Have you read some of the comments at http://news.uk.msn.com//blog/trending-blogpost.aspx?post=244be508-cb33-4644-ae1a-0f7279ce067d&_nwpt=1 ?

“Amazing find,It reminds me of the film Close Encounters when the aircraft were found in the desert and the airmen were taken by the aliens”

“This obviously a plane hijacked by aliens who have now returned it to earth.The pilot is alive and now lives on a far away planet.must stop have to take my pills.”

That will probably be the follow up story in The Sun: “World War II RAF Pilot Abducted by Aliens”

THIS might help http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/240898-canberra-remains-filton-airfield.html

“English Electric Canberra T Mk.17 WH665
Sits on the dump (also known as Palm Beach), which is north of the main runway. The airframe is a composite, and includes the starboard wing of Q497, an undelivered Indian Air Force T Mk.4. It had arrived from Salmesbury by the end of 1988.”

Although it was “expected to go to the National Diving Centre at Chepstow in 2006, and will be submerged in its flooded quarry” as posted above it looks as though it never made it to there. The UK serials site (http://www.uk.serials.com) reported WH665 as “believed to have been scrapped during 2008″.

Now, I may be putting two and two together to make five, but would speculate that the intended use of WH665 as a plaything for divers never happened, that is, the diving centre decided not to take on WH665 and that it was scrapped in 2008 at BAe Filton as a result.

Can anyone confirm – or come up with a better answer?

Additional: This link http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile22586/Canberra-T17—WH665.htm confirms WH665 still at Filton on November 23rd 2006 (see the inset picture)

Don’t know much about its life “down under”, except for what I found at http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austmz/VH-WMM.html Quote:

“Another rare period shot of an Auster by Geoff Goodall. “Rare” in that it spent much of its life in South Australia, and shots from that state are not as common as those from the eastern seaboard states. Geoff also took the photograph of it immediately below at the March 1985 Mangalore air show. The final image, by Phil Vabre (foot of page) shows -WMM beautifully attired in spats, at the 2007 AAAA Fly-In at Echuca. Current” [2008] “owner John Kelly advises that Whiskey Mike has been rebuilt from the ground up, following a mammoth towing job across the Nullaboor Plain from St. Arnaud, Victoria to Western Australia!

The Cirrus Minor engine was replaced with a Gypsy Major, making it, in essence, a Model J/1N. First flight of the rebuild took place on 14 December 2003 at Jandakot, WA. VH-WMM was originally built as a straight J/1 registered G-AGYJ and was exported to Australia in 1952 wherein it first became VH-BGB. Re-registration to VH-KEV occurred in 1954, and it was re-registered again to VH-WMM in 1957.”

” It’s thought the owner has an connection with Air New Zealand, hence the colours.“

Well, to begin at the beginning, as G-AGYJ:

First registered 19-1-46 to K.E.Millard & Co Ltd., Pendleford Aerodrome, Wolverhampton
Re-registered 27-5-48 to John Sydenham-Clarke of St.Helier, Jersey
Re-registered 27-7-49 to Robert Gordon Banks of Guildford, Surrey
Re-registered 15-5-51 to R.G.Banks (Guildford) Ltd., Guildford, Surrey (possibly the same owner with a re-registration to his company, rather than to him as an individual)
Re-registered 1-12-51 to W.S.Shackleton Ltd., London W1
Registration cancelled 9-1-52 as “Sold to S. Australia”

All from the official CAA database at G-INFO. See http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/HistoricalMaterial/G-AGYJ-1.pdf and
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/HistoricalMaterial/G-AGYJ-2.pdf

Here’s a picture of G-AGYJ, taken at Cambridge on 27-10-51:

Fatal Slingsby Tandem Tutor accident in France

The Slingsby Tandem Tutor involved was BGA4926 (see http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=145453). The piper Pawnee glider tug has not yet been identified.

Here’s a rough translation (using babelfish.com) from English to French of the link you posted:

Last night a crash occurred between a glider and a Piper Pawnee (glider tow plane) on the ground Gliding Buno-Bonnevaux. The accident resulted in three deaths, two pilots in the glider and the tow pilot. According to a source familiar with the victims aboard the glider would be a pilot with Air Franceand the driver of which were in Pawnee weekend. We do not know more at the moment and this information is no 100% confirmed yet. Whatever our thoughts are with the families of victims to whom we extend our deepest condolences.

Edit: It seems that information is confirmed by our source …

Issue 2: The drivers were Yann and Jean Louis Mignot Hallot

BGA4296 was ex-XE790 in its ATC days, and, last I heard, 30 July 2011, was still marked as such:

HP111

The “Swift” you refer to may well have been the never-completed Supermarine 545 (the so-called “Supersonic Swift” XA181. The Supermarine 545 project was cancelled in 1955, when XA181 was almost complete. The airframe was then acquired by Cranfield, but according to all reports, was largely scrapped in the mid-1960s. By 1967 only the wings survived

There’s a picture of this airframe at Cranfield in 1960 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_545 (Note the Boulton-Paul P111 VT935 in the background…Cranfield acquired her in 1958, helping to date the picture of XA181)

Did the “Swift” you refer to look anything like this perhaps…

Or – since were are talking about 1970-71 – was the Swift in question a completely different airframe?

The Hunter, by the way, was F.6 Hunter XG210. In 1993 it turned up in a garden at Beck Row in Suffolk. This is what she looks like now

More info at http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/hunter/survivor.php?id=208.

Jetstream G-AXUI did eventually get a proper coat of paint, and by the 1980s, looked like this…

It was re-registered G-NLFC on 12/12/95 (see http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodules/ginfo/ginfo_photo.aspx?regmark=G-NFLC&imgname=G-NFLC001&imgtype=jpg) and continued flying until 2004 (C of A expired 3/8/2004 as “withdrawn from use”)