What is to say that they have to be right alongside each other timewise? Anything solid apart from that they are on the same paper?

Flood

That was my point. I was simply pointing out there may well be up to two years, maybe more between the taking of each photo.

Cheers David. Probably right. It must have been a nightmare to do all the formalities when so much was being cut up and melted down I guess.

If a Miles Master could be replicated or rebuilt to fly, I have just discovered a really interesting historic example that could make an interesting scheme for the plane.

Apparently on the 19th of May 1940 a squadron commander was shot down during the Battle of France. He was stuck in No Man’s Land, so the RAF despatched a Master and two Spitfires of No. 54 Squadron from Hornchurch to go and pick him up. One of the Spitfire pilots was Alan Deere (one of New Zealand’s greatest aces).

The Master successfully landed and picked up the officer. Then the escorting Spitfires were jumped by twelve Me109’s. Not only was this Al Deere’s first combat encounter, but the first time the Spitfire ever met the Messerschmitt 109, so an amazingly historic occasion. Between them, the two Spits shot down three 109’s and damaged two more. The Spits were undamaged and all three RAF aircraft returned to Hornchurch safely.

So there’s an interesting one to research. They could re-enact that one at airshows if a Master was got flying.

There will undoubtedly be more detail in Deere’s excellent book “Nine Lives” or the more recently published biography called “Al Deere” (cannot recall the author). I must have a look in the library. In the meantime does anyone know who else was involved? And which unit the Master came from? Was it also part of No. 54 Sqn?

If we are talking about the Hurricane being possibly 1940 or 1941, then the time frame doesn’t fit into the Hudson’s time frame because there certainly wouldn’t have been an American marked Hudson in the combat zone in those years, would there?

Either of the Kiwi Daves should have something on this – postwar there was a big sell-off of Mossies in particular – that ended up on farms all over NZ. Doing what I don’t know, but the engines and tyres and things apparently came in handy.

Dad worked for a season in the early 1960’s in the Motueka area near Nelson picking apples. He said loads of orchards had trailers with Mustang wheels, and mounted on them was the Merlin with prop and all. They would tow the running engine down the rows between the trees in the early morning to stop the frost settling on the apples. I had never thought about it before, but as well as P51D there could have been Mossie Merlins/wheels too.

There was the Corsair in Mr Walsh’s garden right here in Cambridge. See my website for the story of that one.

The RNZAF Museum’s Hudson and Anson both saw life as sheds, the Hudson was a chicken coop. As was the Lodestar now at Wanaka. I believe the Hudson’s turret was also found in a garden from memory.

On the subject of using aircraft parst for agricultural use, the biggest project must be the Aussies who dismantled old Wirraways and rebuilt them into crop dusters, the Ceres. A little off the topic I guess.

My uncle got a lot of surplus RNZAF junk at a big sale in Rukuhia. He even had a bomb in his garden which I was always amused and terrified by as a kid. In the early 1990’s I talked him into giving all the Corsair parts, etc, that he had to the RNZAF Museum, but they still have a large float that once formed a fence and is now under a hedge. I can only guess it must be off a Catalina. It was a common thing in older times for farmers to fill gaps in hedges with aircraft parts or old cars. I saw a very old rusty car as an integral part of a farm hedge earlier this year when I was in the South Island and I thought to myself, if only that were a plane, I’d have it.

Ahh good so Kiwis dont get Irony either 😀

??? :confused: :confused:

Sorry, but how is misinformation irony MOTF??