As I mentioned in post #3 I have nothing substantive. However the name rang a very faint bell as possibly from when I had to stand guard (Crash Guard) on the remains of a Harvard that had crashed whilst the student pilot was doing aerobatics. This happened on a farm about 20-miles to the south of Thornhill and really I have no further details.
It was the custom to send airmen to a crash site to stand guard until the technicians could assess what had happened and arrange an appropriate method of recovery. This normally involved a mobile crane and “Queen Mary” recovery vehicle; this could prove problematic when out in the “bundu” miles from any road, particularly in the wet season with very soft ground to be traversed. During the dry season with the ground baked hard recovery was no problem.
I did two stints as crash guard. The first for a Harvard that made a wheels-landing and the second to guard the remains of the destroyed aerobatic Harvard mentioned above.
Two photos from my album of the wheels-up Harvard and the other of a Tiger Moth. Tiger Moths couldn’t of course do wheels-up landings and often suffered the ignominy of turning upside down when the main wheels caught on the brush or uneven ground when making a forced landing out in the bundu. As regards the occupants of the two aircraft shown in photos, in both cases the pilot/s walked away uninjured.
The Harvard doesn’t appear in accident statistics of aircraft written-off so probably went on to be repaired and fly again.
