And the Do17 may well have been shot in Italy, where 325th went after North Africa. Most defecting Croatian aircraft were flown to Italy due to range.
I’m convinced the scrapyard is El Aouiana (near Tunis, Tunesia) in mid to late 1943. More pics of the aircraft in this thread: http://histomil.com/viewtopic.php?f=345&t=691&hilit=1934&start=250 (including the Hs129 marked “X” and Ju52 T2B), they appear to be images from the Getty archive. 325th FG operated in Tunesia Jun-Dec1943.
Could be Freeman Field in the USA. They are currently digging up quite a bit of Axis and British wreckage there.
I had been thinking about that, but the amount of Ju52’s in the pictures is I think too great for Freeman… Were there that many brought over?
German WW2. The dataplate half says ‘Baumuster’ (Type). Could these be five oxygen bottles, for a five-man bomber crew for instance?
325th FG was stationed in Tunesia and Algeria Feb1943-Dec1943, then moved to Italy for the remainder of the war. I’d choose either of these three countries as my best guess. I’d say the clue would be in the Croatian Do17. Find out where that used to hang out, and you may find a match.
Finally nailed it. Knew I had seen it somewhere before. It is New York North Beach airport. The former Glenn H. Curtiss Field. History here: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/NY/Airfields_NY_NY_Queens.htm (there’s a photo if you scroll down that shows you the hangar in the background). The field is now known as La Guardia.
It’s the air show commentator control lever.
*quote* The Hurricane had a engine failure – cartwheeled and had a brief fire. *quote*
That was in 1991, if you are referring to its total rebuild following the RAF Wittering accident.
*quote* that had an incident a few weeks back where it divested itself of most of its oil and the situation was brought swiftly under control. *quote*
That was in 2015.
To avoid any rumours spreading.
I remember this Shackleton from an airshow I visited in the 1980s. It was one of its last public displays (on the continent) before it went out of service. Lovely sound & sight doing a low fly-by. I must have pics somewhere…
Most welcome. Another museum worth contacting might be the Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica de Argentina. They have an archive of Argentine aviation as well, which may contain information on FAMA?
Welcome to the forum, Jen.
I presume your grandfather’s accident would have been FAMA’s Avro York LV-XIG hitting the Pico do Papagaio in bad weather on approach to Rio de Janeiro that day? This would seem to have been an interesting service, starting in London the day before, with stops at Paris, Dakar, Natal (Brazil) and Rio with a destination of Buenos Aires. I think (but am sure other will correct or confirm) this was the inaugural transatlantic flight for FAMA, pioneering the UK-Argentina route.
A quick search shows the following names of passengers and crew aboard the flight:
– Enrique Lacroix (a FAMA representative), who survived the crash, but later died of his injuries
– Claudio Mendoza Rios (a lieutenant in the Peruvian air force) who was injured severly, but was the sole survivor
– Arturo Fassio (the Argentine ambassador to Portugal at the time)
– Derek Norman James (captain)
Perhaps a good place to start archive-wise would be the Brazilian national aviation museum?
Don’t forget the Dutrch airworthy B-25 which has been flying in NEIAF colours for some years now.
Beech 18. Some work required…
From my experience a reasonably sound looking wooden-structure accident aircraft (from a distance) can be completely without strutural integrity and fall apart when lifted. Having said that: I have come across some pretty bad damages done by inexperienced, careless or inept recovery crews. Most recently a perfectly repairable insurance damage to a sailplane that was a complete write off after the recovery crew had accidently cut through the main spar stubs instead of undoing a single main wing bolt (1 minute of work!).