The pan in front of the black sheds at Farnborough was apparently built over hard core that included many radial aero engines.
I don’t think that RAF Portreath itself was the site of the dumping of the Merlins etc. There were many other sites and I know of illicit dumping into these from RAF St. Eval, for example. Portreath became Nancecuke post-war and for many years was a bit of a spook site before its CBW credentials became more widely publicised. I last heard of it, back in the open world, as a UK ADGE site.

I think it has to be a barrel roll though.

JDK. I trust that at least some others will take my remark in its proper context, rather than remove it from the statement to which it refers. My point was hinting that that a technically slanted historian, for example ,could find the “scrap” possibly of much more interest or relevance than witnesses’ personal recollection in conducting an investigation.( e.g. possibly in the Bader’s Spitfire fandango) .
I don’t presume any total ascendancy in considering differing methods of approach: they are complementary in conducting any enquiry -as I was taught professionally.

Never noticed that SIAI211 in the film – good find Flex! I did remember one of the Gnats was a single-seater Gnat F1 model, glad you could confirm at least one tidbit floating around in my korsakoff-improved memory bank 😀

The S.211 appeared in the back of the box in a lot of the air-to-airs, particularly in the head-on sequencies

People, not scrap metal are what’s important. We sometimes forget that here.

That’s a rather patronising personal opinion , not a fact.

I can.

The war was over, everybody was looking forward to demob, nobody really gave a toss they just wanted to shut down the airfield, put up the shutters and get out of there.

Local scrappies yard was full to bursting point, he couldn’t make any space until the smelter had cleared his backlog, “Might be able to take it off your ‘ands next October, Guv”. Anyway he couldn’t take a Lancaster fuselage on his little Bedford. That would need a Queen Mary, but they were in short supply and probably needed booking weeks ahead from some department where the clerks were far more interested in getting home than worrying about a battered fuselage..

Anything flyable had gone. There’s a hangar queen, some fuselage and wing sections in need of repairs and some ‘stores miscellaneous’ to be got rid of and the hangar can be declared empty, locked up and the crew can be on their way.

Local holes and ponds must have looked very inviting.

Moggy

I think you have put this rather well. I tried to explain this mentality on another thread ref. Stirlings being buried at Kasfereet in Egypt. I know of Merlins being dropped down mineshafts in Cornwall , Sunderlands being flown once, then scuttled etc. Certainly some of the stuff was retrospectively recovered, typically in the 50’s, but there will still be material left. But as for its condition………..

Fellow forum members,
The only reason I posted the information on the Hemswell parts dump is because I came across the post by rev (march 2004
higher up on this thread ) whilst researching another airfield (Elsham) where I lived for a year in the early fifties.
My main interests lie in other directions, Amateur radio, The Western front etc. But in one of my local radio society meetings the subject of Lancasters was mentioned (one of our members was a rear gunner with 50th squadron in WW2 who flew Lancasters ) I have seen his flight logbook and let me tell you that that was eyeopener on its own.
Anyway the now chairman of our club mentioned the disposal of these bomber parts during the discussion that arose, this was over 5 years ago.
Last Tuesday I asked during our club meeting if he remembers mentioning the dumping of these parts along the Lincoln ridge, he gave me exactly the same information as I remember hearing it over 5 years ago.
The fact I saw the comment by rev and carried on reading the following
postings convinced me that you might be interested to hear of this mass burial of aircraft parts.
I only joined the forum to let forum members know of what I have been told, and the knowledge would then be in the public domain so to speak and not lost with the passing of time.
I know the area fairly well as I have often travelled down to Licoln on the road running just above the escarpment.
Looking at an aerial shot I can see markings of the old runway which ended at the field boundary, and it must have been a simple matter to dig a trench on the escarpment edge and dispose of what at the time was considered tons of junk.
What forum members believe or disbelieve is up to them but at least I have let it be known to people who may be interested such as yourselves

Regards
Tom

Tom ,you have my sympathy. Self-appointed “experts”, of which there are many, are the bane of investigation of any sort.