Is TB382 dead?

If so, pity as she had wartime service with 602 Squadron, and was flown I beleive by Raymond Baxter.

And surely even the mortal remains would have had some provenance for a ‘lift dataplate insert new aeroplane’ re-build?

You can see the mortal remnants of TF956 in the video and DVD “Hawker Sea Fury – the Ultimate Piston-Engined Fighter”, available through the RNHF website (see link below). It also shows Lt Cdr John Beattie “po-going” down the runway – quite a feat of airmanship –

Having witnessed it in person, I can only agree, Somewhere I have some pictures taken that day, before she flew and taxi-ing out.

Another factor that would mitigate against the use of Belgrano in and around the harbour is the same one that the Royal Navy were wary of – Exocet.

There were a lot of ships in the Task Force equipped with it, and a relatively static target could expect quite a bombardment.

And the attempts to put Martel on a Vulcan may have been rather more serious as well

The crofters who have the Beau engine know where the Hurricane engine is and who recovered it. Its another example of a recovery done on the quiet where the persons involved are not interested in bothering with permissions and afterwards take the view that its finders keepers.

And hope the MOD PLod don’t turn up on their doorstep!

Not as simple as that, I’m afraid. Early PR variants of the Spitfire were designated with letters that had nothing to do with the letter designators for wings in fighter variants. So, it wasn’t really the ‘D wing’, it was the ‘PR type D’ Spitfire wing. This was preceded (among others) by ‘PR type B’ and ‘PR type C’ Spitfires, and these were not fitted with the ‘B’ or ‘C’ fighter-type wings.

Yes, and as ‘c’ and ‘e’ were more properly the armament designators than wing structure ones anyway.

‘d’ was the unarmed wing

Aaaargh – computer just ate a long reply I made!

Basically, I agree with you to a certain extent Mark – the original IX did not have a wing designator suffix. Spitfire the History quotes the mk IX Type Certificate as referring to the F.IX, with later amendments to include the F.IXE.

As all built mk IXs would have the same wing, then there would be no need for any designator.

Looking at all the evidence, the mk IX used what was structurally a ‘C’ wing – it had the bays for the extra cannon even if they were never intended to be fitted.

The l/e casing is one of those interesting little sidelines, but I wouldn’t imagine it being sufficiently different to require a sub-mark difference (Any more than standard or clipped wing tips, early or late rudder, or original or all round vision canopies).

There seems to have been so few of the single port casing aircraft anyway, especially compared to the other ‘C’ wing aircraft which carried the twin version – I wonder if it was an original plan for the ‘BUILT’ mk IXs to have it, but economies made more sense of using a single casting for all aircraft

Group Captain Brian Eaton flew a MkIVA with personalised ‘BAE’ codes and a Desert Airforce sheild in Italy when he commanded 239 Wing:does anyone know the serial?
TIA
David M

KH745

Source: Combat Codes by Flintham/Thomas

He also used a mk III (FB260) and a Kittyhawk (Mk unknown) with the BAE codes

You do know that actually existed, but is still ‘black’……….

:diablo: