Hi Bill

Thanks for your kind comments. I should have clarified that entry on the ejector seat. I actually found that in a chook shed about 400kms away 🙂 Totally covered in gunk as you would expect but brought it home and got to work. Its a Mk3B and some one was kind enough to paint the aircraft number that it was from on the top of the seat – Vampire XA101 which is on display at the (currently closed) Camden Museum in NSW. It will head up there eventually, just a matter of logistics (read:nine hour drive)

Prototype stuff is still out there. I was suprised to find as much of the CAC Woomera as I did (only two ever made & flown, rest cancelled) but then again grandad went to the disposals pretty regularly.

The only certain prototype I have is a DAP Beaufighter rear undercarriage leg which is clearly stamped Prototype Series 2 in a number of places. That came from a house not far from me – it’s amazing what you can find even locally !

Just started going thru the photos and film (phone cam) of the dam trips. Should be up in the next week…
Cheers

Hi Elliot

The blog is

http://mygrandpasshed.blogspot.com

It has not been updated for a while while I worked on the dam – getting up at 3am on a Sat morning and driving for 3 hours, digging away by hand for four or five hours and then driving home again is a little tiring ! But I aim to share the finds and the journey asap as it’s always worth preserving a task like this – one of the things the internet is actually good for ! And yes, I will keep going back up there until I have enough photos of the area including remaining buildings etc, so there is a good current photo history of the place.

AM – thanks so much for that, I must get onto learning to use that system. I will get in touch with them asap 🙂

Yes there will be parts that are different, but many will be the same too – I have plenty of parts collected from here that are FB stamped. Even if it is just to simply correctly ID the part and take it from there, then that is one more piece in a rather large jigsaw. In the end it would be great to find the DAP schedule as well and compare the two, though that is a very elusive creature (currently suspected to be in deep storage at the RAAF, but no conclusive info as yet)

Hi Owen

Anything is gratefully appreciated and always credited where due. Yes, Vengeances were stored at the base and given “the chop” 🙁 For memory they were also used as towing targets…but I’m sure someone else is better equipped to answer that !

Yes it’s believed to be the AWM Ki-21.

There have been a few aircraft that may have been stored at Toc that were not as well known – always a mystery or two lurking around. If you find the pic of the remains of a Boston in the gallery section (it’s captioned as such), check the aircraft that is hiding behind it in the shadows of the hangar. A couple of people have suggested that this may be a Hampden – not being an expert on aircraft ID I don’t know and have not tried to filter the pic as it’s only small and would distort – anyone have any ideas?

Indeed it is a nice Xmas Present 🙂 Why I was thinking it was Beaufort is that all pics I have seen of Beaufort yokes have the firing button on the left and the Beaufighter has it on the right. To me that indicates this is a Beaufort, though in theory I could swap the yoke anyway – the odd bit though is the lever (not shown) which is certainly Beaufighter as it fits to the right unlike the Beaufort…..

Then again maybe there was an odd variant of Beaufighter that had this setup – I am still too new to all this to be 100% sure :confused:

Hi Mark

Thanks for that. Spent a bit of time working on this today – thanks to a restorer over here checking records it would seem it was indeed a MkVIII – MD228

I will try and get a decent pic of it next week as it’s now attached to a piece of fuselage over at the restorers, though my camera is on its last legs – at least Xmas is approaching !