R6915In fairness the time taken was a bit longer than clip suggest – possibly 2 – 3 minutes! Did cause some amusement in the crowd when attention was drawn to it by the Tannoy! But all’s well that ends well and it was a superb display with Peter Vacher’s Hurricane.
R6915And, don’t overlook that Mr. Doug Arnold who owned Blackbushe airfield in the early 1970’s also included the occasional CASA 2111 in his line up!
R6915Mark 12’s post 114 brings back memories of my first trip to the IWM South Lambeth with a school friend who was as much a Spitfire maniac as myself. I guess we were both about 13 years old in 1954 and allowed to travel twenty miles in from leafy Surrey by train to Waterloo. (How the world has changed!) The view of R6915 is exactly how I remember it. Our first Spitfire to look at, make notes and sketches so that our flying, control line scale, models might be more accurate. Not that they flew any better though!
1955 and we went again to London and Horse Guards Parade. This time K9942 was on show with a Hurricane and a Bf109. We found the 109 still had the outline of former RAF serial DG 200 under a coat of matt and dingy grey paint. The Junkers 88, Me 110 and He 111 were alongside. Being cheeky lads then my pal said “I belong to ATC Sqn 11F (Brooklands) any chance we can get really close” to the RAF guardians ! The rope was held up for us and we were in. And that meant in the cockpits of some of them as well. I still have the photos somewhere with the programme.
Then he and I plus my dad got some tickets for RAeS Wisley Garden Party in 1956. My dad worked at Wisley and he was supposed to have been the last Vickers employee to have certification to OK fabric covered surfaces. Thus he looked after that aspect of AB910. It was the first Spitfire we had seen fly and J Quill Esq flew it. Bill Bedford flew the Hurricane and that was still in Princess Margaret’s racing blue colours. I spoke to Bill Bedford years later and he told me he thought that it was probably the first time he and JQ had actually done their tail chase around the airfield.
Dad then introduced me to the man from Supermarine’s at South Marston where he had rebuilt AB910 for Vickers and JQ. It sticks in my mind that he said he could not find either the correct 3 bladed prop let alone a suitable Merlin anywhere in the UK and had to make to do and mend to get it back in the air. Vickers had it painted a very high gloss to his disgust but it was to ease the cleaning – apparently!
Just as a bit of humour AB910 + JQ used to turn up all over the place for another ten years or so. I also got used to seeing the Hurricane about 6 miles east of Farnham Surrey from time to time. Apparently Bill Bedford lived in the area and would use it to amuse family and friends at his home. Dunsfold wasn’t that far away.. Then came the day when AB910 with JQ arrived from Wisley and he it knocked holes in the sky over Bill’s house as well !
Times certainly have changed!
R6915May I say a big thank you to all you nimble computer buffs who are making this epic journey come vividly alive for those of us far less computer savvy. Keep up the superb work, please!
R6915The ladies standing second and third from the right have faces vaguely familiar. Are they ATA by any chance? I talked to one ex ATA lady pilot some twelve or so years ago at her book launch. She had written a fictional story about those times. Can’t be sure of her name, now, Peggy ??????
She told me a hair raising story of flying a Swordfish down from the north of Scotland intending to arrive (eventually) back at Fairey’s at ‘Hounslow Heath’. It was desperately needed for inspection and rectification as a development aircraft.
The weather was terrible, high winds and snow most of the time, even the seagulls, were not flying, she told me. The best (Met) route was down the west coast of the UK. She got to Bristol / Filton after a day and a half battling the easterly gales. Worse still, there was a torpedo attached that the armaments people at the FAA base could not get off without some chance of detonation!
The aircraft range was severely limited due to the weather and her inability to find open airfields to land and get fuel. She said the final insult was that the aircraft had a G suffix to the serial number and as a consequence had to be close guarded and she was therefore a very unpopular lady. She did get it to Fairey’s factory and was given a couple days off to get over the ordeal.
Consequently it was the worst flight she ever undertook for the ATA! I cannot see any rank badges on the ladies either that may be supports the theory?
R6915Is anyone able to confirm a rumour that the owner of Perranporth Airfield has withdrawn his airfield from sale ?
R6915Just a knee jerk thought, R. Navy Fleetlands repair yard isn’t too far away either!
R6915I didn’t mention that when Charlie Brown gave that stunning display (on December 8th 2006) over Hursley several of us looked towards the ‘big house’ and were stunned to see that maybe 200 or so of the staff had also come out into the car park and were watching and filming!
To T-21 and post number 24, I would comment that I also have a copy of the Stella Rutter’s book. Whilst Harry Griffiths and another old friend of mine – Mike Baylis – also helped her with that history it is still much more a personal memoir of those times.
R6915I’ve only just seen this thread, to my great regret so….in particular looking back at post 5 and the comment about Denis Webb’s book Never A Dull Moment and just a word of caution. Denis was getting on in years when he was able to get his remarkable book published and when it came to checking proofs he didn’t do a very good job and there are a fair number of errors most of which are quite obvious when you pause over them. Having said that very unkindly about Denis who passed away some years ago it is a book I could never do without. And, I do still have contact with the publisher and will ask him if there any copies still available.
I also have a draft chapter intended for the book directly from Denis on his view of the TSR2 cancellation and its effect on the staff of the manufacturer at Brooklands Weybridge when the axe fell on the project. It wasn’t published because it was really outside of the direct focus on Supermarine. To say it is pithy, critical and very poignant does not do it justice either.
And, there is another book to add to the reading list. By Griff (actually Harry Griffiths) Testing Times Memoirs Of A Spitfire Boffin. ISBN 1-85200-045-7. Published 1992 by United Writers Publications, Penznance Cornwall. When Harry died in late 2006 his ‘wake’ was held at Hurskey Park in the IBM Sports Pavillion in front of the house. It was arranged for Charlie Brown to come down in Spitfire Vb BM 597 and perform a solo aerobatic display over the playing fields that afternoon. To say that he put on a stunning show would be an understatement. He didn’t see the tears in our eyes that afternoon – nor did he hear the round of applause. There are one or two clips on U Tube, but they do not do justice to that display. Harry was we believe the last of Mitchell’s men from Woolston days and he also worked at Hursley.
R6915To slightly update my Post 31 last year…..It is certain that a wingless and tail less(!) mock of Type 316 / 317 was made, hung from the roof structure (with the Spitfire mock up) and destroyed in the bombing that devastated “K Shop” at Woolston on September 26th 1940. However TWO basic 316 / 317 fuselage structures were set aside also in K Shop and these were lifted in the bomb blasts and ‘bent’ around the vertical RSJ’s that formed part of the superstructure of that errecting bay.
Two more books (maybe more) have appeared since Post 31, with very small refernces to the bomber. [I]Secrets Of The Spitfire[I] by Lance Cole ISBN184884896 -X a biography of Beverley Shenstone the Supermarine copany aerodynamics wizard. Next is Spitfires’s Forgotten Designer about the life of Joe Smith – Mitchell’s succesor at Supermarine. ISBN 978 0752 48759 5 by Mike Rousell. This book surprised me with the number of exceptionaly clear photographs the author has found in the archives of Solent Sky Museum in Southampton. There is only a small amount of text to accompany the one photograph of the 316 / 317, but maybe one should consider asking if Solent Sky have more on this topic waiting to see the light of day!
Lastly I was reminded of yet another book (from 1985) now long out of print. Spitfire Odyssey by C R Russell, ISBN 0-946184-18-6. Young Russell started work at Supermarines in 1936 and he became a sheet metal worker. He says he produced some of the fittings for the bomber fuselage but his big contribution is the view of the company from within, the detailed recollections he gives of the staff , the jobs that he was issued with and of course the little snippets of information that are just mentioned and then passed by. We learn that he worked on the two fuselages of the Speed Spitfire project and it had a strengthened fuselage. Only one fuselage was used and that was for N17 of course. Russell also produced a second book Spitfire Postscript ten years later ISBN 0 952 4858 0X. If you can find a copy of either or both it is well worth while.
R6915Try Leeside Tools Ltd in Yapton West Sussex (about 2 miles from the FAA stn Ford) . Just before Xmas they had a couple of Myfords in stcok.
R6915If someone believes that they have reliable evidence that a fraud of any kind has been committed in the UK the first stop now is to use your internet search engine and type in http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ . There’s a useful and lengthy check list of fraud examples that fall within the UK legal system. If you find an example on that check list that satisfies you that you are correct in your belief and you have that solid reliable evidence proceed to fill the online form. It goes, I believe, to the City of London Police fraud investigation unit in the first instance. Or, you can, I am told now walk into your local Police Station and ask to see a CID officer.
That’s serious stuff and beware that broadcasting hints or suggestions about anybody or any group in the UK (and no doubt elsewhere in the world as well) can cost you a lot of money. Remember, too, that fraudsters also like to look at Website Forums to see if they can catch someone making an untrue comment and take THEM to Court.
Applogies for spoiling the fun but think long and hard, first.
R6915In an aged book about the Hurricane I have a photo that shows what is captioned as a mock up of Hurricane with a barbette on starboard side of the cockpit with 2 Lewis guns contained within said structure. Presumably the pilot was supposed to stop the war change the ammunition drum and then start fighting again. Caption does not say if a second barbette was fitted on the port side.
AND underneath that photo, another photo illustrating a partially complete Hurricane on floats. The Narvik Affair time of 1940, maybe ??
R6915I think I have seen this photo somewhere before, but cannot be at all certain so I’m possibly quite wrong about this but, my little grey cell seems to point me at a Farnborough connection here. This is not the Mk lX that Mr Martindale did a dive in from 40,000 feet because a photo of that shows that all the propellor gear is missing. As Mr Sopwith says, where is Mark 12 when you need him??
R6915Lunch time at school near Shepperton Middlesex 1955 or so we kids were stunned to see around a dozen B36 pass high overhead making con trails meanwhile the London Airport (later called Heathrow) traffic of Constellations, Yorks, DC 4 & 6’s, Viscounts and the rest were passing at low level into and out of LAP ! A never to be forgotten image!
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