If it is worth recovering the remains of the only known surviving Do17 from the seabed, then surely it is more than worthwhile recovering a Stirling in the same “or prefferably better” condition, from the seabed ?.

Bob T.

It would be great if a Stirling is found in a fresh water lake. I believe there is one, but it is a war grave and should be respected as such.

Before diving the deep for Stirlings, have the potential dry recoveries in Russia and Egypt been completely discounted/discredited yet?

Well, owing to total lack of hard evidence of their existence, why waste any further effort looking?

Even the person who has supposedly seen the Russian remains cannot show any evidence to support this, and is now coy about ever seeing it. Surely, if an airframe survives then it will have a $$ value and will be advertised for sale?

All effort is being put into re-creating a well engineered and accurate cockpit/forward fuselage reconstruction, by a dedicated team in Cambridgeshire. People’s money would be better spent supporting this charity, rather than chasing an potentially expensive pipe dream.

We were in contact with a team that was going to dive on EF311, they were scheduled to do a dive on it but the weather intervened. Will have to get back in touch

If someone raises a Stirling…… what will you do with your evenings and weekends? 😉

Well done to Ian Thirsk and the team at the RAFM. This must have been a truly difficult undertaking.

I have read that this airframe will be cleaned, and have the salt taken out of the structure in water tanks at Cosford. This will be the only way to help preserve it for the future.

Are there any plans to accurately scan the airframe before any work is commenced? With a unique substantially complete airframe, part of the history that should be preserved is its exact shape and internal structure, just in case someone re-constructs one in the future (either physically or digitally). It could still be touch-and-go, if this airframe will be preservable without further deterioration, so scanning asap will at least preserve its form accurately.

This one you mean! 😉

Like Mark said, this was one of several Hornets operated at RAF Seletar by the RAF for pilot conversion and training. This particular one was flown by a friend of mine; Peter Sheppard, who was I believe the last pilot to convert to the type in 1954/55.

As you can see from this image Gunnar has it covered pretty much…

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Nice piece of CAD work there. When do you start building the fuselage jigs, then fuselage?

A T.7 with the cockpit section removed is basically a Mk.4 airframe when it comes to the important bits. Where to find a Mk.4 cockpit though? That is the question.

Airframe part commonality throughout the Meteor types is very high. There are plenty of airframes around that can be measured (and I have measured several too).

My question was, what drawings have survived?

Reading another post here stating the remaining drawings went to Chadderton…. don’t hold your breath, as I spent some considerable time accessing drawings there and only ever saw de Havilland ones!

I would suspect that the only place to look now would be Martin Baker, being the last user of the type. They are an engineering company who use and modify the Meteor airframe, and I would be surprised if they don’t have an archive of the drawings?