3, Ambassadors, B170 etc. (I have shots of those hulks as well if you want I’ll post those separately). I’ve found my negs of other yards (Failsworth near Manchester etc) but those will have to wait for another day! Those were the days – enjoy!

John

The notes I posted were for the mostpart based on personal observations of where those Hastings ended up , with the exception of – you’ve guessed it – TG576. My notes show that I saw 576 in 1966 in operation and had noted down its subsequent fate, (from a third party source I can’t now verify) that it was burnt at Manston …. but if that was spurious gen. then I bow to your better info. Thanks for clarifying.

Promised photos

At last I have found the slides which I took at the Suomen Ilmailmuseo store in May 1998. This provides proof that at least two Mk1 noses survive in Finland. I’ve also attached a shot taken in the same hangar of a MkIV (with outer wing panels removed but stored alongside). The Mk.IV is situated beneath a DC-2 (which I’m told is not conducting some rare mating ritual on the Blenheim despite what it may appear is happening!).