Warbirds of Great Britain/Flying A Sevices

[rafmatt]

I know this has already been brought up in previous threads but i'm rather intrigued at the location and types of aircraft in those mysterious containers belonging to Flying A Services/Warbirds of Great Britain?

As a young spotty 16 year old I did my work experince with Intrepid Aviation that used to be housed in the hanger adjacent to the hanger that was always locked and never really had anything going in and out. But one day there was some activity and i got talking to two gentleman about the three complete airframes which were a Wildcat and Hellcat and a Corsair. The Hellcat was moved by road as i remember helping loading it up onto a low loader and the Corsair being flown away to a new loacation.

What happened to the containers which i was told contained at least a few Spits and rumour of a P40 and a FW190? and what happened to the wildcat?

This is a story which has had many people intrigued for ages. If anyone has any details please share with the community lol :ok:

[treadigraph]

I was reading a thread over on Flypast which mentioned Doug Arnold the other day and thought it would be good to see a definitive list of historic airframes that passed through his hands over the years.

The Wildcat is now in Illinois.

There was certainly a P-40N supposedly in a container; I don't remember the Fw190, but who knows...

Any stuff that still belongs to Flying A is supposedly in a bunker at Greenham Common isn't it?

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Didn't know any bunkers remained at Greenham? We pass there frequently but I'm not over familiar with the place. Certainly, much of the concrete has gone...

[treadigraph]

Not sure, I may be going back a few years now - I'm thought that when TFC acquired the Spitfire Mk18 G-BRAF from Flying A about 5 years ago, it was collected from Greenham...

[rafmatt]

there is some good info guys keep up the posting as i find it a very intresting story.:ok:

[treadigraph]

I drew up a list of what I could remember/find belonging to Doug Arnold/Warbirds of Great Britain/Fairoaks Aviation Services last night, blimey!

The P-40N is N9950 and there is indeed an FW190 wreck, looked fairly complete too. Google them, there are photos out there.

Nosing around the web last night, I saw that supposedly parts of the Jeddah A-26 were also at Biggin Hill along with the Lancaster/Lincoln parts stacked outside the hangar.

What happened to the orange Catalina which was at Biggin and moved to North Weald? Is that the one that was en-route to Israel and lost an engine in France?

[rafmatt]

yaeh that is true about the cat i have a friend who was working on that cat it was flown to France and was stuck there a while before being moved to Isreal for a musuem. I belive it is now painted black. I knew there was a FW190 there somewhere.

[bobward]

Aren't these to old GLCM bunkers on the airfield?
There was a thread on here earlier in the year from the local council there who wanted topreserve them, and stop them being torn down to make a car park if i recall correctly.

That being true, there would be a lot of room inside to hold all sorts of stuff.