Firefly arrivals

[ozplane]

A surprise today at Duxford (at least to me) was the road-bound arrival of 2 Fireflies for ARC. They are registered SE-BRG and SE-CAU and are Mark 1's (I think). They have the chin radiator and elliptical wingtips. One is due for a 3-year rebuild to fly and the other is for static restoration. They aren't the Ethiopian a/c which I believe are in South Africa. This pair are in the target-tug yellow colour scheme.
A note for M-O-T-F and DamienB is that Hangar 1 is due to be emptied in April to allow construction work to begin on the expansion. This means that some of the rarer aircraft will be outside for a while so a photo-opportunity might arise.

[hairyclameater]

RE "that Hangar 1 is due to be emptied in April to allow construction work to begin on the expansion. This means that some of the rarer aircraft will be outside for a while so a photo-opportunity might arise."

Money making photo shoot opportunity?? I and I know loads of others with cameras who would pay to shoot some of that stuff in the open air!!??

Come on IWM, let us at 'em!

[Man-on-the-fence]

Any better dates that sometime in April?

[ozplane]

As I understand it the moves will start when the contract is let for the expansion of the Superhangar. My background in civil engineering leads me to think that it could be a bit, shall we say, variable. I'll post whatever I hear.

[DamienB]

There's an extensive thread about the Fireflies on the Key publishing forum here (http://forum.airforces.info/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21166).

As for Duxford's movements I'm supposedly going to be kept updated on these so if I hear anything I'll post on this thread.

[Duxford_Eagles]

Thanks for the tip-off about the Duxford Firefly arrivals Damien - the visit turned out to be very interesting and was far better spent than a normal day of number crunching at work.

Rob

[Malcolm G O Payne]

Back in the mid-60s I was one of the demonstration pilots on the Anson for Skyfame. We had a Firefly 1 fly in from Sweden to join the collection and it was hoped to keep it flying, but RR wouldn't help with the engine checks. When Skyfame closed most of the fleet went to Duxford and the Anson has been rebuilt. What happened to the Firefly?

[DamienB]

Happily it ended up at Duxford, was fully restored as Z2033 'Evelyn Tentions' and is now on permanent display at the FAA Museum, RNAS Yeovilton.

[BeauMan]

Malcolm - the Firefly 1 is Z2033. She was swapped by the IWM for the AV-8A which was at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton.

The AV-8A now lives in the Imperial War Museum North, while the Firefly, painted as "Evelyn Tentions" is now on static display at Yeovilton alongside their Firefly V.

Your old Anson is currently in Duxford's hangar four as part of the Defence of Britain exhibition, and very nice she looks too. :ok: You must have had some fun flying her...

[JDK]

Hi Malcolm et al,
I've posted some pics of mine and from my collection here (http://forum.airforces.info/showthread.php?threadid=21310) showing the rollout and some of Z2033 in Skyfame's hands ground running.

The ex-Skyfame Anson was recently restored at Duxford, a superb job back to full 1940 configuration and as Beauman says, it looks great. Well worth a trip to see (even if it's not flying). Old Warden are, however, flying the BAe Anson 19 up the road.

here (http://forum.airforces.info/showthread.php?threadid=21310)

[Malcolm G O Payne]

Thank you Beauman and JDK. Yes, I enjoyed the few hours I did on the Anson. One display item we did at Skyfame had Joh Fairey in his Spitfire G-AIDN with me in the Anson on his left wing and John Cole in the Oxford on the right wing. Both John Cole and I had just one power setting - full throttle - while John Fairey was trying hard not to overheat at the slow speed we were doing.
Quite a few happy memories. I managed to get checked out on the Oxford just a few days before it was grounded for glue deterioration.