R6915Pobjoy Pete, to specifically answer your points.
A) I too dislike the heavy handed interference of any Big Brother group and your suggestions that the Cornish planning experience may be different to elsewhere in England is not true. My personal, South Coast, experiences testify to that!
B) Cameron & Co seem to be sweeping away many of the established planning safeguards that we have all relied upon in the past. I do not support any political party and hold MP’s and ministers to be generally only concerned with their own self interests – and too rarely with their constituents
C) This idea of Neighbourhood Plans is not ideal but if you live close to PP it does mean that you could influence future protection for the airfield in the way that YOU choose. It will have legal validity, it will influence local planning authorities – Cameron likes compliance with his ideas!
D) Be certain that if you do not use the scheme then the Developers WILL certainly move in and work on the basis of Greed not Need.
E) Perversely, this might also act as a double edged sword, local residents ( and there some!) who would wish to see the airfield completely closed to all aircraft movements may very easily then achieve success as they see it. It’s very easy for a layman to justify that by saying we have St Mawgan up the road!
R6915This may post may seem ‘way off thread’ please bear with me especially if you are a resident living in the PP airfield area.
Mr Cameron and his BIG SOCIETY (like them or not) have started reforms to local planning application rules and laws. The PP area District Council should have publicly said by now that they are obligated to encourage parish or town councils to invite groups of local residents to create a “Neighbourhood Plan”. As a concise introduction topic to this you may like to look at http://www.locality.org.uk and look through a “Quick Guide to Neighbourhood Plans”. In that document you will see set out the steps required to achieve the legal protections.
It is also possible that if your concern is, for example, the protection of the only WW2 Spitfire base still largely intact then you could consider inclusion of this in the presented plan. Maybe you could apply “English Heritage”, or “Natural England” if they are the correct bodies for preserved listing purposes.
Think about the now common preservation of your village red ‘phone box, maybe your objections to a PP wind farm, or extend your thinking to an airfield and its surrounding area.
My apologies for seemingly going off thread, yes, very boring and it is not aircraft but it IS aviation … and it might just be what you are looking for but your time to do it is becoming limited.
R6915Responding to Tony T and his post – indeed Sir, you are correct the new Spitfire Society website IS up and running on that link through the Eastern Wing website. Thank you for that information, but I should also say it didn’t work yesterday just before I made my post!
A comment on the missing Patrons list, I stand to be corrected but I understand that only Miss Lettice Curtis, Sqn Ldr Ian Blair, Wing Cmdr Peter Ayerst, Flt. Lt. Charles V. Brown and John Romain are understood to be, currently, the remaining Patrons. The sole nominated Trustee is Steve Beale (from the society’s Eastern Wing). The other names have either resigned from the society or asked for their names to be removed from the list of Patrons.
With regard to the sale of Perranporth airfield, Savill’s have apparently reported that they have had a surprisingly large number of inquiries – possibly up to 100. Even if that whittles down to, say, five serious contenders it is going to be some months for any progress towards an exchange of contracts is approached – I suggest.
To Tangmere 1940 and his comment about David Green – Founder of the Spitfire Society – Tangmere 1940 clearly knew the man, as did I. I can only add that I think his comment understates what DG would say, if he were alive today.
R6915Tony T …. fully understand, but there are apparently changes going on with the Spitfire Society that my management contact knows nothing about either. Accuracy of factual information on any Forum is essential I’m sure you would agree and these people do seem very sensitive to inaccuracies.
The old Spitfire Society website was pulled a few days or so ago. A new website started to emerge stating a new HQ address c/o The Welsh Spitfire Pembrokeshire Aviation Foundation, Withybush Airport Haverfordwest.
That’s now gone as well. Whatever next one wonders?
R6915Ref Tony T’s post yesterday:-
“I thought the Spitfire Society were after buying it, that was in the leaflet that rapidly dissapeared off line, or has that gone off the radar with the lack of Spits being found in Burma?”
I thought the leaflet said, it was one of the ambitions of the recently created company (November 19th 2012) Spitfire Heritage Trust (S H T ) but not The Spitfire Society?
It is true that the three Directors of the S H T (which is Registered Company Number 8299190) are also the current Chairman and Vice Chairmen of the Spitfire Society.
The Spitfire Society is UK Registered Charity 299033. It is an educationally focused charity. To read the question quoted above will, no doubt, concern both society members and the Charity Commissioners greatly who take a very serious view of the potential conflicts of interest that your question could infer.
R6915re Dr Smith’s post yesterday and the attached Terry Clarke Collection photo
(G-AOTM: DHC-1 Chipmunk 22A, To N65312 1976), taken at Wisley 15-9-57, )
Two questions just for personal interest….
Was this Chipmunk one of a pair purchased ex RAF by Universal Air Services Ltd around 1954 that languished for a couple of years or so in the then main hangar at Fairoaks?
The photo date of 15-9-57 was this the date and occasion of the first Royal Aeronautical Garden Party held at Wisley? If so I was there and I suspect the year could have been 1956 not ’57.
If I am correct, it was also supposed to be the first occasion when Jeffrey Quill and Bill Bedford first performed their popular tight display around the airfield perimeter tail chase sequences in Spitfire AB910 and Hurricane
G-AMAU!
That was and remains a terrific show that still stands up well by comparison with some of today’s remarkable events.
R6915Mind slip on my part – sorry…. indeed it was that (in?)famous Vulcanologist Roly Falk who had the misfortune to drop in, in a Wellington! My father was due to fly in it that day but was hauled off at the last minute for something else. Although he was in the Viking prototype crash on June 22nd 1946 when he and several others scrambled out of the wreckage in a hurry.
Regarding that last T10, I think I am correct in saying it was refurbished at Wisley, possibly was not flown again. Then went to the Nash Collection, stored at London Airport (later Heathrow) , but was not on show at the Royal Aeronautical Society Garden Party at Wisley in September 1956 although the rest of the collection was there on that Sunday.
Concerning Mutt Summers, I think maybe a grand daughter lived about ten years ago in the Guildford area. Good luck with the book it will fill a big gap!
R6915Mind slip on my part – sorry…. indeed it was that (in?)famous Vulcanologist Roly Falk who had the misfortune to drop in, in a Wellington! My father was due to fly in it that day but was hauled off at the last minute for something else. Although he was in the Viking prototype crash on June 22nd 1946 when he and several others scrambled out of the wreckage in a hurry.
Regarding that last T10, I think I am correct in saying it was refurbished at Wisley, probably was not flown. Then went to the Nash Collection, stored at London Airport (later Heathrow) , but was not on show at the Royal Aeronautical Society Garden Party at Wisley in September 1956 although the rest of the collection was there on that Sunday.
Concerning Mutt Summers, I think maybe a grand daughter lived about ten years ago in the Guildford area. Good luck with the book it will fill a big gap!
R6915About 15 years ago taking a stroll in the Portugese town of Loule ( just North of Faro) my wife and I came across a small public green public park with good (and much needed) sun shade. My memory tells me we walked past the side of the municipal bus station and up some grand stone memorial steps to reach the park entrance.
Off to one side was a fenced off area with childrens play equipment and that included a gutted but otherwise complete F86 sitting amongst the trees.
Is it still there, I wonder?
R6915Just a suggestion, don’t overlook the investigation / development work that Vickers did with the Wellington. Wisley airfield in the late forties and early fifties used several including, it was rumoured two that were fitted with reverse pitch props.
Gossip had it that one of those fell out of the sky when the props went fully reverse in six seconds instead of the designed for fifteen. Shorty Longbottom rumored to have been the unfortunate pilot.
At around the same time there were photos taken, possibly by Vickers staff, of the Wisley apron showing Wellingtons (in silver thus presumably T10’s) with Vikings and prototype Viscount 648(?) on the apron. Somewhere I have a copy showing the Viscount with a couple of silver Wellington tails in the background.
Your enquiry also prompts a question, why has a biography of Mutt Summers never appeared in print?
R6915About ten years ago the old Spitfire Society journal, I think it was called DCO at that time but now “SPITFIRE” published a photo of P7350 at Colerne in 1948 lined up and waiting for the smelter. I think it was contributed by a Mr. Norman Parker who still lived in Amesbury at that time.
Peter Arnold’s superb book Spitfire Survivors, Vol 1 also carries a copy of the same photo on page 43. But not, I am afraid, anything earlier than that in his book.
R6915Flim flam or a shred of truth?
Extending the question further, a couple, or more years ago, in Canada, the family of a then recently deceased Southampton Supermarine employee said that they had found a family artifact stored for some years. This was a piece of hardwood that supposedly held some Spitfire Mark l flying instruments previously placed on the late gentleman’s mantle piece.
But the Canadian connection went dead on me when a request for a photo was responded to with a request for a valuation ! I said I was unable to do so myself as it was not part of my current knowledge but offered a couple of friends who should know and as far as I know the trail went dead. All rather odd but a strange question to be asked just for amusement even so.
All they Had said was that these were in “Turkish Script” taken out of the ten (or twelve) Spitfires retrieved from the export packaging originally destined for the Turkish Air Force in May / June 1940 at Southampton before onward road dispatch to Castle Bromwich (by road) to re-emerge as the first month’s Castle Bromwich production of Spitfires. The recently deceased gentleman used to tell the family the story that the instruments were in the scrap bin when he retrieved them.
To add a little weight to the story about the Castle Bromwich connection, Supermarine’s Works lorry driver in 1940 was still alive and living in Winchester some twelve years ago and always said that the Southampton works staff were told never to mention anything about these Spitfires going up to CB. Previously when I asked Denis Webb one of their then managers (author of Never A Dull Moment) he always said he would never comment on that question!
Can anyone add anything either positive or negative to help clear up that small splinter history?
R6915Buried Treasure (?)
I had a garage business in the early 1970’s between Farnham (Surrey) and Odiham (Hampshire). The M3 Motorway was close to completion at that time and for several days some of the construction workers going home in the evenings were talking about the “old German aircraft bulldozed ‘out of the way’ of the path of the M3”.
I tried to find out more about this and one customer who worked for Dan Air engineering at Lasham ( and he was part of a team of volunteers trying to get their old York flying again – Merlins OK but a rotten main spar) chased over to the supposed site. There were , he said, mangled sheets of aluminium piled up and some engines in a heap with a Blackbushe Metals Ltd (a local scrap metal yard) truck being loaded. The only thing he said he could find was a production / manufacturers plate that indicated an Me410 (!).
The suspicion was that it all came from an old Farnborough Airfield dump site close to their engine test facility at Pyestock. But other things were also supposedly buried around that airfield. The ‘OLD’ Main Gate area (was adajcent to the Farnborough Railway Station to Farnham road) used redundant WW1 Wolesley Viper engines as hard core for the entrance road way and police watch office. True or false? I never heard the results of the dig in later years.
R6915My First Spitfire ?
As a control line model aircraft making school boy in the mid nineteen fifties Spitfires were hard to find because there were no location lists. Then we heard IWM Lambeth was said to have one on display. A friend and I went to London on the train, walked from Waterloo to IWM and……….there was R6915. Fantastic to see but I was hooked on the Spitfire before that. School boy heroes always flew Spitfires. So we made models and tried to fly them if could get the model diesel engines started!
My father worked for Vickers Armstrongs at Wisley in those years and he kept an ARB approving eye on the fabric covered flying surfaces of AB910 that had arrived for Jeffrey Quill ( and other test pilots) to fly on occasions for the company. (Father was apparently the last V/A employee to hold that approval). In September 1956 Royal Aeronautical Society Garden Party was held on a Sunday at Wisley. With some persuasion he achieved three tickets and took a friend and I in to the normally restricted access airfield.
Jeffrey Quill flew AB910 wearing that trade mark snowy white overall! Bill Bedford had brought Hawkers Hurricane “Last of the Many” still in its civilian livery from Dunsfold. (The book Spitfire Survivors Vol 1 page 98 carries a good colour photo of that day) They performed a very spirited tail chase around the airfield area. They landed and when both stood to leave the cockpits there was considerable applause from all of the aviation people there that day. I talked to Bill Bedford some years later and he said it was unrehearsed and the first of a number of times they flew such a routine.
AB910 was rebuilt as a result of an accident in a Kings Cup Air Race by Vickers at South Marston, Swindon, almost single handed by Burt Luscombe. He told me the Merlin was an ‘oddity’ and he had trouble finding one to use! The paint scheme was a very odd glossy camouflage (!) AB910 was writ large under the wings and the four bladed prop was all he could then find from another source. Today when you look at, say John Romain’s impeccable products, it is difficult to appreciate the problems Luscombe had to face back in 1954 to get a Vb back in the air.
Bedford apparently lived in northern Hampshire and very occasionally put on a display over his house. Quill had a good sense of humour, I saw him also put on a show over Bedford’s house on a couple of occasions!
So for me, Spitfire first and last and mostly in between!
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