The possibility remains that there are 2 more still in Ethiopia/Eritrea.

There were 2 still at Asmara airport (military side), Eritrea up till a couple of years ago , one of them a trainer, I have posted on here about them before. These were from the same group the Canadians got their 2 from (on a Canadian website there are pics of all four). The aircraft were complete with engines, wings folded, but located at the dump with several Russian Jets. They then were moved the the airfield boundary with the jets a couple of years ago, maybe still there, but I fear not.

I think there were 1/2 left in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after the S.African recovery’s, reported as being there(a few years ago now) , but never any confirmation.

Have any of you FULLY read John Browns research or Jane’s editorial ?

http://www.gustave-whitehead.com/

http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065976994

or just the comments in this thread ? it would seem just the later !

Over on WiX were I first saw it reported,there are no comments like on here, there they have Americans being toppled as the 1st by a German, so you would think they would have good cause to just dismiss it offhand like on here, but they haven’t.

Back to the Welkin

Looks like a Tempest II maybe LA607.

From this view it’s MW73*, 6 or 8 ?

That’s a shame, is it a one way journey – built for a US customer?

Yes built for a US customer, BUT, plans are for it to pond hop in 2014 🙂

Back in the early ’90’s I had access to one of Staravia’s remote storage sites, (old wooden buildings). I spent many an hour rummaging through the piles of boxes and parts , stored in the rafters were a pair of black undercarriage doors, I looked through many books trying to identify them with no luck. A few months later the buildings burned to the ground destroying everything in them. Some time later a pic in a book of a P-61 on the ground & hey presto , it was them , front gear doors. Had I have know at the time, I would have them now.

The Sabre is another matter. It was a far more reliable engine than it is given credit for. The majority of the issues were solved when Bristol were ‘encouraged’ to get involved in the production of sleeve valves. From the records that I have seen the Sabre was a far more reliable unit than the Merlin by the end of the war, it could easily reach its service time and didn’t leak as much oil as its Rolls Royce counter part (the Packard leaked far less oil than the Rolls version).

I would very much like to see the figures placed side by side for the Sabre and Merlin just to dispell the myth about the Sabres reliability…

As Dave says, it was a far better engine than most people realize. After all , the Sabre engined Tempest continued to be used in Europe by the RAF as a target tug up till 1955, would they have done had it been as bad as its ill-informed reputation ?