Battle Of Britain RAF Sports Cars

[Owain-328i]

Yeah wasnt it almost rejected due to the difficulties of mass producing eliptical wings or something?

[rocco1504]

 

I'd just have the tail end of the fuselage, from the cockpit back, mounted at a 60 degree angle in the middle of a pond in my back garden, complete with large-caliber bullet-holes. No, my neighbours wouldn't like it, not in the least

 

 

About 20 years ago I got offered the main body and tailplane of a Doodlebug, no wings as I remember by a local farmer, but couldn't take it as my parents weren't really interested in a new garden ornament, I also met Ulrich Steinhilper at Biggin Hill and have some signed copies of the books about his time in the Luftwaffe, the Battle of Britain and his escape from a prison camp in Canada, really nice guy, who just enjoyed flying.

[AnthonyG]

The Hurricane was just as useful in the BoB as the Spitfire. They tend to get overlooked now, the Spitfire is a nicer looking thing!

[richardthestag]

Always had an interest in old aircraft, both my grandfathers were RAF in ww2 (groundcrew) and worked on Spits aswell as others i belive. From an early age I was taken to the annual airshow at RAF St Athan as thats quite local, nothing beats the sound of a Spitfire flying over-head. Gota say though a low pass by a Vulcan bomber is quite an experience at a young age too

 

Hay Owain my grandad was 9 Maintenance Unit out of Hullavington, worked on all sorts and ended up flight engineer on bomber test flights. His flight record is epic reading. When we cleared his house out a year or so back after his death we found all sorts of maintenance manuals and stuff. Next time I get down to my dads I am going to crack open a bottle of whiskey and pile through that lot.

[richardthestag]

Amazing isn't it? Up until the mid 70's there wasn't any huge interest in second world war aircraft, they just scrapped them all regardless of individual histories. The last Halifax was scrapped in 1971, not long after that they were fishing them out of fjords and restoring them at huge expense.

 

My Grandad told me stories of Lancs flying in from Canada at the end of the war, brand new (some contract cockup meant they kept building them after hostilities had ceased) taxiing them to the end of the airfield and scrapping them before the engines had cooled. Grandad was most pissed off about this as he had spent the previous 5 years keeping all manner of crap flying. When we helped him move from Chippenham to Gainsborough we found t-chests full of aircraft bits and bobs including the flight engineers seat out of the last lanc he flew in IIRC. That was all back in the mid 1980's and iirc the stuff he had filled 2 estate cars and was donated to Yoevil Air museum (i'll have to ask dad what happened to it all) I do have a clock at home and various other bits and bobs.

 

heading way off topic sorry

[eddyramrod]

my grandad was 9 Maintenance Unit out of Hullavington,

 

Another place my dad talked about! I think he was posted there a couple of times. He was also posted overseas but fell ill and the unit went without him, so he never got to go. They found him another squadron back in Blighty. That might even have been the occasion he went to Tern Hill where he met my mum!

[scaryoldcortina]

Is that the other airworthy lancaster then? (I read there was one in canada, as well as City of Lincoln)

PA474 does a flyby at santa pod (retro show July '09)

 

I also have some pics of a local spitfire, but can't find them right at the mo.

[Owain-328i]

People are starting to go to great lengths diggin these old warbirds up now, especially fighters. I reckon theres still a lot of gems out there waiting to be found. Id imagine the channel probably has a lot ww2 grot at the bottom of it, but what sort of state it would be in is open to debate. The best stuff seems to be coming out of fresh water lakes;

 

FW190? Thanks....

 

 

[Owain-328i]

I bet theres a lot more stuff like that out there aswell!

[Lankytim]

A mechanic at a garage we took the trucks was given a prop blade by a fisherman on the south coast- he'd found it in his trawler nets one day and dumped it on the dockside. I had the job of identifying it and it turned out it was a VDM prop blade from a Me109 or 110, proper Battle of Britain era too. He wouldn't give it to me....

 

Apparently they're always finding stuff in their nets!

[Owain-328i]

Im not surprised a lot of stuff went into the drink around the south coast, id say a lot of it has probably corroded away to near nothing, however id wager there are some beauty's lying covered in the silt!

[Negative Creep]

I's incredible what they can restore, or at the very least salvage. Apparently there's a company that makes flying FW190's to order, although personally I've never been a great fan of Luftwaffe aircraft

[RoadworkUK]

 

 

 

Actually I'd be slightly different and buy things like the Beaufighter, Halifax, Meteor and Sunderland as there are no airworthy examples left

 

My grandfather, who flew from RAF Eastmoor with the RCAF, had the immediate post-war duty of flying Lancasters and Halifaxes to scrapyards the other side of the Pennines. He had to bail out of one Lanc when it caught fire in flight, they just pointed the thing vaguely in the direction of the sea and abondoned ship.

 

Christ only knows where it finally went down...

[Lankytim]

There's a Dornier 17, shot down in the Battle of Britain on a sand bank off the Kent coast thats recently been discovered, really good condition apparently. Its due to be raised any time soon by the RAFM- its the only example left by all accounts.

 

 

There's also a P38 part buried on the shoreline off Harlech in Wales! It ran out of fuel during WW2 and crash landed, Lazy yanks simply buried it and shifting sands have recently revealed it. Nobody knew about it because the coastline in the U.K was fenced off to members of the public during WW2.

[Lankytim]

I saw a programme about that a while back- such a shame the B17 had been crushed by the weight of the ice! There's a few P38's still there if anyones got nothing to do this weekend and likes digging....

[messerschmitt owner]

 

 

 

Actually I'd be slightly different and buy things like the Beaufighter, Halifax, Meteor and Sunderland as there are no airworthy examples left

 

My grandfather, who flew from RAF Eastmoor with the RCAF, had the immediate post-war duty of flying Lancasters and Halifaxes to scrapyards the other side of the Pennines. He had to bail out of one Lanc when it caught fire in flight, they just pointed the thing vaguely in the direction of the sea and abondoned ship.

 

Christ only knows where it finally went down...

my grandad flew spitfires from Castle Bromwich to Gretna, from the factory to the scrapyard in one journey!

[RoadworkUK]

my grandad flew spitfires from Castle Bromwich to Gretna, from the factory to the scrapyard in one journey!

 

Amazing, isn't it? I have a few books about the Davis Monthan USAF base, otherwise known as AMARC, or the Desert Boneyard. It tells of F16s being flown directly from Boeing / General Dynamics to the desert for storage. The author reports that one falcon was having parts removed for aircraft in service at the same time as a man from Raytheon was upgrading the avionics under warranty.

[RoadworkUK]

^^Why not? They pull whole planes out of Davis-Monthan and put them back to use all the time. Target drones. X-testing. ANG tranfers. Foreign sales. Etc, etc.

 

I know, it's just the thought of a plane in a scrapyard having warranty work carried out is an extraordinary one. I know DM is far from a scrapyard in the common sense of the word, though. In fact i wish I hadn't mentioned it at all now.

[morris_ital_lover]

It is in part tis it not... though just not for all of the planes.

 

m0rris

[RoadworkUK]

It is in part tis it not... though just not for all of the planes.

 

m0rris

 

Yep. The famous imagery of F84s being stacked in piles three planes high are from an age where its primary purpose was disposing of unwanted airframes. Maintenance and aircraft conversion facilities came along later.

[RoadworkUK]

^^Wouldn't you love about 24 hours in D-M with a set of pneumatics and torches? And a semi tractor to carry it all away?

 

I fear they'd get upset with me carrying away the sort of bits I'd like to get my hands on...