Hi there Seafuryfan,

I join Laurie in thanking you for your kind words. The thread which started off by commemorating Neil Williams has developed in an interesting way. My very personal memories of the HAPS / Reflectaire era are as vivid now as they ever were.

I have many a story to recall from those early days of the British Aviation Preservation scene. from becoming a member of the Historic Aircraft Preservation Society (HAPS) in 1965 as a rather young, but enthusiastic, aircraft enthusiast, through the upheavals of the late 60s that resulted in the formation of the company Reflectaire Ltd.

Lancaster NX611 was my strong favourite amongst all the aircraft that HAPS & later Reflectaire had in their collection. This aircraft was the reason that I threw in my ‘desk job’ (Inland Revenue !!!! – Booooooo!) and became one of a very small band of full time “employees” of Reflectaire Ltd. The real behind the scenes story of the “Reflectaire Saga” as it has sadly become titled (in many a Forum thread) over the years has never to my knowledge ever been aired (in public forum that is, anyway!).

The unsung (and largely volunteer) people who dedicated themselves to the task of trying to preserve some irreplacable examples of our wonderful and rich aviation heritage have never been properly recognised for their efforts in my opinion. Often in extreme conditions, such as the bitter winter of 1969 at Lavenham airfield in Suffolk, young lads (and lasses) from differing parts of the southeast of England joined in with ‘locals’ in an often unthankful task of looking after those aircraft. Very limited resources were available in those days to assist them with the task of preserving the precious airframes in their ‘care’ so it is no wonder that things were tough and often mistakes happened, with resulting recriminations being aired, often too much in public !! Many mistaken decisions were made and personal differences amongst those “in charge” of the proposed museum venture appeared to take precedence over the primary objective, that of securing these valuable and historic items of our heritage for generations to come !!!

To some extent the efforts of this ‘unsung’ band did, in no small part, help to keep a number of these aircraft from being consigned to history. Without them I am almost sure that certain aircraft (NX611 and VP441 in particular) may not have been around today in their current condition.

These utterings may indeed provoke some different response(s) from contributors to this Forum, but I will risk that ! I, for one, am unashamedly proud of my personal contribution (no matter how small or apparently insignificant others may view this) towards the ultimate preservation of aircraft that used to grace the HAPS / Reflectaire collection.

Every time I re-aquaint myself with NX611 at East Kirkby I never fail to feel an overwhelming sense of pride that I not only played a small part in ‘her’ life history but I also ‘shared the skies of England’ with her; those majestic Merlins throbbing in my ears as we flew from Biggin Hill to Lavenham in Suffolk in 1969.

I have taken quite a bit of 8mm cine film footage of the escapades that I’ve tried to portray in this Forum theme. This includes film taken at Lavenham (including on-board footage of the ferry flight from Biggin Hill), Hullavington and of the ‘final’ (to date !) flight of NX611 to ‘Squires Gate’ Airport, Blackpool, taken from the accompanying ‘chase plane’.

I have not, as yet, had the opportunity to have this unique footage copied on to a more modern media, but I have spoken briefly with both the Panton brothers at East Kirkby and ‘Primetime Videos’ in Boston, Lincs. and suggested that they might like to incorporate this archive footage in their next video venture. I believe that they would be interested in this offer, but I await their formal approach before I go any further at this point in time. What do you, or other fellow enthusiasts, feel about this proposal ? Would this footage be a valuable contribution towards a 4th video, in what could easily be an ongoing series ? I’d really be pleased to get some feedback before I take this much further.

Finally, I’ve been trying to establish renewed contact with any of the people who were associated with the HAPS / Reflectaire museum venture during the 1960s / 1970s. If any of you are out there reading this, how about making yourself known. I feel that it would be great to arrange some form of reunion at some stage in the future. How about it !!!!

I’d love to hear from any of you, but enough for now.

Best Wishes

Lancaster NX611 – Hullavington to Blackpool

’tilleydog’ has just rekindled wonderful personal memories of my own association with both Neil Williams and Lancaster NX611. I was lucky enough to have been on the single engined ‘chase plane’ covering the final (TO DATE !!!) flight of NX611 (“Guy Gibson” as she was named in those days) from RAF Hullavington to Squires Gate Blackpool. I took some historic 8mm cine film of the flight and the arrival at Blackpool and well remember the commemorative overfly of Bala Lake. She looked GREAT!!!!!!

Re. the Canadair F.86 Sabre (MM19607/ XB733 / G-ATBF), she indeed made it to Blackpool but was quite badly damaged by the (bare !!) wire ‘cradles’ used to offload from its transporter. She looked a sorry sight on her belly with wings laying on the grass when eventually the celebrations subsided following NX611’s arrival. The Sabre did eventually make a reasonable recovery and was displayed on the ‘museum’ site on her full undercarriage, latterly having been repainted in spurious Lufwaffe livery and markings(JA+120). Her ultimate fate has been the subject of other recent Forum themes and she seems to have simply ‘disappeared’ following her appearance at an auction at Duxford around 1983. Apparently she was not sold on that occasion. ANYONE HAVE ANY FURTHER CLUES TO HER CURRENT STATUS / WHERABOUTS ?

On the subject of the Seafire FR.47 VP441, she is in safe hands with Ezell’s . Last news I’ve just received is that she has been fitted with engine and new spinner(s) and awaiting weight & balance tests, with a view to her taking to the air in early 2004 as a fully restored example of this rare variant. Can’t wait to hear that she’s back to full airworthy condition and displaying her beauty to the current generation of aviation enthusiasts (and us ‘olduns’ !!).

I hope these words will re-kindle memories of all those people who were involved in the Aircraft Preservation scene in the 1960s and 1970s, especially my fellow associates (largely volunteers) who spent many a cold day (and winter’s night !!) on Lavenham airfield Suffolk in 1969 doing whatever we could to preserve these aircraft in conditions that were far far from ideal (that’s putting it mildly !!!) and with very sparse resources at our disposal.

This is getting quite lengthy so I’ll leave these reminiscences for now, but I’d love to hear from anyone from those days who shares these memories with me.

Neil Williams was ‘our resident’ Lanc. pilot and is still sadly missed by all of us whose lives were touched by his flying genious.