Barn Finds.

There is a certain mythology about these. Certainly, there are occasionally amazing finds. As a lover of old things and a life-long country-dweller, I have seen plenty of such ‘junk’. When it goes into storage it’s usually because it IS junk, and not economical to repair/restore. I know of cars, motorcycles, helicopters and aircraft that are stored under layers of crap right now. Mostly, it’s just that, crap, and will stay there until it reaches what I term as ‘escape-velocity’…i.e; when it’s economic to restore it. Most of it will never reach that point, and will be scrapped, burned or buried.
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Interestingly, the most fascinating items that I’ve seen have had , quite literally, agricultural origins. Not quite my bag however….!!!

ILMAO

:p lol….that disclaimer is brilliant. Sums up some of the anorakery in many web forums like this…ahhh…I can just visualise a few backsides in their seats squirming as they read that. Just brilliant…:dev2: Peace.

Why?

The ‘Great Escape’ is a great story, justly famous and of course a great tragedy. However, the story is very, very well known, unlike many events which have passed the popular consciousness. Many participants have written of it, book as well as articles etc, and when more of them were alive, were interviewed many times. We have their stories, drawings, sketches, memorabilia and artefacts, even photographs kindly provided by the Germans. The blurb for the program read as though the episode were some sort of mystery, rather than an event that has been fully documented almost ad nauseam. The shaft was sunk in the wrong place, when they had had 70 years to work-out where it was. They then had difficulties with the sand which were well known and predictable. Even if they had got there….the damp old timbers would either have already caved-in, or been unsafe to go inside.
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I’m a sucker for documentaries, so I DID enjoy it….but…it was all a pretty pointless exercise setting-out to discover what we already know in pretty comprehensive detail.

?

There’s a photograph in the Shropshire Airfields book I did with the late Barry Abraham, of Dave Williams flying his Saab Safir, G-BCFW, under a road bridge on the Hinstock by-pass, a 18ft high bridge on an ordinary A road, and on a bend. The By-pass had not opened at the time so there was no chance of a passing motorist getting a heart-attack. There were three people on the bridge looking down as Dave flew under them.

What year would that have been..?

Prop.

Tony;- This prop that you highlighted –
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http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HUGE-WOODEN-AIRCRAFT-PROPELLER-/250917177307?_trksid=p4340.m1374&_trkparms=algo%3DPI.WATCH%26its%3DC%252BS%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D3850962700090017499
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…looks like it was off a Bentley BR2 Rotary engine originally, but it looks like it’s been cut down to a ‘Club’ for ground-running only. S.

Mossies…?

Didn’t airspeed build Mossies during the war….? Proctors might be a possibility too, as they were wooden…? S.

Annie Resurrected.

How lovely to see an old Annie alive again, and an early example of this once ubiquitous aircraft at that. Hats of to the restoration team. Can’t wait to see it take to the air…! I can remember seeing yellow Annies staggering out over Cardigan Bay out of Aberporth even into the 1960’s.

Ace of Spades.

Glad to see the guy got out OK. Being out over the ocean, out of sight of land, in a small aircraft is a pretty unique feeling…….even with modern avionics. It certainly allows one to appreciate the magnitude of what some of those pioneer interwar aviators achieved, in less reliable a/c, with little or (More usually) nothing in the way of communications or navaids.
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This guy had the C-130 to formate on him and the knowledge the heli’ was a few minutes away. One can only imagine how it must have felt for Earhart & Noonan failing to find the tiny dot of Howland Island in all the watery vastness of the Pacific….:(