In Jane’s World Sailplanes and Motor Gliders by Andrew Coates (1978; Macdonalds and Jane’s Publishers. London) there is a nice photo of VV400 with number “60” under the wing and (presumably) on the tail. There is also “Empire Test Pilots School” on the nose. Photo credit is to Cyril Peckham. I hope it is OK for me to copy it and paste it below.

Laurence

Some early Schweizers had that shape fin. 1-21. I must stop guessing though.

Laurence

Lovely aircraft, Eric. I agree, the nose looks wrong for a Sky: all those stringers, but the fin and rudder look Sky-like!

Laurence

Kaproni Bulgarski, as they say!

Laurence

Not a lack of interest: just a lack of knowledge

Laurence

Is that Kronfeld sitting in there?

Laurence

That was quick Eric. This is one of the photos of the “graveyard” at Benghazi which Tony gave me and I published on my site. My notes there are:

Two views of an interesting SM79. This is not the usual hunchbacked bomber version, but an SM79T “Atlantici” of which three were used on the famous flight from Rome to Rio in January 1938. The wording on the fuselage is:
ALA LITTORIA S.A. LINEE ATLANTICHE
This is probably I-ALAN, used for regular flights between Italy and Brazil, mostly for mail. In May-June 1940 it was impressed in military service, still in civil markings, for flights in the Mediterranean area and to Abyssinia. On July 16 1940, en route to Abyssinia, it aborted take off at Benghazi and the undercarriage collapsed. British troops found the wreck in February 1941.

Over to you

Laurence

DOWA 81 (escape plane!)
It never flew, and we said at the start of this competition that the subjects must have flown. Never mind!
I quote from post 1:
Only manned aircraft that have actually flown since 1939.
Do we still stick to this?

Laurence