Originally Posted by 500N
"about 4 or 5 were flyable"
How can we go from 4 or 5 flyable in the 60's
to having to have one rebuilt in NZ ?
What happened to the flyable aircraft ?
(Excluding the last one that crashed)
At the time of filming there were actually 7 or 8 airworthy after the ending of ops by No3 CAACU at Exeter, incl. RR299 operated by DH/BAC as was then.
Five were flown in the film, plus a 6th airworthy one was in attendance at Bovingdon during filming which was used for crew training, this was T3, TV959.
The five actually used for flying sequences were,
B.35’s RS709, RS712, TA639 & TA719 plus T.3 TW117.
RS709 stayed airworthy with the Skyframe collection after filming and was used 5 years later for filming Mosquito Sqn. It was sold after that to an American owner in the early 70’s and was flown across the Atlantic where it spend most of the 70’s under several different owners. It was bought by a UK owner and was flown back across the Atlantic in 1979. It was restored over a number of years before being sold again, and eventually acquired by the USAF Museum, and flown back across the Atlantic again in 1984 to Dayton where it was permantley grounded and put on display in the museum painted to represent a PRXVI flown by the USAAC.
RS712 also stayed airworthy after filming ended, and was acquired by the films advisor Hamish Mahaddie. It was also used for filming Mosquito Sqn, and eventually ended up with the Strathallen Collection in Scotland and flown occasionally through the 70’s. It was bought by US collector Kermit Weeks for £100,000 when the Stathallen Collection folded in the mid 80’s and was flown across the Atlantic by the same crew that flew RS709 across a year or two before. It stayed airworthy for a few years, and last flew in 1992 IIRC. It’s be displayed in the EAA museum ever since. Kermit does have plans to restore it back to airworthy at some point, but given the amount of projects he has I won’t hold my breath on that ever happening.
TA639 was loaned by the RAF for filming, and returned RAF storage after filming, the flight from Bovingdon to RAF Henlow probably being it’s last flight. It was allocated to the RAF Museum and has been on display at Cosford since 1970.
TA719 was also bought by Skyframe and loaned out for the filming. It returned to the Skframe collection afterwards, but was badly damaged in crash landing a year later at Staverton. It was used for ground scenes in Mosquito Sqn in 1968 before eventually ending up at the IWM Duxford in the late 70’s where it is still on display.
TW117 was loaned to the filming from the RAF and returned to RAF Museum storage at Henlow afterwards. IIRC, this a/c was flown to Abingdon for the big 50th RAF show in 1968, and it’s last flight was it’s return to Henlow where it was allocated for displaying in the new RAF Museum at Hendon, where it stayed on display for 20 years until being sold as part of a deal so the RAFM could acquire other artefacts. It’s owners then permantley loaded the a/c to the RNAF at Bodo in Norway in 1992.
TV959 flew straight from filming to have it's wing sawn off and the aircraft was hung in the IWM Lambeth where it remained for the next 25 years until being sold to the Duxford based Fighter Collection, where it remained stored for a number of years until being recently sold to Paul Allens Seattle based FHC, and it is now being restored to airworthy condition by the same team in NZ that rebuilt KA114.
As an aside, the pilot that flew both RS709 and again, RS712 across the Atlantic in the mid 1980's was noted ex-DH TP, and hugely experienced Mosquito pilot George Aird, who famously is seen here ejecting from a trials Lightning in the early 1960's
