Back in 2006/7 the Newark Air Museum newsletter ran a couple of item about the Avro test pilot James Gordon Harrison OBE, AFC.

Amongst the two articles was a group photograph of the Development Team arranged in a ‘delta’ fashion in front of one of the aircraft; in the text are a few of their names.

If you PM me an email address I will send over a couple of PDF files of the newsletters! 🙂

Welcome – Aeroboot / Aerojumble events can be a good source; the next one at Newark is on Saturday 2nd March 2013! 🙂

airfield, are you sure about the late 1980s usage for North Coates – my notes for a current project that I’m working on indicate that from 1976 through until closure in 1990, ‘B’ Flt 85 Sqn were at RAF North Coates with their Bloodhound missiles. :confused:

Source see #3

Sorry about that John – I thought I’d told you that story before! 😮

Basically at the last ever 1661 HCU Reunion down in Worcester I was ‘cornered’ by three veterans who relayed the ‘story’ of the unusual usage of the ex-1661 HCU Stirling fuselage by gentlemen from McAlpine.

They assured me that they’d ALL seen it being ‘installed’ – sadly the first clue came when they revealed that they were each on different HCU Courses (approximate timeframe differences of 6 months); plus the section of airfield that the building work related to, was built before Stirlings came to Winthorpe! :confused:

I have also heard a similar ‘second-hand’ tale that involved a Manchester fuselage!! 😉

Clifford Bull’s comment is interesting re the “…Birchfeild private housing estate near Lincoln….”; I’ve never heard of a “Birchfeild “ (Birchfield) Housing Estate in Lincoln! :confused:

I’ve heard of a Birchwood Estate that was built on part of the former RAF Skellingthorpe site (two small displays around that area re-the airfield) – but then I’ve never heard of all these items that were uncovered when it was built. :confused:

However if you moved off site from there out towards the River Trent then perhaps there’s another story to be told! 😉 Maybe I ought to contact the Telegraph!! :diablo:

4 day’s worth of ‘stripping’ went into XM594’s cockpit in 1983; completed just in time for NAM’s volunteers to book in at Scarle to start buying most of it back again!! 😉