Westland Whirlwind Fighter

[Mr BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Chris Royle

And the fate of the one example that went to the USA for evaluation.
All contributions gratefully received,
Best wishes,
Chris Royle

Chris, Hope this helps.

I think you need to ask Peter Twiss (The 1000mph Man) the question about the Whirlwind in the USA.
The extract below is from an email between myself and another Whirlwind fan from 2003
I lost contact with him shortly after this.


I was at the Shoreham aerojumble rummaging as one does, when I saw a signall books signed by peter twiss today,
So I loitered whilst this elderly gent signed a book, yep peter twiss !!!
So plucking up courage, are you peter twiss
Yes came the reply,
I wonder do you recall being at a pilots conference in Florida in '44 ?
yes, I was in America for some time, I flew a seafire and some other types at a conference.
Do you recall a whirlwind ?
Yes, lovely aeroplane to fly, twin engined , there is a story to that,
I had to pick up the a/c , can't remember where , and fly it down to the gulf of Mexico somewhere, It had short range, so there was a need to refuel on the way, I took off and shortly afterwards the compass needle fell off , so there I was in a undistinquishable environment, with no compass, but it was a lovely day , so I put the nose down and shortly found a railway line and followed it and eventually came to an airfield where I landed and borrowed a compass, and continued the flight.
( I think he said ) I later flew it to Grumman's, it was strange this little a/c in amongst all the large Grumman a/c,
The a/c was eventually laid up and the engines removed and placed in the station commanders boat !!! ( forgot the name he told me ), don't know what happened to the shell probably dumped.
I said do you recall the dates ?
Not without looking at my logbook !!!!!!!,
Can I write to you , and he gave me his address.
So end of a eventful day !!
I will be writing the letter this weekend.
Hopefully he will have the dates and descriptions of the flights in his logbook !! I will ask him about the paint scheme.