Yes, No. 609 Sqdn had a Drone Deluxe coded “PR-?”. It was written off after P/O Hill landed in a strawberry field on 16 April 1941. The civilian identity remains a mystery. The squadron did retain the rudder as a souvenir but I don’t know what happened to it. I do believe it was duck shooting that they used it for …

See page 11 …

http://www.609wrsquadron.co.uk/Archives/Biographies/PDF_Files/Alfred%20Ogilvie.pdf

and for a photo of the rudder take a look at page 43 of this one …

http://www.609wrsquadron.co.uk/Archives/Photo_Galleries/Biggin%20Hill.pdf

Is that SL542?

No, its SL721 with some badly Photo-shopped codes applied and what looks like a Sea Fury two-seat extended canopy … ugh!

My shoulders barely fit in the cockpit of a Spitfire, the fuselage would be far too narrow to accommodate a jump seat for anyone bigger than a child or small adult … one of the reasons why Dick Melton abandoned his two-seat conversion of MV262 back in 1986 🙂

… still some parts on it which had DH 53 stenciled on it.

Dave

I know that the Shuttleworth Collection borrowed the tail feathers back in the 1950’s when they were restoring G-EBHX. Harold Best-Devereux told me that the rudder carried the serial of one of the R-33 test machines when he built the Martin Monoplane at Denham but could not remember which.

Great place, lovely people!

It certainly is Mike 🙂

The film “Steelyard Blues” featured a couple of PBY’s but the scrapyard also had a dismantled Grumman Tigercat (!) N7627C.

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Looks like its had a chequered history since then but is now in better health 🙂

http://www.aerialvisuals.ca/AirframeDossier.php?Serial=14446

I remember sitting in Mike’s front room – possibly the morning he rang me to say I should pop over as he “had something to show me” … turned out to be the Martin Monoplane fully assembled in his front garden. Anyway our conversation led to other things and I mentioned that Bob Ogden might be interested in selling the Drone, G-AEDB. The rest as they say is history. I gave Mike the instruments from my Flying Flea, G-AEOH, to use in the Martin and/or the Humming Bird. I know the Humming Bird is at London Colney but what became of the project to rebuild the Martin? Oddly enough my old Flying Flea, G-AEOH, is now in a private collection in Wisconsin of all places … saw it there in September 2012 🙂

Just scanned this from “Vintage Aircraft magazine” Issue 6, Oct-Dec 1977

We have an appendix devoted to the film Spitfires in Volume II.