Spotted this in the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2349473/For-sale-ebay-One-World-War-Two-aircraft-used-defeat-Hitler–4-000-arrange-collection–dont-try-fly.html

Strip away the usual Mail histrionics, and what it boils down to is that Auster “TJ398” (not neccesarily its real i.d. it was ex-G-ANFU) is up for sale. Last I heard it was owned by one Karl Edmonson of South Shields, Tyne & Wear, and on display at the NEAM at Sunderland. He has posted on this forum about it at http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?75453-Auster-TJ398 although the website “http://www.tj398.co.uk” seems to be now unavailable

There should be a listing for it on ebay: Karl wants £4,000 for it (anyone find a more direct link?)

The local newspaper, the Sunderland Echo has a piece about Trident G-ARPO here http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/video-unique-aeroplane-hoisted-to-new-home-at-sunderland-museum-1-5668673

IT WAS up, up and away for a unique old aeroplane.

The Hawker Siddeley Trident 1C was brought to the North East Land, Sea and Air Museum in 2011, when enthusiasts realized it was the last remaining passenger plane of its kind in the world.

Since then, the team has raised thousands in a bid to restore the plane to its former glory.

With the museum expanding, the group had to move the huge fuselage across the site, using a crane to avoid damaging the undercarriage at the weekend.

Team member Matt Falcus thanked MSD cranes for offering to do the lifting at a cut-down price and said he felt nervous every time the plane was made airborne.

“It’s quite an old plane and it’s had the wings cut off so we’re hoping it all stands up when it’s landed again,” he added.

There’s an accompanying video to, so the link is pasted below,. Hope this works,,,

Most recent info I can find is THIS: “G -BSZC / 5111701A (cn AF-258) (Ex USAF 51-11701) “Southern Comfort”, Seen here at St Angelo, Enniskillen in 1996, currently resides at Weston Executive Airport, Leixlip. Despite many visits to this site, I’ve yet to see her…

Source: http://community.irishplanespottersclub.net/gallery/image/396-beech-18/

There’s a discussion forum there, it may repay you to repost your question there also. By the way, the accompanying picture is not current but dated 1996. The most recent picture I can find online is dated 5 Sep 2009:


Beech C-45H Expeditor (Beech 18) – Click here for larger image

Same story in today’s Daily Telegraph:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/?source=refresh

As a rule of thumb, if a newspaper posers a question in a headline, the answer is usually ‘no’ and you can move on to something a bit more substantial. Note that the Telegraph story is ascribed to ‘agencies’, which means that someone else a long way from the Telegraph (and Daily Mail) has done the fact checking, if any.

a more direct link is at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/kiribati/10091458/Amelia-Earhart-sonar-image-shows-what-may-be-lost-aviators-wrecked-plane.html

If this is a non-story, then both the Telegraph and The Mail have gone to a lot of trouble to illustrate it, and report the story in great detail

But I have to agree the the other posters: anything with TIGHAR involvement is about as credible as that famous “Sunday Sport” headline “WORLD WAR 2 BOMBER FOUND ON THE MOON”. (link at http://www.flickr.com/photos/62440303@N04/5683785190/)

Once lunar travel becomes an economic possibility, you can bet TIGHAR will want to raise funds to investigate…but why are they always looking into crashes on tropical islands? You never hear of TIGHAR trying to raise funds to recover a crashed aircraft off, say, the coast of Lincolnshire. Perhaps “World War 2 Bomber Found off Skegness” is not the sort of thing that newspaper headline writers long for

Meteor meeting it’s end 1960’s

Sad sight 🙁
http://aircraftslides.com/Auction/AuctionDetail.aspx?ID=997308

A quick check with the UK serials website at http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WL indicates that the picture shows the demise of Meteor T.7 WL463, last with the RAF Flying College (RAFFC) at Manby. As far as is known, WL463 was delivered 04/10/1952, served with 211 AFS, 211 FTS, 4 FTS, and the RAFFC. It was struck off charge on 14/06/1965, and moved to the Stradishall fire dump, where it perished…

That should give you an approximate date (and a definite location) of this picture

Have not found anything yet, but, at the risk of stating the obvious, an email to http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/contact/contactform.asp?id=1 should elicit a reply from the National Archives to confirm if they have anything in their files on this incident. From previous experience, they do hold data on most military air crashes for the 1950s – though I I’ve not tracked down the one for Sunderland RN288 yet

The other “obvious” place of contact would be the RAF Museum at http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/contact-us/enquiry-form.aspx to see what they have in their files

Look HERE for details of the history of all the Dambuster raid Lancasters: http://www.lancaster-archive.com/bc_damsraid6.htm

“In summation:

ED817, ED912, ED915, ED921¸ ED924, ED929, ED933 all appear to have survived in storage in a Dam’s configuration or something close to it. All were scrapped at No. 46 Maintenance Unit (MU).

ED906, ED909, ED933 appear to have been reconfigured and used in some role after the Dam’s Raid. They were returned to Dam’s configuration after the war and used to dispose of the remaining “Upkeep’s”. After completing this task the aircraft were scrapped by what appears to have been a special AVRO contract team specifically tasked to do this.

ED918, was reconfigured back Mk.III Standard, apparently minus its bomb doors, and crashed in a training flight.

ED933 appears to have been reconfigured back Mk.III Standard, apparently minus its bomb doors, and by all accounts did not see further operational duties and served as a trials aircraft.

By the numbers:

Aircraft Lost On Dam’s Raid – 8
Aircraft Lost On Operations (post Dam’s Raid) – 2
Crashed on Training Flight – 1
Scrapped (post war) – 11
Total – 22
“

The flying boat at the beach is definitely a HU16. It is at Playa Ventanilla in Mexico. A Google search throws up some more pics and story. Apparently a drug traffickers, it was brought down by the Mexican military around 10 years ago. All survived, the plane was full of marijuana.

The only HU-16 that has crashed in or anywhere near Mexico (that I know of) is N7026Y on April 14 2003. Crash details at http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20030414-0 and the official NTSB report at http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/ates1y3a342ej5qeukobvh551/T05032013120000.pdf. To quote from the latter

“On April 14, 2003, at 1830 central daylight time, a Grumman HU-16 amphibian airplane, N7026Y, was destroyed following a loss of control during the turn from base to final approach near Chetumal, State of Quintana Roo, in the Republic of Mexico. The instrument rated private pilot and his 2 passengers were fatally injured. The 1954 vintage airplane, serial number 137921, was owned and operated by the pilot. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the personal flight for which a visual flight rules (VFR) flight plan was filed. The flight originated from Tulum at 1730 with Chetumal (CTM) as its intended destination.

Local authorities reported the airplane had been cleared to land on runway 10 at the Chetumal International Airport. Witnesses reported that the airplane rolled and nosed over during the turn from left base to final approach. The airplane came to rest about 4 miles from the threshold of runway 10. A post-impact fire consumed the airframe”

There’s some Tube of You video footage which gives a good 360 degree “walkaround” of the wreck at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MalA1C22Qt4

Now…any ideas on the private light twin (Beechcraft?) in picture seven?