Nashio–

Four of those are decidedly postwar, but indeed it is too bad none of them survives (as a Canuck I’ll add Avro’s C102 Jetliner as well).

The MB5 is a whole other story. It certainly can’t be considered a major type, since only one was built…but it could have become one of the greats, alongside, say, the Sabre-Tempest. And with that contraprop, high pilot position, and wide-track undercart, there’d surely have been a “Sea MB5” as well…hmm, I feel more paintings coming on…:D

In a similar vein to the TSR2 name thread, what, I wonder, would the MB5 have been called in service??

Dave–

Thanks for the confirmation on the Ta152. And yes, NASM does have the cockpit section of a G4M. They had the entire aircraft until their storage space got drastically downsized in the Fifties…there were no takers for the “Betty”, and the bulk of the airframe was scrapped. I have a photo of the cockpit in storage at Silver Hill many years back. (NASM, to their credit, did try to find other collections to take at least some of the superfluous airframes; it’s thanks to that, and to the foresight of Californian Edward T. Maloney, that one Ki84 Hayate survives today, now in a museum in Japan.)

One of the “jungle” G4Ms, recovered as a hulk from its wartime crashsite, is displayed in a diorama setting “as-found” at Planes Of Fame (the museum founded by Mr Maloney). Far as I know that’s the closest to a complete G4M in any museum collection; like the previously-mentioned Bv138, though, it is impressive but doesn’t fully show what the type looked like…

S.

Graham–

Sorry about that…should’ve written “runway accident”…memory’s foggy on that incident since I only saw the ref in a magazine at the time. Quite sure it was F-BEEA though…

Frazer Nash–

Here’s the link…some very melancholy recent photos of what was once RAF Binbrook…

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=88500

S.

Frazer Nash–

Yes; the last “working” B-17, IGN’s F-BEEA, crashlanded and was burnt-out during filming of “Memphis Belle” in 1989-90. The accident was not, of course, part of the film project!

Unless I’m mistaken, incidentally, that accident happened at RAF Binbrook, for recent photos of the “ghost” of which see the relevant thread on this forum at the moment. Time, very plainly, really does fly…

S.

Looks like a neat collection. What on earth is up with the the prop on that Griffon Spit, though? Almost looks like one of the five blades is from a Merlin Spit prop! I’ve seen wacky pitches on static props before…but it usually affects all the blades at once…

S.

Ah, the Arrow again…

It is indeed a shame and then some that the programme was cancelled. What rankles far more, of course, is the decision taken to destroy every trace.

Cancellation of the project, though, was almost certainly inevitable; the Diefenbaker Tory government probably acted more quickly to make that move than the Liberals would have, but the story would surely have had the same sad ending…the anniversary date we’re marking would simply have been a bit later one!

Hindsight’s 20:20, and in retrospect Avro ought probably to have built only the airframe, equipping it with off-the-shelf engines, weapons systems, et cetera. A totally-bespoke system like what they were trying to build was too closely tailored to Canadian requirements…thus unsaleable elsewhere even if costs could have been reined-in. Instead, Canadian industry created a gorgeous monster, which we couldn’t afford to keep.

The sorriest aspect of the Avro Canada story isn’t even the Arrow cancellation, though. A bigger error by far was the abandonment, despite such a promising start, of the C102 Jetliner. There were reasons that project fizzled, but none of them is valid in retrospect (unlike several of the reasons the Arrow was nixed)…and Avro’s departure from civilian aircraft production led inevitably to all their eggs being in the RCAF basket. Result: Canada’s largest high-tech industry of the day, almost instantaneously killed-off with a single announcement in Parliament fifty years ago today.

S.

C-123s do have jet engines, yes…or at least some of them do. Boosters, like those on some P-2s. No C-123 had solely jet power as far as I know, though…!

Ah, Breaking The Sound Barrier…or just The Sound Barrier, as it was called when released over here…so what if it’s historically wonky: where else are you going to see an Attacker and a prototype Swift fly for a movie.

(I well remember a CWH Movie Night in one of the old BCATP H-huts at Mt.Hope, in the days when CWH were quartered in two BCATP hangars. The feature flick? The Sound Barrier. What got the “ooooh!” reaction from the CWHers in attendance? Not the Attacker, or the Swift, or the NF Vamp. Test pilot Tony’s half-second glimpse of two Sea Furies inside an open hangar door as he’s being driven round the airport near the start of the movie…that was what caused a room-wide gasp of ecstasy. CWH people have very good taste, what?):D

I’ll ask this again since no one’s offered a suggestion yet…any citations for good attention to historical detail? (I just watched a chunk of The Dam Busters on DVD again, and for its time, it seems pretty decent…)

S.

…rather than the Olympuses, eh…

Sorry, couldn’t help myself.:D

Back to Siskins in a sec…

Hi Richard–

Hm, interesting: that rundown suggests 3459 left Ontario in the late 70s, while my photo (taken in Ontario in 1984) indicates otherwise! The Yale could have been with Reilly in 1978, certainly, but if so, it was back north of 49 by 1984 and, as can be seen in the photo, without any significant restoration work having happened. Hannu Halminen has owned at least four Mk.4 Harvards, each a nicer restoration than the last (the local joke is that Mr H will not rest until he has owned every surviving Mk.4 at least once!)…I’ve got it from a very good source that he briefly owned this Yale, and BTW he also owned one of the CWH Chipmunks for a time. The Harvard 4s Mr Halminen has owned are 20236/C-FGUY, 20432/C-FHWU, 20451/C-FROA and 20404.

Anyway…I’m drifting us off course here, sorry about that…more scrapyard/boneyard pix, anyone??

S.