To take off from a carrier knowing full well that you won’t be coming back, and who knows where you or how you will reach the ground, or what sort of reception you will get when you get there *and that was actually the plan*, must have taken a special kind of bravery.

RIP. It’s going to be busy at the Valhalla Arms tonight.

Adrian

The airframe looks abbout as unbent as is possible in the circumstances, but the prop tips obviously touched under power – I fear the engine is toast. Still, old planbes can be rebuilt.

Adrian

Working for me…

Adrian

I reckon it’s one of the Hart family (like that narrows it down a lot) – see here:

https://flic.kr/p/aj2vRk

Adrian

After a bit of reflection I posted this elsewhere today. I rather think the meeting came about because of this forum, for which I give thanks for its existence.
Dad was 10 in 1940. He grew up with the skies full of aircraft, not all of them friendly, and his (distant) cousin Ken even captured two German airman who’d escaped their stricken aircraft. So growing up with his stories you can probably imagine who my childhood heroes were.

A decade or so ago Ailsa and I met a gentleman named Tim Elkington at his home. Tim was a veteran of No 1 squadron in the Battle of Britain and, even for someone in the RAF in wartime, he did a truly astonishing amount of things.
He flew Hurricanes catapulted off merchant ships, with no hope of landing once they’d dealt with a convoy raider. He flew Hurricanes alongside an aircraft armed with a huge searchlight in the hope of illuminating enemy raiders (it didn’t work very well). He flew in Russia alongside the Red Air Force in the Russian winter.
He met his wife first when she was helping people shoot at him (he was flying an aircraft towing a drogue for target practice for ground gunners, she was on the ground with the gunners). Later, in India, he flew a captured Japanese A6M5 “Zero”, and the Vultee Vengeance divebomber.
If you want to read more, start here. It’s quite a read.
http://acesofww2.com/UK/aces/elkington/
They say don’t meet your heroes. The Gods have feet of clay. Well, that day we met one of my boyhood heroes, and he was utterly, utterly charming. I’m not sure we learnt a lot, we mostly chatted about gardening and Ailsa sorted out some computer issues for him. Even at 90-odd he was bolt upright, a magnificent specimen of English manhood, I think Ailsa was quite smitten. Furthermore, he was a gentleman in the old fashioned sense, a species that sadly seems to be getting very rare.
It’s not every day that you meet your heroes. It’s even rarer that you meet them and they cook you lunch. That’s right. Tim cooked.
Tim died yesterday aged 98. The Few grow ever fewer. I hope Helmut Wick, your Hun in the Sun of August 1940, was first at the Valhalla bar with a pint for you. I suspect you got in a crack about still having more hair than him.
A life well lived.

Adrian

If TIGHAR would just ask me I’d be happy to sell them a relic that MIGHT have belonged to Earhart, a snip at half a million nicker, what say you?

Art-deco Kodak Duo-620 by gray1720, on Flickr

(it works, too – it seemes appropriate to take it round some airfields so here’s Hatston, Skaebrae, and Twatt – let’s see if the software stars that out!)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gray1720/albums/72157646839526613

Adrian