Tempest(?) crash, Winchester Avenue, Heston
In class at Norwood Green Junior School, one day some time in the late 40's (I left the school in 1949), we all heard a fast descending high powered aircraft, apparently on full power - followed by silence and an ominous pall of dense black smoke rising from somewhere over towards Heston Church. I heard that it was a Tempest (on test from Langley?) which had failed to recover from a spin and crashed in the garden of a house in Winchester Avenue, killing the pilot. If attempting post-spin recovery, and as we heard it probably at full power, it was presumably attempting to regain speed and full flying control in order to check descent and climb away - but too late. Poor darned pilot; imagine trying to achieve that in such a heavy machine as a Tempest!
In the Yahoo! Heston Airport Group, it has been suggested that it might have been a Firefly which was thought to have crashed somewhere in the area. It has been confirmed anyway that long-term Winchester Avenue residents were still, in the 1970's, talking about a "Spitfire" crash at the end of the road. My own memory of local information, or misinformation, at the time, says "Tempest" but I could be wrong.
Anybody have more information?