Well Tom, I hope you enjoyed the talk. I certainly did.

Greg Baughen revealed the mystery fighter to be the Fairey design to specification F22/33 which called for a nose and dorsal turret. Boulton Paul also produced a design, but neither was built as the spec called for a top speed of around 250mph and then Fairey produced their P4/34 bomber which achieved 300mph, meaning the fighter would be easily outrun by newer technology. The design was canned from a negative held at the FAA Museum.

If anybody thinks the concept a little challenging, an earlier one called for 2 gun stations, both being occupied by pilots. The one who had the best shot would fire while the other one flew. What could possibly go wrong.

It was a most excellent evening; well worth attending. I found it difficult to fault the general sentiment of Mr Baughen’s talk, though I must confess I did think some of his assertions were perhaps a little naïve. I was, however, hugely disappointed at some of the disparaging comments made by certain members of the audience during the q & a. Whilst open debate on such subjects ought to be encouraged, I couldn’t help but think that some of the points raised seemed to show a distinct ignorance of the subject matter and gave me the strong impression that some of those in attendance just wanted to hear the sound of their own voices. I cannot help but recall that well loved phase: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”.

That is not outside of the realms of possibility.

Thanks both of you for the info; the AW34 is looking like a strong contender. A little bit of googling reveals that some info on this type may be available in the following publications: Air Enthusiast Quarterly 43 & Air International Magazine, Jul, 1991. Would anyone happen to have copies? It might be that one of them contains an image.

I came across these two images a while back on a flight simulator forum. They were apparently taken at St. Catherine – Calvi – Corsica in July 1944.

Can anyone tell me anything about the Collection D’Amico-Valentini? I would be interested to see if there are any additional images in this collection relating to 238 Sqn.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]237279[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]237278[/ATTACH]

Yes, a fantastic shot. Thank you for looking it out Snapper. It could easily be the only shot in existence of 238 Squadron Spitfires from that period.

With regards to the picture of “The MacRobert Fighter -Sir Iain”; the story is widely known, so the registrations of the 4 aircraft should be easy enough to track down. When I get some time, I shall have a look through the ORBs and see if those registrations appear against any 238 Squadron entries. It would be an interesting little insight to see if these aircraft migrated between Squadrons.

That would make sense. I’m guessing this is the machine bought down by the pair of them near Tavistock, on the 27th August then?

A very rare picture indeed. I look forward to seeing it, thank you.