Thanks Alex.

Probably the same photographer, moved a little closer for your shot. The book published the first shot I suppose because it had the whole airframe in view.

DS

(PS Alex please check your pm)

Central London ? – It’s damned lucky he didn’t lose power even ten or fifteen seconds earlier, or he’d have probably come down on Myrtle Av, Hatton Cross, or the long-stay car park – none of which would have so forgiving as the muddy undershoot to 27L. Would that really have been any worse than losing power over central London – probably not for those on board! The margins between success and failure can be bl00dy fine at times, as this incident shows. Regardless of the whys and wherefores, there are a few hundred VERY lucky people who have largely “walked away” from what could have been a very different outcome.

…Anyone else read the novel “SAM-7” (written some twenty five or thirty years ago), where a DC-10 (as was in those days) is brought down by a terrorist SAM and crashes on one of the London rail teminus – it’s one of those “worst case” scenario stories, but I guess we may have come pretty close to something similar today.

I read it when it came out. My dad had a shop in Victoria – the terminus the plane fell on – and I would have been travelling through the station at the time. Life imitates art……

If there had been complete power failure, would not the flying controls have failed as well? (Please forgive my ignorance of modern jets, but I’m from over on the Historic forum!!)

DocStirling

And the chaps at the Duxford Aviation Society might be a bit upset, as they put in a lot of effort preserving the one in AirSpace.

DS

Cees,

Your post in the Chinese Stirling thread prompted me to Google for ‘Vraux’, as I had not heard of it before:

http://www.pyperpote.tonsite.biz/pages/vrauxpag.html

A Stirling fuselage section is about half way down. Translation of the caption reads:

‘Sections of fuselage of an apparatus Stirling Shorts recovered at two private individuals. One made use of it of handing-over for these tools of garden, the other to store food for animals.’

Isn’t the Belgium based Stirling still whole and sitting in someone’s back garden being used as a canopy to shelter tomatoes? We add this to the what’s in your garden thread.

Just did! Or at least, the Dutch Garden shed version of the above.

DS

Going by the design of the lamp standards, I would say that photo was taken in Redbourn.

Wow – and I used to be impressed that people here could id a warbird from a bit of crumpled metal; now it appears you can locate a village by its lampost style;)

There must be a forum for that somewhere:D

DS

Hi,

A quick ‘google-at-work’ reveals:

‘OO-XAK PK136 or PK135 – Registered to Air Transport in May 1948; in 1948 registered to Tangiers Charter Company; to REAF in October 1948’ from Alex Crawfords article on Eygyptian Stirlings:http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_251.shtml

DS

Lettice Curtis “The Forgotten Pilots” wrote about Beechwood Park . By mid 1943 it had been transferred to 15 MU(Wroughton). It was used by Stirlings as well as Seamews. It remained in use to March 1946.The strip was 1,260 yards long SW/NE.

Was there a MU in the grounds of Woburn, where some Stirlings were broken up?

DS