Regarding the cupolas, I was once told that the scrappies would load a truck with them and tour the local area, offering them to anyone who looked as though they grew their own produce! A good way to make some cash out of a component with very little scrap value.

The electrical systems, for the most part, used standard 5C/ stores items, which explains why it’s so easy to get hold of them.

The rest? Well, about as scrappable as a Halifax airframe – and you don’t see many of those nowadays, do you? 🙂

Here’s my most recent cupola find, from a garden “up north” a couple of years ago….

I echo the views already expressed.

Standard electrical parts and sights etc are generally readily available for British turrets.

Actual turret components are very difficult to find.

I have just about enough to restore one each of my FN5 and FN150 turrets. There will be lots of left over components from which someone will be able to start maybe another two projects, but sourcing the missing bits will be difficult.

I’m sure that at some point, most wartime aircraft were tested with different engine/propellor combinations to try and establish the best performance profiles, so there may well have been wooden blades tested on Merlin Lancs and on Hercules powered Halifaxes.

However I’m pretty confident that Halifax III’s had metal de H props when delivered. To re-assure myself, I’ve just checked the Halifax III A.P. and there is no reference to anything other than de H props. I’ve also gone thru K. A. Merrick’s book, and I cannot see any photos of the Hercules versions with what appear to be wooden blades.

I assume you’ve got the serial number for the Halifax III you dug, TexanTomcat? It will be interesting to trace it’s career and may give us a clue as to how it ended up with wooden blades.

For now, and assuming the prop hub is confirmed as a Hercules, I’ll stick with Lanc II and a .5 mounted to fire downwards.

Good debate, though! 🙂

I’ll add my tuppence worth.

The only Halifaxes likely to have been with the Main Force on 23/24 March 1944 were Mk. III’s. These had de H Hydromatic props which had metal blades.

Some (but not all) Halifax II and V’s had Rotol wooden blades, but after heavy losses during the winter of 1943/44, these aircraft had been withdrawn from the main assault and were used for diversionary raids into France, mining in coastal waters, etc.

Likewise the Hercules engined Wellingtons which also featured wooden propellor blades.

Halifax losses on the Berlin raid were all Mk. IIIs, with a couple of Merlin engined Mk. II’s lost from a diversionary raid into France (but these both came down in this country).

This leaves the Lancaster Mk. II as a candidate as some aircraft used Rotol wooden props.

A “lash up” with a floor mounted .5 in Browning gun is possible, given that Bomber Command was waking up to the reality of the Schrage Musik installation on German night fighters and also because Mk. II Lancasters often did not have H2S due to their bulged bomb bays.

Chorley lists several Mk. IIs lost on that night (Sgt N. Alkemade, who made the famous descent without his parachute, was in one of them).

Hope this helps!

Hi Peter,

I’m having difficulty seeing attachments on this forum at the mo’, but one of your pics looks like a standard hydraulic pump, of the type used to provide pressure for the Frazer Nash turrets.

I can’t see the power supply thing referred to above, at all!

Some classic aeros there – and excellent photos to boot. Thanks for posting them!

What’s the betting that the only things to have survived are the Land Rovers? Not to mention the ubiquitous Spitfire, of course!

but it must be the last surviving bit of this odd type.

Not quite. Picked up an instrument panel from one at an aerojumble many years ago!