In alisoncc's post no 107 you can see the tail of Prentice G-AOPL. It belonged to old,not bold, who referred to it in this thread in March 2010 (post 19):
Brief history; bought for £700 from Shackletons at Sywell Sept '66, exported from Gatwick (Bureimi Airways Flight 001 to Sharjah was called on the PA) 27/9/66, number of unforeseen occurrences on route including a forced landing after both mags failed in cloud over the Italian mountains, complete 2-month repair and refurb in Baghdad after an engine fire on takeoff (Shackleton's workmanship being the root cause), got to Sharjah Jan '67, flew round the desert for a bit, then 2 RAF officers on leave from Twin Pin flying took it to South Africa, where it was sold for £700 in mid '67.
The idea was to keep it in Sharjah and return to UK eventually, but an engine overhaul was imminent and Gulf Aviation, whom I later joined, stopped doing their own Gipsy Queen (Dove, Heron) overhauls in between my purchase of a Gipsy Queen for that reason and its arrival 9 months later.
It was bought by a farmer's boy who planned to use it to fly to Durban for riotous weekends from his Dad's farm, inland at 6000ft. He had just got his licence and rejected all offers of advice from the RAF officers about calculating Prentice take-off performance at 6000ft. The demo flight and deal were done at sea level, and the RAF officers got the next plane out.
The Prentice was an interesting aircraft to fly, suffering as it did from being grossly underpowered with the aerodynamic beauty of a s**thouse. Oiling up the rearmost plugs while taxying was its best trick; mag checks were pointless on the ground and I did them on the climb out, always a nervous moment especially over the sea. But rumbling along at 1900 RPM and 90Kts at 6,000 ft or so, sunny day over the Med, window open, it had its nice moments as well.
PS G-AOPL landing at Abu Dhabi International Airport Jan 1967...and Sharjah next day
