Steve TFilm ideas
One of my favourite topics…Great Unmade Flying Flicks.
1. 1949 Cleveland air races…some great plotlines and a dark but nonetheless Hollywoodlike ending. (New-build P-51C and F2G racers anyone…?)
2. The Soviet female fighter regiments (somewhere on here there was recently a rumour about Peter Jackson having a go at this)
3. Spencer Dunmore’s book “Ace” (a kind of WWII “Blue Max”)
4. Martin Caidin’s book “The Last Dogfight” (crummy title, engaging read…and the hero flies a red-and-white P-38. This one actually was slated to be made into a film at one point)
5. Also by Caidin, the book “Whip” (much better title!–which was more or less a fictionalization of the 345th BG “Air Apaches” in the SWPA).
And BTW, there was a film made, sometime around 1955, called “Malta Story”, which dealt (in 50s style of course) with the remarkable story of the defence of the George Cross Island. Had several Mk.XVI bubbletop Spits in it as well as the wreck of a Firefly standing-in for a wrecked Spit!
Cheers
S. (looking forward to seeing “The Aviator”…and the late lamented Jim Wright’s H-1…) 🙁
Steve TLanc X relics
Peter et al–
KB994…oh no, the plot thickens! The Pigeon Lake fuselage. I had completely forgotten that that one had become part of the KB976 assemblage/project. As I recall, that one, which first the Canadian Military Aviation Museum (later BCAM) in Victoria BC and later 408 Sqn CF had been looking to recover, was more or less a complete fuselage in the mid-80s. If only a cockpit is at Sandtoft…does Kermit have the rest?
Incidentally, the Toronto Aerospace Museum had a display at the CNE this past month, and one of their docents told me they had acquired a section of a former range target Lanc (FM118??).
S.
Steve THi PL–
Nice pix–especially given the tight conditions that prevail inside CATPM’s period hangar. (Reminds me of CWH in the old days!). And that Boly parked outside by the road must have been an arresting sight! I missed that one entirely when I visited nine years ago–if indeed it was there yet. (There was a project Boly in the shop with the then-half-finished Hurri–maybe that was 9944 before she went on show?)
Anyway, two points from the captions. That Annie isn’t a Mk.V; she’s either a I (British-built with AS Cheetahs) or a II (Canadian-built version with Jacobs L6MBs). I forget which. The frame fuselage is a giveaway: the V, as you note in the caption, had a molded-plywood fuselage (with porthole windows; the V was P&W R985 Wasp-powered). And the Fleet 60K Fort was indeed built by Fleet at Fort Erie, Ontario–but not under licence: the Fort was the one and only aircraft designed in Canada during WWII. Intended as an intermediate trainer, a step in the syllabus soon discarded as unnecessary, the Forts mostly ended up as radio-operater trainers (alongside the NAA Yale). The stepped rear cockpit arrangement was ahead of its time. 101 Forts were built and very few survived; I knew of two (the prototype, flyable at CWH, and a production hulk partially restored cosmetically, also at CWH, to show the “before and after” of restoration), the one in your Brandon pic being a considerable surprise!
Cheers
S.
Steve THi all–
Interesting to see, finally, recent shots of at least part of poor old KB976. For a project that began with such promise (she was flown transatlantic to Strathallan, after all, as G-BCOH “Spirit of Caledonia” in the 70s), she’s sure been starcrossed. Never completed by the Roberts collection, she passed to the late Charles Church, and had been moved into a hangar at BAe Woodford for further work aimed at getting her flying again…when the roof fell in on her (tragically killing two workers on the roof at the time) in, I think, 1987. After that (and the subsequent death of Mr Church), KB976, or what was left of her, seems to have scattered to the four winds, with some components at Sandtoft (along with bits of Lincoln)–with an apparent link to the Arnold family–and some belonging to Kermit Weeks and apparently stored in containers in Florida. Then there’s this aft section having been used in a film–had never heard about that. Does anyone know exactly which parts of KB976 are currently where??
S.
Steve TGWFM collection
Daz–
Let’s see: Yep on the Dr.I (they have two, actually)…
RAF S.E.5a C-GRJC (fullsize and very convincing; Bishop markings)
RAF S.E.5a C-FQGM (about 3/4-scale–a Slingsby maybe)
Nieuport 28 C-FEWL (fullsize; Rickenbacker markings)
Sopwith Strutter C-FSOP (fullsize)
Fokker DR.I C-GFJK (fullsize; approximate von Richthofen red livery…natch!)
Fokker Dr.I C-GDRI (fullsize; greenish Baumer livery; currently under overhaul)
Fokker D.VII C-GWWI (fullsize and also very convincing)
Besides the Sopwith Camel replica under construction, they also have the remains of a 7/8 or so Nieuport 17 which was their first aircraft but which crashed in the late 70s.
The green Dr.I has quite a large engine on it, and was once pressed into service as a sailplane tug for Oscar Boesch during the Geneseo NY airshow! All the “rotary” types have (comparatively) modern radials instead. The red Dr.I has a Warner. Think the Strutter has a Jacobs L4 and that might be what’s on the green Dr.I too. The “big” S.E. had a Ford V6 car engine initially but I’m told is now Ranger-powered as is the D.VII. I forget what’s in the Nieuport 28–possibly a Warner also.
They’ve also got a fine little museum display. Very much worth a visit if you’re in the area and into WW.I stuff…
Cheers
S.
Steve T“Lib” on the moon
Forgot to mention…That bomber on the moon was a B-32 Dominator, not a B-24. When I was in a journalism course at college about twenty years ago we used to read The Weekly World News, most goofball of the supermarket tabs, for laughs. That tab featured the B-32 found parked in a crater on the Moon, photos and all, in an edition a year or two later. IIRC it even turned up (not, needless to say, as an actual rumour) in one of the Challenge mags! Quite hilarious. (And corrosion would surely be minimal on the Moon…) :rolleyes:
S.
Steve THi again…
Just back from WIX, and the “Stirling in a lake” thing is ABSOLUTELY hogwash! Nearly the whole thread is a sequence of inside jokes, amusing perhaps but not to be taken even as proper rumour…pity, for just a moment there I nursed a tiny bit of hope that part of one of the Summerside Stirlings might remain!
Cheers
S.
Steve TYo Mike–
Welcome to what looks like the FP Canadian Division! Didn’t realize you hadn’t been on here yet. Plenty of interest on here…
Steve
Steve THi all–
Have to agree, this one has to be hogwash. The “entrepreneur” could be referring obliquely to the WEE Lincoln that ended up in the drink in the Arctic, but a Stirling that ain’t. There were, though, a few Stirlings in the Maritimes during the war. Surely if even a good chunk of any of those had survived, the fact would long since have come to light…
S.
Steve TMark–
Must’ve been a thrill going through that bunch of slides. Wonderful timewarp. I wasn’t even into Warbirds yet that long ago (the bug bit during the early days of CWH at nearby Mt.Hope, circa 1976); but these are the aircraft I remember from 70s mags and, in some cases, the memorable late-70s Hamilton airshows.
Strangely it took me until this past July (Geneseo NY) to see “the first Warbird”, Mustang Old Red Nose. (I did see her dismantled in Texas in ’92 but had to be told that’s which Mustang that was). Certainly was nice to see one of the real touchstones of the Warbird movement beating-up the hallowed turf runway at Gennie…
Thanks for sharing.
S.
Steve TWow. So who said the Convair Sea Dart was a new idea in the 50s, eh! This audacious piece of design must rank alongside the deMonge Bugatti 100P racer prototype of the late 30s as a truly magnificent failure…
S.
Steve THi all–
The chap with “title to two Mossies” wouldn’t be Jim Dearborn, would it? That matches earlier info I read (I forget where). Don’t know whether Mr Dearborn flies for FedEx, though. One of the Mossie projects was the “spare” CAF one, a PR.34A (RG300??). I forget which the other one was.
S.
Steve THello James–
I’d go with Shuttleworth’s Spit V too. Over here, there was one particular P-51 that had “that” look (although the code letters were wrong). I refer to Dave Tallichet’s D model, N3333E “Dixie”. Except for the civil reg and the fact that her codes were “YC” instead of the correct “CY” (343FS/55FG), that Mustang was like stepping into a vintage Kodachrome…Tallichet’s B-17 before its recent refinish was splendidly ratty too as was Bob Richardson’s F model N17W (both in “Memphis Belle” film paint); and of course there’s Lex DuPont’s blotchy and peeling FM-2…
Cheers
S.
Steve THI–
Dave Tallichet used some of his genuine airframes a number of years back to make molds for GRP replicas for display around his aviation-themed restaurants in the USA, and also for museum use (I believe the Lackland B-24 is one such, molded from “Delectable Doris”). That I know of, Dave T produced P-40Ns, P-51Ds, FG-1Ds and B-24s and perhaps P-47s as well.
Up here in Canada there are at least four of the GRP Spit/Hurri replicas with a couple more likely to join them. The RCAF Memorial Museum at CFB Trenton (where Halifax NA337 is being restored) have a GRP Spit on show and a GRP Hurricane in waiting; K-W Surplus in Kitchener, Ontario, imported a Spit and Hurri GRP pair circa 1994, with the Spit going onto a pole atop their Spitfire Emporium giftshop and the Hurri going to CWH as a static-display replacement for the real Hurri lost in the CWH fire (that one stands on the refurbished original gear legs from C-GCWH). And last I heard, the plan for the indoor restoration and display of Lanc FM212 at Windsor, Ontario, called for the airmen’s memorial in Jackson Park to continue as well, with GRP Spit and Hurri replacing the Lanc on display.
I have pix of the Kitchener Spit and the CWH Hurri, but thus far no way of posting them.
S.
Steve TGreat stuff! I do hope the Annie and the Norseman were outside just for this event though…The Italian turbine-L-19ish bird is, I think, an SM.1019, which I’m assuming was a visitor along with the B-17. The very unusual sesquiplane flying-boat is the sole extant Eastman E2 Sea Rover. That’s the first time I’ve seen it pictured in one piece (well except for 30s-era shots of course). Must make it to the west coast of my own country sometime, what…
S.
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