One of the Keeling family may know something, as they’ve been there forever, and are still farmers and contractors.

If you look in the “Big book of Spitfires” I believe a mkV crashed at Crays Hill however I can’t remember the ID, and there are 60 pages of mkV’s to go through; wont be much left now, what with all them pikeys…..

“gun sight , cockpit instruments and harness buckles”

sounds like more than enough for a rebuild.

My understanding is that the dig finds were divided amongst the medway group and the magic gnome; obviously if there were “substantial” salvable parts, (gathered together from the corners of the universe) they would have been incoporated into the rebuild, (and no doubt photographed for posterity); no need to worry then……

Appears to be a typo; they do happen!

By his own admission, he had been out of the “industry” for a good number of years, and as such, was unlikely to be let loose on final assembly, straight away.

The union that he was so reluctant to join, almost certainly petitioned the management to allow time served employees to move up to the “skilled” jobs, and newcomers into semiskilled positions.

He says there wasn’t (at that time) a machine available to tap the headstud holes, but another possibility, is that there was a machine, but it could not cope with increased capacity, and so as an interim measure, it was being done manually.

I believe Rolls-Royce did in fact own the Merlin; it was originally known as the PV 12, PV standing for private venture, to distinguish it from a govt order, all othere variants are refered to “licence built”

The Packard engines had “Maybach” cast into them, Presumably because Maybach cast the crankcases, much like Standard did for Triumph.

The basic facts are that Fords built cheap cars quickly, Rolls-Royce (aero) built complex powerful (and expensive Aero engines) at their own pace; other than both being of the internal combustion design, there was no similarity, in fact Ford continued to build side valves with white metal bigends into the early ’60’s (100E) whereas Rolls-Royce had been producing jet engines (and turbines) since about the time that Fords started Merlin production.

An interesting foot note (to me at least) was a conversation between Stanley Hooker and Lord Hives (RR MD) where Hooker explained to Hives that the Whittle engine was producing something in the order of 2000lbs thrust; Hives said “doesn’t sound very much”, at which point Hooker pointed out the 2 stage Merlin produced about 1200lbs (prop)thrust, the rest is (as they say) history!

I’d say the video posted by ZRX61 tells us pretty much all we need to know, the full sequence of events, but without the ultimate conclusion of them; if this video had been posted right at the beginning, I dare say it would have avoided most of the speculation, and the negative response to that.

I don’t understand the attitude that air crash investigators are gods to be revered; my friend died in a chipmunk 30 years ago, the report suggested that loss of control may have been caused by water sloshing about in the rear fuselage, having permeated through the doped fabric…….

Why am I reminded of a group of rubber-neckers stood around a car crash debating how the wheel came off which then caused the car to slam into a bus stop full of people?

Perhaps its just me.

Stop the wheels from coming off, and save the next group of people from the result.
I’m sure we are all agreed what a tragedy this is, and pawing over the A/C’s remains (metaphorically) could seem insensitve, but it seems basic human nature (for some of us) to try and understand why it happened; maybe in some way we want to show that it was a mechanical failure, thus sparing the pilot any blame.

Many of the good folks that have died were aviation enthusiasts, (thats probably why they were there), some might have been forum members (somewhere) had they not have perished, they might even have been asking similar questions, all I can say is RIP one and all.