Assuming it is the same F/O B.J. Stephens he is pictured far right of the photo with a Jet Provost at the CFS having just become a Qualified Flying Instructor on the type in November 1959 –
Hi Steve. Have you seen the South African War Graves page for Colin Spry Gooden. He was a pupil pilot killed in a mid-air collision between two Hawker Hinds of 23 Air School, Zwartkop Air station.
Grave is in Thaba Tshwane New Military Cemetery. The headstone carries the epitaph For Ever England so possibly his remains were repatriated to Wells?
I know there were very few Fulmar crashes on UK soil so this helps.
There’s certainly very few listed in High Ground Wrecks (3rd Edition). As well as the Dartmoor one there’s another unidentified Fulmar near Westerdale in Caithness; another unidentified on the Mull of Kintyre and N4074 on Minera Mountain in North Wales. It’s mentioned here – http://wrecksiteuk.blogspot.com/2012/10/llangollen-revisit-beaufighter-ne203.html – that parts seen on a previous visit to the site had been removed by the time they re-visited it in 2012.
I find it quite surprising that 3 out of the 4 wrecks were unidentified despite 2 of them having exact dates when the crash happened.
Does anyone have any idea what images were brought back by Wally Hope from Kenya.? Must have been pretty important to fly them back, journey would have taken around five days.
Hi again, Planemike. Possibly this may have been connected to the African tour of the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII to be). According to reports his father George V took seriously ill on 23rd September 1928 whilst Edward was in Kenya. The King did recover but I guess the newspapers of the day would want to be ready in case he did not?
Does anyone have any idea what images were brought back by Wally Hope from Kenya.? Must have been pretty important to fly them back, journey would have taken around five days.
de Havilland Aircraft since 1909 states that the “rapid flight to Kisumu and back” took place in September 1928. Haven’t yet been able to find what would prompt such a quick dash though.
Sounds like it was for demonstration purposes. On the way back, on 20th October 1919, the aircraft crashed into the English Channel. The Major was rescued but the aircraft sank.
Airhistory.org’s CF- register gives your Widgeon’s last owner as A. Ingham. From 1946 Ingham built snow-sleds leading on to the successful Ingham Motor Toboggan in 1950. There is a photo of one of their early designs which may or may not include all that remained of the Widgeon 🙁 It possibly only used the cockpit area as, from what I have seen, adaptations of aircraft into snowmobiles tend to dispense with most of the airframe and render it unrecognisable. I doubt we are looking for anything vaguely resembling an aircraft!
Photo of the 1947 Ski-Bee – http://goodoutdoors.tripod.com/id1.html
On a happier note, there is some footage of CF-AIQ in better days on Youtube –
There is great footage (although taken a few years later) on Pathe of P-80s being delivered by the US Army Transport ship “Barney Kirschbaum” to Glasgow’s King George V docks. From there they were towed to Renfrew and flown out to Germany.
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