I love hearing stories and even rumours about aircraft secreted away in a barn or old shed.

I remember hearing in the 1980’s there was a group of farmers in outback Australia who had four or five secret unregistered Spitfires that they’d bought postwar for scrapping, but actually flew them round the desert where no-one would catch them, and kept them hidden in barns. Probably total crap but a great story. 😉

Here in NZ there are undoubtedly still a few finds to be made in barns and on farms too. After the war the RNZAF had some massive sales at Rukuhia, which was the No 1 Repair Depot, and where all the combat aircraft were sent for storage after the war, including P40’s, Corsairs, Venturas, Hudsons, a few Avengers, etc.

Most of the aircraft were sold for scrap, but a lot of components and even airframes were sold to farmers. My own uncle is a farmer and he bought lots of items and I recall he had things like a Corsair cowling, wheels, propellor hub, engine parts, telescopic crew ladder, intruments, and all sorts of things when I was young. They also had a defused bomb in their garden that was quite an amusement! I believe his father and brother had also bought a number of items for their own farms too.

One day when I was in the RNZAF I visited them and told my cousin about the RNZAF Museum. He convinced my uncle to donate all the gear to them, which was great. But I cannot help thinking that there must be hundreds of farms around the Waikato region with similar items sitting round, wasting away. Uncle John said many, many farmers went to those sales and bought stuff because it was cheap and about the only source of things like nuts and bolts, etc, as metal was so scarce here in immediate post-war NZ.

The same was the case of Walsh’s Corsair here in Cambridge, they bought a complete plane at one of the sales simply to strip small components from to use in cars in their garage! I wonder how many other garages got into this too.

Something I want to investigate is I discovered a few months back that my uncle’s farm also had a large aircraft float being used as a fence. That part of his farm is now in someone else’s hands and a hedge has apparently grown over it, but they reckon it’s probably still there. I guess it has to have been from a Catalina, as the only other RNZAF aircraft with floats would have been the Fairey IIIF, which would be unlikely I’d think. I must see one day if I can take a look at it and get photos.

My favourite plane in a barn story is that of the complete but disassembled Airspeed Oxford found in New Zealand a few years back, which is now with the Subritzky family at Dairy Flat. Marvellous that it survived as it was thought all the 299 we used were either burned, crashed or rotted away. I have seen since there are component collections of at least two more ex-RNZAF Oxfords around now two, one is in Aussie. A pity that the Subritzkys won’t be flying their one, as it was reported initially that they would. But a complete static genuine RNZAF example will be magic anyway. Even it’s paintwork looks stunning and is original.

Daz,

I have been told that some warbirds are fitted with a small tank that contains some sort of fuel type (from memory Castor oil, but this may be incorrect). When a trigger is pulled it dribbles a stream of the liquid onto the hot exhaust pipe which turns it to billowing white smoke.

The Harvard NZ1099 which was till recently owned by Charles Darby in Auckland (now sadly sold to Australia, sad because I think it was the nicest Harvard flying here) was in fact originally a gunnery training aircraft in the World War Two RNZAF, and so Charles had it rebuilt with the gun ring in the back seat. It can be conventional like a trainer, or the canopy folds down and the seat spins round to become a gunner’s position (just like the Dauntless, which is who’s crews were trained in these Harvards).

One of my mates was on the restoration team of ’99 and he told me it was rebuilt with fully operational weapons! He said Mr Darby is one for the few people in NZ with a license to have live weapons on an aircraft. I am not sure why he would want to – duck shooting perhaps? I’d have loved to see it firing blanks. Has it ever done that at an airshow? Does anyone know if the Harvard has done live firing anywhere since restoration? Were the live weapons removed when it was sold abroad?

Gosh, those are major bits of Stirling. Are either being restored?

Seeing this gives me hope that eventually someday enough bits may be brought together to rebuild a Stirling – I hope so very much. As Propstrike said, there’s enough to make a start and create a small miracle like the reconstructed Halifax.