Re the Shuttleworth PR XI Spitfire. I remember this aircraft very well. In the car park creating a roundabout!  This is PL983. Flying today as the THANK YOU NHS Spitfire. It was quite a famous aircraft from the post war air racing era. Owned by the US Embassy with a US registration for a period and frequently flown (succesfully) in the UK by Lettice Curtis who later wrote a small book about her exploits in it.

But the later background is also interesting. I think it was acquired by Doug Arnold for his collection. After his death it eventually went to Justin Fellowes and Martin Sargeant. Martin reassmbled it at his garage premises in Goudhurst, Kent and took it along the road to his personal airstrip. This would be around 2000. He did fly it but lost his life in it at an air show at Rouen Bouse, France in July 2001.  An appaling accident, the Directors of the show there apparently had an emergency landing strip parallel to the main runway.

The aircraft suffered a double magneto failure in flight and three ‘buddies’ in their Spitfires  lined him up to land dead stick on that strip behind the grandstand. He was very low when one of the three buddies told him there were people sitting on the strip (supposedly having picnics we later heard). The buddies obviously had to break away from him as he banked to get down in a field along side the airfield. Martin ran out height, stalled and died. I believe to this day the French Air Accident authority still call this an accident caused by pilot error. Some of us do not believe it. Martin was a good man and much missed by us all these years later.

However, the insurance company offered the remains to John Romain at ARCO Duxford for parts salvage. The story I was told by J.R. was that as a young child his parents took him and his sister occasionly to Old Warden to see a show and he noticed it and remembered it. It was his inspiration to create that company we all know today. Having acquired the remains of PL983 it took him a lot of years in between fee paying rebuilds to get it flying again and it is his personal aircraft.  It is worth Googling just PL983 to get the accurate and full story he recently gave an interview to a noted Aviation Journalist as these notes are written from memory to make sure that you have the full detail.  Enjoy, it is a very good read.

With respect to Prop Strike and other correspondents on this string. The Wisley RAES Garden Party was probably held on Sunday September 16th 1956 and I was there with a school friend and my father who had worked there since 1943.  He introduced me to Arthur Lusocmbe who was based at Supermarine’s South Marston works where he rebuilt AB910 in the period 1953 to 1955. He told us of the many problems he had with it to get back into flying condition and that what we saw was a series of compromises. It had suffered an accident previously whilst taking part in an air race in the Midlands possibly earlier in 1953. My father remained invloved with AB 910 at Wisley for 10 years or so. He was the last Vicker’s employee to still have (ARB?) certification for signing off The Irish Linen doped flying surfaces in the company!  And yes he was involved in the replica GunBus and later the VIMY replicas built at Brooklands

Yes it was probably the first Spitfire painted in a very high gloss finish and in civillian hands. Jeffrey Quill was around this time working at the Brooklands HQ usually ‘flying a desk’. Vickers Armstrongs wanted a Spitfire for him to display in the air at a variety of events as a PR exercise for the company. Well, who better? The Merlin was the only one they could find and it certainly wasn’t correct to the Mark and nor was the 4 blade propellor. It was kept at Wisley for a number of years and on rare occasions we would see it flying around that area of Surrey. It is rumoured – but unproven – that if he ‘enjoyed’ a frustrating morning of paperwork he could give a scintilating show at lunch time over Brooklands!

The last time JQ flew it? I would offer a guess at the day it was presented back to the RAF’s BBMF in 1966. Around 1968.  I had a chat with Bill Bedford about Hawker’s last Hurricane that had also gone to the BBMF about that Wisley day. I enquired about the the vigorous tail chase that he and JQ carried at Wisley that Sunday in 1956. He laughed and said that it was the first time they had done it unrehersed and it was repeated frequently in the late 1950’s and early 60’s. They took it in turns to lead the other! So could that be the basis for the Air Races at Wisley?

One post mentions Peter Twiss flying the Swordfish at Wisley at Wisley. I asked him about that many years later and he said no, he flew Fairey’s Fulmar that day as  it was just after he had broken the World Air Speed in the Fairey Delta Two. They tossed a coin for it, he said, and lost! He then asked me if I recalled that Fiarey also sent their Brass Band to entertain the crowds there that day? Actually I did!

Back to Bill Bedford, I believe his family home was somewhere around Hindhead / Haslemere, Surrey near the Hampshire border. I saw one occasion on a Sunday afternoon when AB910 was flown for 15 minutes or so around that district knocking holes in the sky! That was around the time when I also saw a Hurricane doing the same thing in the same area!  Those were the good days!

Now those Walrus photos really do show great promise. Dare one ask, is there a rough first flight year pencilled in yet? Or as with the ARCO Lysander, work steadily pedals away as and when time permits away from time specific job? Are the wings yet underway?

As an aside question, is the Walrus undercarriage pump really the same as early Mark l Spitfires? Are the rudder pedals also the same? Or is that just a nice fireside tale for long evenings?

One thing we can be sure of is that when the ARCO team are finished it will be another amazing piece work gracing our skies – and air shows!

Almost certainly, Aerotony, it is. Photographs of it? I suggest that you have a word with the Archivist at Solent Sky Museum. It was brought back to Southampton and parked for a some time in the Museum’s yard. Maybe they can help you?

I do not know the current return to air situation (can anyone help, please?) but it was at the Vintage Fabrics facility at Audley End. However I heard some gossip suggesting that it may have moved on to a group at Duxford – but don’t rely on that comment.

Let’s face it, it is probably now about as good as it is ever going to be.  The comment that the budget for the Forum has run out seems to me to be about right. So do we shrug our shoulders and put up with it and just let it fizzle out?  Or do we start to try new interesting topics in the hopes that the occasional previously valued  members of the old community will gradually come back in and join up again?

Of course all that has happened is a great tragedy so could we make the best of it? What’s the consensus of opinion?

Just had another look to be certain. It is back and in the correct date order too.   Either it’s egg on the face of the thread is reinstated!

dhfan,

I think that your proposition that Mutt Summers was not based at Eastleigh is correct.  Brooklands, Weybridge would be correct.  Alex Henshaw in his biography mentions his ‘job interview’  with Summers in his office at Brooklands.  But, as Chief Test Pilot for the Vickers Armstrongs aviation division Summers also had responsibilities for Supermarine’s products at their airfield. That was only Eastleigh in 1936 of course. 

With Jeffrey Quill working as one of Summer’s pilots his main focus was the Woolston Southampton products. But, JQ could be called to Brooklands to test fly some of their products too. Hence he had, one one occasion, had to depart from a Wellesley in a hurry under a parachute!

Thanks as ever to Schneiderman for reminding us more accurately than my memory of the Aeroplane article April 2006 that included a photo of the Supermarine memo with the date and accurate time of day for the first flight. 

As to why relatively later in the day? Mitchell wanted to be there and no doubt some of his senior managers too. Just maybe it happened to be more convenient for the party to gather?  Or was there a technical snag earlier?  Will we ever know?