Steve TPaul–
Nice work! I wield a brush once in a while too, over here in Ontario; belong to the Canadian Aviation Artists’ Association. If you’re in the GAvA you may know Charles Thompson; he is a member of both organizations (and ASAA too) and often does presentations at CAAA’s annual conferences. I wonder how many aviation (or other) artists there are on FP…Anyway, keep up the fine work.
Cheers
Steve Tournay
Steve THi all–
Interesting thread. Were Skysport (or anyone else) to have a go at resurrecting the Siskin, they ought to do more than one, and market an airframe in the Ottawa area…I bet they’d have at least one and maybe two interested parties…
As to surviving airframe parts, there’s just the RAFM wing panel that I’ve ever heard about. As late as the 40s there was a decrepit Siskin airframe in Kingston, Ontario (in the Armoury there, iirc) but that is of course long gone; it was probably the sole extant Siskin at that point. But the mention of an engine and prop in a museum in “Carlingford” is a great surprise. By “Carlingford”, might “Campbellford” be meant? That’s where the Carlaw family’s military/aviation collection is; near Trenton (where some of the Siskins would have ended up after retirement). The Carlaws have a fascinating assemblage of stuff including a Mk.2 CF-100 and most of a Canso, but this is the first I’ve heard of a Siskin engine. Or is this actually another museum I’ve not heard of at all?
S.
Steve TBoyyyy what an interesting thread!
Wondered whether someone was going to mention the Baghdad museum incident…Anything that got “looted” from that place would have to be considered “lucky” now, since somebody so comprehensively trashed the artifacts stored at that museum–it was vandalism, not looting, that made the headlines there.
I think that, at least for the near term, any Fury “spirited away” to the West is likely more secure than one remaining in Iraq. Yes, the climate there may be Arizona-like and hence good for preservation of old alloy airframes…but though the climate may be stable, the country ain’t. One may hope that that will eventually change, and yeah, if so there certainly ought to be a Fury in an Iraqi museum (seeing as, what, 75% of the survivors are ex-IAF)–or maybe even flying in Iraq (cf. the Royal Jordanian Historic Flight with its scrumptious-looking early jets). But…not yet.
The comment about “Baghdad Furies” being restored in the West and then lost in crashes raises the old “fly them or ground them” debate. True, several ex-Iraqi Furies have been lost in crashes. Would the Fury population actually be better off had the Jurist-Tallichet recovery not happened? I doubt it…and in any case, that recovery was a transaction, not a retrieval stemming from military operations. One look at Mr Dibbs’ photo of that beautiful FB.10 and I know what side I’m on in that debate! Unless it’s the last one left…fly it. (Provided of course you know what you’re doing.)
That’s my $C0.02…
Cheers
S.
Steve TNH188
Hi–
There’s been some confusion over exactly when (and even where) NH188 got painted in that offbeat camo scheme she still carries (though it is today even stranger than it started out, with a USAAF grey underside)…The well-known A2A shot of her as CF-NUS above the glorious autumn colour is believed to have been taken not over the Lake Superior region–where there are not enough maples to render the autumn woods that red–but over the Gatineau region of Quebec, near Ottawa (and coincidentally where Mike Potter now bases SL721 also in 421 Sqn markings…but correct ones!).
Anyway, I’m too young to have seen NH188 in her COGEA scheme, but in at least one of the books I’ve got there’s a B&W shot of her plus the assertion that she was painted “a rather unpleasant ‘kingfisher blue'”. Just a sec…
…Yep, Ted Hooton’s “Spitfire Special” from the early seventies. The pic is another A2A, this time over Fort William (Thunder Bay) itself in the dead of winter. COGEA scheme with the odd “bib” antiglare panel, white (?) lightning cheatline, white fin top and horizontal tips (clipped wings), reg’n CF-NUS, and the 421 (McColl-Frontenac Oil Co Indian head logo) crest on the nose. The caption refers to ‘kingfisher blue’…which ought, I think, to look sort of like Azure with a coating of dust…! Haven’t got a kingfisher handy for colour comparison though… :rolleyes:
BTW, right above the pic of CF-NUS is a nice B&W ground profile of Spit F.24 N7929A, said to be ex-VN332 and to have been cold-weather tested in Canada in 1947 before civilianisation in ’51 (the testing would’ve been with WEE Flight at Namao AB, who also tested XIVe TZ138 which survives). The F.24 looks very smart in its civilian finish.
S.
Steve TTrenton
Peter–
YES…and I hope someone from RCAFMM is keeping an eye on the H&P stuff. Not just a C-119, but also a P2V would be a good acquisition for the Trenton collection; they already have the Neptune’s successor the Argus on show…a Boxcar would be especially appropriate, though, since Transport Command has long been headquartered at Trenton.
S.
Steve THi–
Hey, neat to see pix of the Argentine Spit XI again. I did a painting of this one flying over the sea in her Argentine civvies. Ran across the Storey story in Alfred Price’s “The Spitfire Story”; LV-NMZ not only carried the kingsize 170 gallon “slipper” tank (like an oversize version of the 90-gal one more commonly seen) under the centre section, but two custom-built 20-gal tanks were fitted in the wings, additional to the Mk.XI’s usual tankage. She carried over 400 gallons total, the most fuel any Spit ever carried, and did indeed go Dakar-Natal nonstop (about 1800 miles), the longest Spit flight ever. That leg was flown on May 5, 1947. I’d wondered what had eventually happened to LV-NMZ…had assumed she’d got the chop, sad to be proven right!
S.
Steve THi all–
Yep, that is a B-24, or about one third of one anyway…and yep, there are two Mosquitos, both of them evidently pretty intact except for engines, in the shot. The one “hiding” behind the Lib hulk appears to be PRU blue, I’m guessing a PR.34, while the more clearly visible silver job looks like a T.3.
This stuff and the welter of other scrapyard views are very nearly enough to make this Canuck night-owl want to hurl himself off a bridge… 🙁
Fantastic stuff though; at least a few enthusiasts captured it on film! Might make me a masochist, but I look forward to seeing more…
S.
Steve THughes F-11
Actually not quite…The XF-11 (and the Republic XF-12 “Rainbow”) were expressly built for high-speed, high-altitude recon (“F” having meant “recon” in the then-current USAAF designation system…no idea why). The P-61 was a night fighter design. However…ultimately the F-15 Reporter version of the Black Widow did indeed take on the role envisaged for the Hughes and Republic prototypes, at least in part.
Looking forward to seeing the film; however from what I saw on TV the other evening, I think CGI is still a bit away from being a truly suitable substitute for The Genuine Article…
S.
Steve TSteve–
Silly boy, indeed… 😀
Two speed-record types that have always appealed to me are the Napier-Heston and the Hughes H-1. No pix, though…but I’ll still take a Fury anyway.
S.
Steve TAll–
Wonderful to see this exchange. In childhood I remember assembling at school for these tributes on 11 November, without really understanding them. Since then, having taken an interest in history (and old airplanes), and having been privileged to meet and talk with many a vet (especially when working at CWH back in the 80s), I “get it” much more accurately, and try to observe the silence at 11am on 11/11–or to get to a commemoration. I work a lot of evening shifts so am often “free” at the appropriate time. One year I sat for several minutes in absolute silence in my loft (where a bunch of aviation memorabilia is kept) on 11/11 and simply reflected. This year was special: I was at home again; switched off the stereo at 11, all was quiet. Opened my front door. From the south came a certain sound. Across the sombre grey sky thundered the Lancaster, as though appearing specifically for me. Wow. I am at a loss to explain how that sight renders me lump-throated and swimming-eyed…I was born twenty years after World War II…but then again I’m sure I’m not wholly alone. I hope not, at any rate…There were comments in today’s local paper to the effect that the vets themselves are noticing an upswing in the attention (and tribute) paid the sacrifices made long ago. I certainly hope that perception is an accurate one, and that such a trend continues.
S.
Steve TBB–
Wow! Now there’s a way to paint one’s P-47…especially if one were game to turn a pylon or two at Reno. That is just superb; thanx for posting the pix. You say there was a Spit in the same scheme…and this was in the Mideast? I’ll bet that Spit would have been the inspiration for Ezer Weizman’s famous Israeli AF “Black Widow” Spitfire…even the T-Bolt in this livery made me think of old “20:57”.
Cheers
S.
Steve TNH188
Guys–
It’s worse…In the early 60s (and as late as the early 80s iirc) NH188 was indeed green/brown/Sky. Today, though, the top side’s the same ’60s mess(white “football jersey” code letters and all)…but the belly and spinner are in a shade closely reminiscent of fresh USAAF Neutral Grey! Yeowch. (And then Mike Potter has SL721 refinished in beautiful early-1945 livery…from 421, the same squadron. Just as well NH188 is always inside CAvM and SL721 never is! The comparison would be way too obvious…I certainly hope CAvM refinishes their Mk.IX someday, though, of course, they have many more pressing things to accomplish before a thing like that…and they have a superb collection, minor quibbles about paint on one airframe aside…)
S.
Steve THey, nice to read of the esteem in which our good ol’ homegrown Chipmunk is held! One sees quite a few of them up here; nearly all of them sooner or later take on some variation of 50s-60s RCAF yellow training livery, and I’ve only seen one or two in Canadian registry with non-DH power. Hadn’t seen this “AVG” spin on the Chip before…it’s certainly striking. I have seen re-engined Chips at shows Stateside wearing equally warlike tongue-in-cheek liveries…one was pretending to be a Spitfire 24, the other a Sea Fury! Would post pix if I had the means to.
S.
Steve THi–
One of the mags had a Stuka survivors survey not very long ago; there was a shot in there of the Ju87 components Mr Lacey owns. File under “daunting”!
S.
Steve TCan think of a couple off the top of my head…
–the P-40L found off Anzio (?) some years ago and now on show more or less as found in a museum nearby
–the P-51D “Little Zippie” displayed at the Clacton Martello Tower museum, pulled from the sea off Clacton Pier where she ditched in 1945 (the pilot sadly drowned trying to swim for shore)
–the F3F at Pensacola
…This would make an interesting subject for a magazine piece. (And yeah, quite the burst of activity over on WIX, stemming from Chris “Harvard IV” making a perfectly innocent inquiry about P-47s and P-38s reported deep-sixed off Guam at war’s end. Never was a real answer to that…instead this huge debate about how worthwhile ocean recoveries are. I think the lovely A6M-2 trainer shown at the top of this thread ends that debate nicely!) 😀
S.
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