Only met Bob Doe the one time, such a quiet, softly spoken man but, a true hero.
Blue Sky’s Bob

Hello Kev, I cant believe it was 2003 that I tried to help you find the aircraft your bit of armour plate came from, and couldn’t (usless $h1te that I am). I am so glad that you now know the identity of both the pilot and his aeroplane. Although Im not a regular poster here I am a regular reader, and it’s guys like yourself, Mr Saunders, Tony d and lot’s of others here who’s dogged persistence, through research, book writing, recovering, archiving or whatever keep the memory of the air war and the people who gave everything they had, alive and never to be forgotten.
Dezz

From what I have heard from someone who lived there at the time, there was an aircraft that came down on knight avenue (off pier road) in Gillingham and it was American, more than that I don’t know.

First off, Eastchurch, I am sure there is no control tower there as it’s a prison now, however there are some “sheds” there that are/was part of the prison farm, that were the first Short’s factory, reputedly in very good order too, I seem to recall that there was a plan to referb them and open some sort of museum, Eastchurch being the home of Some of the earliest powered flying in the country.
Rochester, I love Rochester airfield, it does have a little control tower, I think not the original one though. It also has the shorts old test hanger. Some of the airfield has been given over to a retail development, indeed the original terminal building was knocked down to facilitate the building of a big poncey toy shop, poor quality homeware shop and a shoddy electrical retailer … To$$ers.. also within the last few weeks more buildings on the site are being demolished to make way for god knows what, but you can bet it aint aviation related, however I digress. Here is a piccie of the control tower and one of the hanger.

Dezz

Just thinking out loud here..would it not be possible to “Hire” said spitfire and pilot, like film company’s do. you wouldn’t then be paying for a flight in it as you would sort of own it for a hour, it would be your spitfire. I’m thinking it would be like hiring a car rather than paying for a taxi, I’m sure someone is going to tell me this is a really, really, stupid idea. 😮
Daft Dezz 🙂

Oooowww don’t you just love greedy developers / land owners, you can see what happens next cant you… no flying from duxford = half of it is now a “brown field” site = more expensive houses “ situated for convenient access to M11” and another pile of cash… after all the aircraft in a museum cant fly, can they??. I can see the sales brochure now..”an exiting development of 5-6 bedroom houses set in the historic surroundings of bob airfield, next to the best aviation museum in the world prices from £300,000” free picture of a spitfire taking off from where your house is with every purchase over £500,000. ohh I hate developers. There are plenty of other places to put a service area…preferably up their ****’s.
I’m off now to voice my objection On their web site.
dezz

I don’t know if MAPS have it at Rochester, or if they know of its whereabouts’, they have a fuselage, and a fantastic restoration job they have done on it to.
Piccie taken 19-06-05.
Dezz 🙂