Interesting or unusual planes?

[fuzzy]

I heard the tri motor over Marlow yesterday afternoon- about 5:00 ish (or so I thought). Some considerable time later, it hove into view from behind trees and houses, heading towards that there London. No helicopter with it at the time.

Not a very stealthy aircraft but nice to see.

[clarion]

Back in the day, a sighting would not have been so welcome.

[Torslanda]

<Notes background trees and lack of wheels>
Rhur dams?

This is the Canadian (privately?) owned Lanc. There's no way the RAF would be allowed to display theirs at such a low height.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I don't have a pic.

Odd-looking plane over york last fri.

Wing profile like a glider.
Single engine in the nose (yeah, you are thinking 'powered glider').

But the body was wide-ish, about the size of an 'executive' jet.

[pcolbeck]

I was asked to wipe my deceased uncles old laptop prior to disposal and save any family pictures etc. He served in the RAF from WWII to the 1980s (see thread elsewhere on here). I found some nice pictures of planes. Unfortunately I dont have location or date info for them except the Burma ones which were taken at Seletar. Not such good quality but interesting I think:

Burma WWII





Air display somewhere






Assorted planes

[clarion]

Should this be in the bad parking thread?

[fuzzy]

Some fantastic photo's there

[pcolbeck]

I think the Hunter and Gnat in bare metal/orange must be mid to late sixties as this was the colour scheme for training aircraft then. It switched to white and red in the 70s. One I forgot to post. Low level Hunter !

[TimC]

The last, additional, picture is a SOAF Hunter at (IIRC) Thumrait in about 1980. It's fairly widespread on the interwebs. Back in those days, SOAF was a pretty wild-west operation with much extreme low-level twattery.

In your group of earlier pictures, I think quite a few are Farnborough around 1966. The 74Sqn Lightning F1 (with P1127 in the background), Standard VC10, Trident, Avro 707, Bristol 188 etc.


I'd be interested to learn where the RCAF f86s and T33 were taken, alongside an RAF Hunter. And that Varsity in the same picture - what does it say above the windows?

Other aircraft pictured include Meteor F8, Vampire T2(?), Hunter T7, Gnat T1, F5, Fairy Firefly, F111. I can't help with the pre-WW1 types, but Old Warden is a definite possibility. The Spitfires are Mk XVIs, and may well be in Burma, though the 'Seltar' you refer to is likely to be RAF Seletar, in Singapore.

[pcolbeck]

Thanks Tim. Your right it is Seletar it was a typo on my part. Not sure if the photos are of Seletar or Burma though as they were in a directory labelled Burma but all the file names were Seletar.

[pcolbeck]

I'd be interested to learn where the RCAF f86s and T33 were taken, alongside an RAF Hunter. And that Varsity in the same picture - what does it say above the windows?

Just had a look at the original file and it seems the picture is reversed. After flipping it the right way arround and zooming I can reveal that the lettering on the Varsity says "Royal Air Force S..." anything after the S is out of shot.

[clarion]

Some fabulous photos of some real rarities you added after the Spits.

I can't name them all, but I think there's a Bristol 188, a Fairey Delta 2?, and the ?Avro Triplane.

And that Meteor with a modified nosecone.

[clarion]

  Just looked up the reg, and what I thought was an FD2 was an Avro 707.  I've got a Jane's Book of experimental planes somewhere with many of these in.

EDIT:  I've reconsidered.  I think the dark one is an FD2, after all. 

[clarion]

Those Spitfires are interesting - they have the later bubble canopies, but still the pointy wings. I guess a Mk XVI or XVII?

I'd agree.  I've looked up the XVIII, and that seems to consistently have a five bladed prop.

Hold on though.  There's a reference on Wikipedia to all MkXVIs being LF variants with clipped wings.  Seems unlikely, especially given the photo next to the text, but could be true, which might narrow it down to a XVII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire_%28late_Merlin-powered_variants%29#Mk_XVI_.28type_361.29

I looked up the 'lost' Spits, and it turns out they are LF MkXIVs made in Castle Bromwich.

"Air display somewhere" could be at Old Warden, it's got that sort of look of how it was when I was there as a teenager.

My thoughts too.

[clarion]

Photo 8.  A Tornado.  But looking at the unusually pointy nosecone, I might hazard that's an MRCA prototype with one of the avionics variants they tried out (I was an avid reader of Flight in the days of the testing).

Yes, I know.  I'm massively overexcited at these pictures

[TimC]

The Meteor is a standard F8. Behind it is and Avro 707, with its nose appearing to project from the Meteor.

The Spitfire FR XVIII is a Griffon-powered bubble-cockpit variant, so it isn't one of those. The 'Mk XVII' is a Griffon-engined version of the Seafire, so it ain't one of those either. I believe it's an LFXVI. LF varieties did not all have clipped wings - but they did have different radiator arrangements. Operators of the XVI in the Burma campaign included 11 and 17 Sqns. 17 was, I believe based in Singapore at the time under 226 Gp, but I'd have to do more research on that. 11 was based in Ceylon, so it's unlikely to be them. 81Sqn was a PR outfit based in Singapore, but they didn't have XVIs.

[pcolbeck]

Photo 8.  A Tornado.  But looking at the unusually pointy nosecone, I might hazard that's an MRCA prototype with one of the avionics variants they tried out (I was an avid reader of Flight in the days of the testing).

I thought 8 was an F-111 Aardvark.

[TimC]

I can't see a 'Tornado' in any of these pictures. There is an F 111. These pictures predate even the MRCA by some time.

[pcolbeck]

Tim the Spits are almost certainly X1 Squadron as that was my Uncles outfit during WWII. They flew Hurricanes in Burma then Spitfire XIVs in Malaya and Japan after the armistice. I have some photo's not scanned as yet of them in transit on an aircraft carrier which must have been scary for non naval pilots.

[clarion]

OK.  I wasn't expecting US aircraft, but thinking of experimental.

[TimC]

Tim the Spits are almost certainly X1 Squadron as that was my Uncles outfit during WWII. They flew Hurricanes in Burma then Spitfire XIVs in Malaya and Japan after the armistice. I have some photo's not scanned as yet of them in transit on an aircraft carrier which must have been scary for non naval pilots.

Ah, ok. Perhaps they did heavy maintenance or R&R at Seletar then. I can probably find out more - my Dad is (or was - I can't keep up!) president of the Xl Sqn Association, and he can probably dig up more info.

[pcolbeck]

Another view of the Aardvark:



and a couple I think TimC might find interesting:

Squadron Leader Leo Hook:

[TimC]

Ah! 207 Sqn? You'll be interested to know it's now a Reserve Sqn at Linton! I wonder if Leo's heritage had anything to do with that?!

[TimC]

Tim the Spits are almost certainly X1 Squadron as that was my Uncles outfit during WWII. They flew Hurricanes in Burma then Spitfire XIVs in Malaya and Japan after the armistice. I have some photo's not scanned as yet of them in transit on an aircraft carrier which must have been scary for non naval pilots.

Ah, ok. Perhaps they did heavy maintenance or R&R at Seletar then. I can probably find out more - my Dad is (or was - I can't keep up!) president of the Xl Sqn Association, and he can probably dig up more info.

Further - as you say, XI operated LFXIVs in Burma. They never operated XVIs, according to the Sqn History and contrary to what I said earlier (which came from another good source, so there may be some doubt about this). Those in the picture are definitely not XIVs (which were Griffon-engined and hi-backed). So I reckon Leo was getting some schadenfreude recording the mishaps of other outfits at his base!

[pcolbeck]

There were both high backed and low backed XIVs. I am not sure which 11 squadron were issued with. I will have to look at some of the photos my Dad has.