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Heston: wartime crashes and incidents
As suggested by A30yoyo.... I thought I would start a Heston wartime crashes thread, as there a few interesting ones coming out of the woodwork.
To kick off, here is an account found on th net I was plane spotting at Heston that day, aged almost twelve. It was 6th September 1943, two days before my twelfth birthday. Heston was the Fairy Aviation Company flight test airfield at that time. Most of the aircraft parts were made in a factory at Hayes and assembled at Heston. .The airfield was the largest in West London and it was from there that Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich to talk to Adolf Hitler in 1939. Fighter aircraft for Royal Navy aircraft carriers were made at Heston and these had only one engine. On this particular day I heard a large aircraft with four engines sounding very rough approaching the airfield. I noticed that some of the engines had stopped and the other two did not sound very good and the aircraft was obviously in trouble. It was going to land whether it crashed or not as the engines did not sound as though they were going to run for much longer. The B.17 was just a little above the ground when it went out of sight behind the hangar and I heard a loud thud and just hoped that the crew had escaped. The aircraft was aiming for Heston but landed in a field just outside Heston airfield. An article by one of the crew members says, “During a raid on Stuttgart we were hit by flak (anti-aircraft shells) and attacked by FW 190 fighters after bombs away, losing both starboard engines. Lt Kney (Captain) ordered “lighten the ship” and we ditched all removeable items. Reaching the English Channel we adopted crash positions in the radio room. The aircraft seemed to be doing OK so Lt Kney opted to attempt a forced landing at RAF Heston. Upon our approach we lost the third engine, overshooting the runway we lost the fourth engine. We made a gear down landing on waste ground ( the rear gunner says a wheatfield) and came to an abrupt stop,when we hit an anti-glider stake, which embedded itself into our port wing root”. Local householders came out with tea, sandwiches and cakes, saying , “Well done Yanks” I have since met only two people who saw the crash. One was a Foreman at British Airways and the other I met on a coach when members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers visited RAF St Athan. I wrote to Mr Peter Caines and he kindly sent me some most interesting information. He was able to tell me that the crew had all survived the crash without any injuries. The aircraft had been salvaged and repaired and flew again but was shot down during a raid on Schweinfurt in Germany on 14th October 1943. The crew were very fortunate once again as they all survived as prisoners of war and returned to America when the war ended. Peter Caines also sent me a photo of the crew, two pictures of the aircraft, which was named “Big Moose”, and an article written by the rear gunner and published in a magazine. I was very pleased to know, after 60 years, that the crew had all survived. Heston Airport was close by and always busy with Flying Fortresses taking off and landing. When Audrey was eight years old she was in her garden, watching a Flying Fortress come in to land. It missed the runway and crashed into the cornfield at the back of their house. Straightaway she dashed out of the garden gate and started to run toward the plane. She had decided to try to rescue the pilot! As she ran a policeman stopped her. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “I’m going to get the pilot out!” Audrey shouted. “And how old are you?” “Eight” “Go on — you’d better get back home. There’s nothing you can do.” Audrey was bitterly disappointed not to be able to do her brave and daring rescue, but also very worried about the pilot. She found out later that he had been killed in the crash. Audrey and her friends used to like go to the Airport gate and hang around. The American airmen would often give them some chocolate and chat with them. She wondered then whether the dead pilot had once talked to her or given her some chocolate, and the thought that she might have met him still saddens her now. Can anyone add anything? Do you know of any other incident in or around Heston?? |
Without researching a BA Lockheed 14, a BOAC/KLM DC-3, the Napier Heston Racer..all 1940....
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Lt. Kney was my uncle
The pilot of that B17 I believe was my uncle and if it was he survived that Weston crash because my uncle died in a B-29 crash in the United States after his tour of duty in Europe. The only Kney's in the war (allies), were my father and my Uncle Lt. John Kney. My Uncle was a B-17 pilot (captain). I have a picture of him with his crew in front of his plane. I will look for the nick name on his aircraft.
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The picture in this link is my Uncle Lt. John Kney
The crew picture of "Big Moose" shot just after the crash in the following link.... Interests is the exact picture I have. I can confirm he did not die in the forced landing at Heston.
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Wow thanks for that.... great link.
Anyone know exactly where Big moose came down?? The reports suggest in landed in a cornfield... could this have been the Wheatlands at Heston or was this too far? |
B-17 in field
A google 'big moose ford bigant' suggests that the photo was taken at 'RAF Ford' (RNAS Ford??) so a possibility that its not Heston
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Miles Master crash Heston March 8 1942
The younger brother of sergeant pilot Tony Smith posted a message on www.honorourveterans.com about the takeoff crashof a 61 OTU Miles Master which caused his brothers death from burns in hospital and damaged several parked aircraft
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B17 Big Moose
My father flew on Big Moose after it was repaired after the crash in Heston. The plane was shot down. All crew members survived. Was wondering if you had anymore pictures of Big Moose from the prior crew your uncle Lt. Kney. I saw in your other posting that you had a link to the site I have in honor of my father Paul Spodar and his crew. Anymore information of the B17 Big Moose would be greatly appreciated.
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No more pictures.
Hi,
I'm sorry it has taken me 1 year to reply but I have been very busy! Haaaa no, I just don't get on here a lot. Because my uncle died on July 2, 1944 co-piloting a B-29 in the states there was never any real memorabilia or personal effects my family had of him... at least that survived. The only picture we had of him in relation to the Big Moose was the one you have seen. Feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Best. Jack. |
Thanks
Much appreciated for your reply. Will continue to search for more information about the B17 Big Moose AKA Tough ****. I'm going to try to contact the Mighty 8th Museum and see if they can help.
Thanks again. |
Fern Lane crash
The crash into the house, corner of Fern Lane/North Hyde Lane, just outside the eastern Heston boundary, was neither the P51 (Grange Farm House - google "Woodasons"), nor the B17 (over the north west boundary, I think).
It was, wait for it......................a Ju88! It had just happened (too recently for the road to yet be blocked off), as a gaggle of us walked home from Norwood Green School one afternoon - and I managed to "win" a small piece of its nose Perspex. My understanding was that it was a take off accident, so it was clearly not an enemy action incident. Allegedly, the pilot was unharmed and had calmly stepped out to use the phone box which used to stand on that corner, to ask the tower if they happened to have noticed. Unfortunately though, I'm now unsure of exactly when it was, or even whether it was duriing WWII (in which case, presumably a 1426 Enemy Aircraft Flight machine), or perhaps after they had disbanded (January 1945) but when RAE Farnborough still had examples. Not even sure now what markings it had. It was definitely a full greenhouse nose JU88 though, not a (fared in nose) fighter variant, let alone one with night fighter radar aerials. I'm also fairly sure the Perspex (added to my shrapnel collection but long since swapped for a newt in a jam jar, or similar!) was from a "beetle's eye" bomb aimer's flat pane, rather than from a curved moulding as used on say JU88S-1's. Ever since Google arrived, I've been trying to get more info, without any success at all until googling "Fern Lane crash" tonight, instead of "Ju88 Heston". Now at least I know that somebody else knew something about it - I think, BTW, that the damage repair is still visible in Google Street View, around the house's front door area. So, which aircraft was it? Wikipaedia's article on 1426 Flight only lists two JU88's with the right nose structure - an A-4 and an A-5. There's no information there on the fate of the A-4 but the A-5 (HM509, the "Chivenor Ju88") is said to have been written off following damage in a ground loop, while landing on 19 May 1944. The one I saw didn't really look like a ground loop though, to be honest, unless it just happened to finish up in perfect alignment for a normal, albeit aborted, eastbound Heston take off. I know that departing aircraft usually left the ground more or less over that spot, as I also remember climbing a small tree then on the airfield boundary about there, to watch my first jet (a Vampire) depart. However, the ground loop date could fit timewise - I would have been six, coming on seven, and walking home from school in a group of unescorted kids alright. Paedophiles - pah! We had to cope with Ju88's, not to mention falling V1's - at least two on the Cranford Lane side of the airfield, and several others locally. Would a six year old have recognised a Ju88? Oh yes! In those days, small aero minded boys, of which I was definitely one, had an encyclopaedic knowledge of allied and axis aircraft. A few years later, I went on to represent 86(F) Sqdn ATC in national aircraft recognition competitions, so there! :rolleyes: Does anybody else have any information on that crash? Is anybody in contact with Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown, former O/C 1426 Flight and still very aviation active (non-flying), I believe - he would probably know the answer. |
War Prizes/ Phil Butler/ Midland Counties, page 85, a photograph of Ju-88G-6, Air Min32, W/Nr.622960 in a garden after overshooting Heston on landing 15th October 1945.
A/c was operated by the Fighter Interception Development Squadron of the Night Fighter Development Wing, Central Fighter Establishment at West Raynham. Ciarain. |
Fern Lane crash
Result! Many thanks Ciarain. Copy just ordered from Amazon. Shows my 73 y.o. memory is not infallible then - must have been upper cockpit Perspex and it was a fared in nose version after all. Mind you, on reflection, the aircraft was pretty well embedded into the house anyway, so logically I might not have seen much if anything of the nose itself. Amaing how one strives to solve childhood riddles in one's dotage - could say not much else to do, except that I'm actually busier than I've ever been :rolleyes:
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Heston Crash
Pardon the thread creep but AWF118 mentioned 86F ATC in Hounslow and as a member from 1948 to 1950 pehaps we know each other.
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Not a bomber base
Greetings Props. Probably not, as I didn't join until 1951. I'll PM or email in case we were neighbours though.
On another tack, the statement in the first quote, part of the opening post here, that "Heston Airport was close by and always busy with Flying Fortresses taking off and landing.." is, of course, as inaccurate as my recollection of the Ju88's nose. structure. Heston, a grass field, with a max take off run of 3,000 feet, was too small to have ever been a bomber base of any sort - a laden B17 ("Flying Fortress"), for example, needed a minimum of about 4,000 feet to get safely airborne even from a hard runway. Heston spent the war, initially as the original Spitfire-operating photo reconnaisance base, then as a pure fighter base with mainly Hurricanes or Spitfires, within 11 Group Fighter Command and subordinate to Northolt. Polish squadrons were frequently detached to Heston. In 1943-44, the Allied Expeditionary Force Communication Flight formed at Heston, with small communications types, before moving to Gatwick where it also operated larger aircraft into Europe after D-Day. Probably, the largest warbirds regularly seen at Heston were the Turbinlite Havocs, developed and initially operated there in 1941, or possibly the Northrop Black Widow(s), much in evidence at the end of the war. Post war, Heston Aircraft Company did conversion work on Sea Hornets and they, plus Fireflies on test from Fairey's Hayes factory were the final warbirds to regularly be seen there. |
AWF118
Enjoy the book, many very rare photos. and much more. Ciarain. |
Heston Crashes and Incidents
Good stuff AWF118 and kieron kirk ! The Ju88 crash is new to me. I think Heston was closer to 5000 ft measuring from North Hyde Lane to Southall Lane . Fortresses and Liberators were recorded at Heston , though probably not fully loaded.(AW Ensigns, DC-3s and Dewoitine D.338s also used it with no problem) On the Heston Airport Yahoo Group we would like to find out the I.D. of a Liberator 'Ticket Home' reported to have crash-landed there and also the serial number of Curtiss LeMay's B-17 'Silver Queen' of which there is colour photographic evidence of a Heston visit
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Vampire at Heston
This may have been at the Oct 1945 Fleet Air Arm display at Heston (second half of this video)Error Occurred While Processing Request
(edit....The link works for me, anyway! If it doesnt work it's Movietone 46099 , you might have to sign up)) |
Grass runway length and Ju88 crash
Glad that between us we've put the Ju88 on record here - and glad, to be honest, to have confirmation I didn't dream it.
The grass runway at Heston was 1000 yards long in 1939, as shown on the Air Ministry plan, p153 in Tim Sherwood's "Coming in to Land" - but by 1945, according to an aerial photograph I have, the eastern boundary (only) had extended to the pre-war planned "superstandard airport" line, i.e., to the present line of North Hyde Lane. Scaling one against the other, it looks as though the final run may have been about 3,850 feet. Anybody know for sure? Yes, larger aircraft did use Heston intermittently but presumably not with full ordnance loads in the case of the bombers. What was inaccurate about the quotation was the statement that "Heston Airport was close by and always busy with Flying Fortresses taking off and landing", giving the impression it was a bomber base. Incidentally, "Winkle" Brown tells us, in "Wings of the Luftwaffe", that wheel brakes on WWII German aircraft were generally very poor. His first Ju88 test flight (the "Chivenor" Ju88-A5) surprised him in revealing efficient brakes for once - but, of course, by the time Junkers reached the G-6 night fighter variant, the Ju88 was a much heavier beast. I also wonder whether the general brake inefficiencies he found were due to one of the raw material shortages the Third Reich chronically suffered from - something absent from their brake pad compositions perhaps? Anyway, it would be interesting to know whether failing brakes on a heavy machine caused the Heston accident, or was it pilot error, wet grass or exactly what? Oh dear, I've started another hare running! |
Vampire at Heston
Fantastic Movietone footage thanks - even though I can't actually be seen up my tree ("...I also remember climbing a small tree then on the airfield boundary about there, to watch my first jet (a Vampire) depart...").
Yes, that must have been the occasion, and I've found another ref, in the history of the Hornet, suggesting it was probably on 2 October 1945 - when the first two Sea Hornet prototypes were "..were shown to the public for the first time at a Press Show at Heston..." That answers another question: "my" tree might not have been there after the Ju88 shot across North Hyde Lane - probably a good job I wasn't up it that day, anyway! Interesting that the first part of that Movietone clip covers the closing down ATA pageant at White Waltham, as I later worked, part-time while still at school, for Island Air Services at Heathrow, with their three pleasure flight Rapides. IAS was, of course, the baby of Monique Agazarian (Rendall at that time), an ex ATA pilot, and one of her other pilots was Suzanne Ashton (formerly Chapman) also ex ATA - I flew often with both of them. |
Winkle Brown
Contact FAST Museum www.airsciences.org.uk/ at Farnborough for info regarding Winkle Brown.
He has recently been interviewed there & we have been waiting for the BBC to broadcast it on the "One Show", but for various reasons it has not been shown yet. tristar 500 |
Winkle Brown
Would be interesting to know if (as the naval test pilot) Winkle Brown was at the Heston Fleet Air Arm display on 2 October 1945? I'm currently reading the book he's holding up on the FAST webpage, and on page 23 that tells us that late on the following day, 3 October, he very nearly came a cropper in fog, while ferrying an Arado 234B from Schleswig via Brussels to Farnborough - one of a complete squadron of them captured at Sola (Stavanger), Norway. He had a Luftwaffe POW pilot flying another one in close formation with him (the poor German wasn't allowed maps!), and of course they lost each other in the fog. Winkle Brown got his down, with just fumes left in the tanks, on a somewhat marginal German airfield (Nordholz), while his companion excelled himself by safely getting his aircaft into a minute Dutch grass airfield (Eelde), which just happened to also be more bomb crater than grass! That's how the Dutch obtained an Arado 234, as nobody could fly it out again. The Arado was one jet aircraft which would have given the Vampire a very good run for its money.
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Heston Display
I suspect this shot of the Sea Mosquito in the Google Life Image archive was at the display
LIFE: War 1939-1945 World War Ii Air Uk Bombers - Hosted by Google see also the Flight Global Archive vampire | 1945 | 1992 | Flight Archive |
Heston Display
Thanks for the birthday issue of Flight (I was eight that very day!), duly printed off and tucked in the back of "Coming in to Land".
No sign of Winkle Brown but it seems that I was privileged to watch Geoffrey de Havilland (flying the Vampire), and possibly no less than Jeffrey Quill and Alex Henshaw too if I happened to have seen the Spiteful and the Seafire 45 performing. Don't remember the last two aircraft but the Vampire was what I was up the tree for, and "Spitfires" were commonplace at Heston after all. Must've been mid-afternoon too, so the actual display was possibly finished by then. It was on a Tuesday and, like the Ju88 incident, I would therefore have been on my way home from school when I heard the buzz about the Vampire - probably North Hyde Lane householders standing outside watching. No wonder I ended up aviation minded! Anyway, my clear recollection is of just a take off, and one straight and (very low) level high speed departure pass by the Vampire, so that also stacks up - relative to the tight turning passes in the actual display, as seen in the Movietone clip. It was, of course, just under a year later, on 27 September 1946, when Geoffrey de Havilland lost his life as the second prototype DH108 broke up in a high speed dive. (Wish I could remember what happened five minutes ago, as well as I recall events of over sixty five years ago! :rolleyes: ) |
More Heston Air Display
The RAF Museum has a few pics by Charles E Brown of the show...previous page has pics of the pilots but none of Winkle Brown, though (not yet a star?)http://navigator.rafmuseum.org/resul...ightbox&page=2
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More Heston Air Display
..and I see that Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cunningham was there. He was lucky enough to meet (well, inspect :) ) me a few years later, as a Boy Scout in a parade out in front of St Pauls Cathedral - Lord Mayor's Show?
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Sea Mosquito
I was particularly interested in the photo of the Sea Mosquito with one wing folded.
One of my early CO's in the FAA was in the initial, and only, Sea Mosquito squadron. They were working up on the aircraft and were nearing the time to embark on the carrier. His story was that the aircraft had done initial deck-landing trials successfully, using a non-folding aircraft, and little models of the aircraft had been pushed around a model of the deck and hangar to confirm that this (for the FAA) large aircraft could be manoeuvered successfully around the ship. However, one day someone arrived at the squadron and told them the deal was off; the aircraft wasn't going to go to sea. What had happened, he said, was that although the aircraft was measured as being narrow enough to fit down the lift, no-one had taken into account the fact that the propellor tips stuck out further than the stub wings. However one turned the props, there was no way it would fit. Hence, no front-line Sea Mosquito squadrons. |
Sea Mosquito - and my woggle
Admiral Cunningham must have missed that := He didn't spot that my woggle was crooked either :O
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Heston 'runway' length
On a 1945 Ordnance survey map (1inch=1mile) the distance from NE peri track corner near Fern Lane to SW peri track corner by Southall Lane (roughly 'runway' 25)measures 7/8 inch representing 4620 feet or 0.875mile (1.4km).( oversized scan in the map section of Collect Air | Woodason Aircraft Models History )
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Heston 'runway' length
That's probably about right but it was not the usable 'runway' length. In 1934, ten cubic yards of chalk were put down to create a white dotted line, indicating the approved take off and landing axis over the grass. That axis, still shown in use in the 1945 aerial photo I mentioned (crossing North Hyde Lane at the Fern Lane corner), by 1939 when an initial easterly extension had been added, provided an Air Ministry designated 1000 yards/3000 feet 'runway' plus height clearance buffer zones at either end - e.g., to clear the house the Ju88 hit.
Scaled up to also include the further easterly extension shown in the 1945 photo, and even assuming that the height clearance operating limit moved eastwards to the same extent, then the final usable length (except in extremis - e.g., Gen Curtis LeMay in a hurry in a B17!) was somewhere between the 3,850 feet I previously estimated, and say 4,000 feet absolute maximum. About 300-350 feet overrun/height clearance buffer at each end, would have been quite normal for aircraft, often with low initial climb rates in those days, operating in a built up area. The 1945 aerial photo clearly shows a well worn touch down area on the grass surface at the western end of the 'runway' beginning almost exactly 300 feet east of the perimeter track, and extending right across to about 700 feet onto the grass. A 1935 photograph in Tim Sherwood's "Coming in to Land" appears to also show a threshold marker line at right angles to the dotted line 'runway' axis, at about 300 feet in from the peri track. All academic though really, as the point was that Heston was never a bomber base, and once Blenheims, Whitleys and Wellingtons left the main bomber force inventory, it never could have been. In particular, Heston was not "always busy with Flying Fortresses taking off and landing". |
As a kid I lived in Grange Road Hayes. My friends and I often cycled to Cranford Woods, adjacent to Heston airfield and I remember going to see a B17 on its belly near the end of the "runway". Can't imagine many other four engine aircraft willingly using the field. I learnt to swim in the summer of 1943 and from then made frequent cycle trips to Heston swimming pool, the journey taking us past the airfield. I seem to remember that most of the aircraft there were fairly boring types such as Cessna Bobcats and Fairchild Argus. In 1945 I went for my first flight from Heston in an Anson with the ATC.
Also in 1940 aged 9, we cycled to near Northolt to see where a Magister had crashed only to be disappointed as the wreck had been removed. However I did find a small piece of perspex with blood on it which stayed in my treasure box for a long time. Later in the war the road down the hill towards the Polish War Memorial, now the A4180 West End Road, had on its eastern side several small hangers disguised and painted like houses and we saw Spitfires being moved along the road to and from the airfield. Of course there are real houses there now! I like to think we were more adventurous than present day kids but most parents would now not allow their offspring to disappear for hours at a time. |
Heston Crashes and Incidents
If Curtis LeMay's "Silver Queen" was the B17F with that same name, operated by the 334th Squadron in the 95th Bomb Group, its serial number was 42-29780. Website 95thbg.org refers, and also has two good photos.
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Heston Crashes and Incidents
I've had a system email alert to a post by A30yoyo, including text of a reply he made re the 95th BG B17F but for some reason, it's not here - since deleted? Anyway, he said at that point that the nose art checked out.
Of greater interest personally is the suggestion he also made in the apparently missing post that the "Middlesex Chronicle may have carried the photo of the crashed Ju88, at some time in the '70s. He had previously sent me an email-attached copy of that same photo, which apparently also exists somewhere online (it is NOT in "War Prizes - the Album", BTW, but only in the original 1994 "War Prizes"), and it shows the nose section of the aircraft in worse condition than I remembered it. Unless the nose was damaged during early salvage operation (dragging clear may have already begun), or removed by a salvage team, to recover the centimetric radar a Ju88G-6 with that W/Nr could have been expected to carry, the state of it casts doubt on survival of the pilot and/or other crew members, if any. If there were in fact casualties, the local story of the pilot calming getting out to use a telephone call box close by, must have been purely apocryphal. It also makes me feel very bad about grubbing around for a bit of souvenir Perspex, if somebody might have lost his life (surely "his" in those days) there. When time permits (which may not be for a week or three), I'm therefore intending to search both Middlesex Chronicle records from 1945 (that could well have been one of their photos), and CFE records at the National Archives, to look for more information: mission, cause, time, date, casualties.... Fairey Aviation was known to have been studying advanced technology in other aircraft at the time, hands on, looking for features to upgrade the Spearfish - albeit abandoned, due to cessation of healthy orders in that immediate post war period. It's thought to have been the reason a Northrop Black Widow (with its remotely operated barbetted guns) was in much evidence at Heston about that time. Were they also looking at German technology in that late model Ju88, and/or other captured aircraft? If they were not, they would have been on their own, as every other British manufacturer of anything from sockets to rockets was freely pouring over captured techonology in 1945. Does anybody already have other relevant information, including confirmation that the Chronicle printed the photo in the '70s and, if so, about when? Is there a weblink to the photo which you can post A30yoyo, to let other readers of this thread have a look - might jog some more memories? |
Sorry about the deletion...I attempted to attach a couple of pics and failed, got p****d off and went to bed (actually got locked out walking the dog and had to wake the Mrs by lobbing 2p coins up at her bedroom window!) The LEMB has info on Airmin32 but its a sign-up group so can't link to it but apparently the pic is (also?) in 'Junkers Ju88- Star of the Luftwaffe' by Manfred Griehl (presumably German text. The LEMB says this Ju-88 was fitted with a 'Kiel Gerat' device making it rare.
I wouldn't get too bogged down searching the Middlesex Chronicle archives as its only a vague memory of a crash photo across a road at Heston (but there was something published and my best guess is the Seventies |
Heston Crashes and Incidents
No prob re the deletion. Guessed something like that must have happened (although my guesswork didn't extend as far as you chucking 2p coins at your missus :)), and also guessed that the Ju88 photo must be behind a log-in somewhere.
I'll try to sign up and navigate around the LEMB site (a new one to me) in a mo' - but my first reaction is: verrrrry interrresting! "Gerät", a noun taken from the old High German simply means tool or device, so has no especial meaning as an I.D. - the Luftwaffe used it to broadly refer to various "systems", e.g., X-Gerät or Y-Gerät, their well known long range radio guidance bombing systems. I can't find any reference to a "Kiel-Gerät" but if "Kiel" was actually "Kehl", i.e., "Kehl-Gerät", that would probably slot a number of jigsaw pieces neatly into place. Kehl was a series of (low VHF) radio transmitter systems whose guidance signals were used to communicate with corresponding Straßburg series receivers, mounted in Hs293 or Fritz-X radio guided anti-ship missiles. Kehl, BTW, is the town on the opposite side of the Rhine from Straßburg. If AirMin 32 was a a Kehl-equipped Ju88G-6, then I'm fairly sure it would have had a glazed nose as I originally thought (for the Kehl operator, who needed visual line of sight to the missile, until its impact) - rather than a night fighter's centimetric radar, faired in, radome nose. I also think it would pretty clearly have been of great interest to Fairey's in the context of Spearfish development, and would have been very smartly retrieved by a salvage crew if intact post-crash. Rare, it would have been, as the Hs293 at least (an underslung, rocket-propelled winged missile) was not known to have been operationally launched from Ju88's - He111 or Do217 being the norm. However, both missiles were developed-on, with sophisticated tail lighting systems to aid their visual guidance at night - so planned operation using a Ju88 night fighter platform (perhaps reverted to wing-mounted Yagi radar aerial arrays) could have been logical. I'll try LEMB now, to see if there's anything there to support or dstroy my hypothesis - but at least I've chanced my arm by stating the hypothesis first, in true scientific manner :hmm: EDIT: Have now registered to LEMB ("Luftwaffe Experten Message Board") but it looks as though it can take up to eight hours before I'll have access, so I'll get back with any further info from there then. |
Heston Ju-88 Kiel Gerat
Your Ju88 was apparently fitted when captured with FUG 220 and FUG 280 kit, the latter being the Kiel Gerat a lead sulphite photocell technology I-R viewing gadget (mounted in the nose)
Village Inn |
Heston Crashes and Incidents/Heston Ju88 Kiel Gerat
Hi Ayoyo30. Yes, confess I got it wrong - and tried to post earlier to say so, and to give an update, but due to an internet connection failure, I had been logged out, and the post was lost. Grrrrrr!
So - nowt to do with anti-shipping missiles, although I'll not delete that hypothesis in case there's stuff there still of some interest. In particular, my update now might just give a more rational explanation for the previously mentioned Northrop Black Widow at Heston. I may be wrong but the view expressed elsewhere that it was in order for Fairey's to consider a similar remote gun control system, as a Spearfish development, somehow never quite rang true for me. With full access now to LEMB, and having also trawled relevant stuff at w2f, here's a distillation of what I eventually found: "Kiel-Gerät" just seems to have been an Air Ministry shorthand for the Kiel-Z night fighter infrared target tracking system. Kiel-Z used FuG.280 (FunkGerät.280) opto-electronic hardware developed by Karl Zeiss, Jena. All other online references found are to either Kiel-Z or FuG.280. Kiel-Z was originally Me110-trialled in 1941 but was found lacking. After further development, it was undergoing late pre-service trials in March 1945, using three or four Ju88G-6's. The Heston Ju88 was one of those aircraft and had been captured shortly after cessation of hostilities in NW Europe on 4 May 1945, at Grove, Jutland, Denmark. Winkle Brown tells us that German pilots with key technology to protect had defected to there, rather than see their aircraft fall into Soviet hands. Ultra intercept decrypts report the full details of two aircraft interception trials conducted near Vechta, north of Osnabruch, on 12 and 14 March 1945, respectively, and ADI (Science) in the UK had appended its coment, as follows: "(1) This information indicates that the FuG280 is the Kiel Apparatus mentioned in ADI Report 251. It is an infra-red detector, picking up the radiation from the engines and exhausts of our bombers. The sensitive element is a lead sulphite cell with a 25 centimetre diameter scanning mirror covering a forward view of 20 degrees total side-to-side and up and down, the indications are presented on a cathode ray tube in unison with the mirror. The maximum range against a bomber is about 5 kilometres. (2) The latest experiments show that the field of view is rather narrow for covering an evading aircraft, but that the apparatus otherwise is good up to 2 kilometres range. Method of use under trial is to put the Kiel on by SN2 at 1,000 metres range, and to approach from below, so that the target is viewed against the sky, giving a smooth infrared background. (3) Information indicates that Kiel must be very near service trial stage." As the Kiel-Z system was a precursor of many of the infrared detection and scanning systems we are now so familiar with, then, apart from its military significance, Air Ministry 32 was one important Ju88 it was a great pity we lost. As the scanning mirror/detector unit would have been nose mounted, it now seems even more possible that the nose section had been very smartly removed post-crash by a salvage team, or even by local ground crew. Bearing in mind that the post-crash photo shows a nose removed far enough back for the pilot, if not other crew, to have been sure to have perished if that had been due to impact, the following incredible development today makes post-crash nose removal seem even more likely: A posting has been received today from a newbie to the Yahoo Heston Airport Group, to say that he/she was a (family visiting) baby, asleep in the house when the Ju88 struck, that he/she is fine, other occupants were unhurt, and the (Canadian) pilot, who survived, was also fine, asking if everybody was OK first - before perhaps heading for the call box, as per the local legend. Seriously, that has happened today - now I will never again express surprise at the web's powers to find information!! (I also feel much better now, BTW, about pinching a bit of the Canadian's Perspex.) Finally, the thought now occurs that, whether or not it was Fairey Aviation, somebody at Heston was probably very interested in the Kiel-Z system and its Ju88 mount. Was that same somebody also responsible for the presence, at about that same time, of the most advanced allied radar night fighter, a Northrop Black Widow? David |
Ju88 crash and B17 Silver Queen
The first of these photos is of the Ju88 some time after its crash.
I think, although I can't be sure, that salvage had already begun and the aircraft had been dragged clear of the house, far enough to allow removal of the nose section containing the Kiel-Z infrared detector and mirror scanning system components, part of the overall FuG.280 target tracking system. I've reproduced the photo here, a bit smaller than intended, so please take my word for it that the object between the man's shoulder and the aircraft's bent starboard propeller is the Fern Lane telephone call box, the pilot was alleged to have used to call ATC at Heston for assistance! A30yoyo, who sent the photo to me, said that he photoshopped it but I don't know to what extent - perhaps it really was a B17 after all :) The caption on the second photo makes it self-explanatory. http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/p...l/b1135137.jpg http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/p...l/ce9cfafd.jpg |
Ju88G-6 Fern Lane crash - Kiel-Z and FuG.220/SN-2
Here's the FuG.280 infrared target tracking system nose installation, as it would have been before the crash. The dipole aerials around it are for the FuG.220 radar ("SN-2" system, as referenced in the ADI Science critique of the Ultra decrypts), which the Heston Ju88 was also recorded as carrying. Other Ju88's sometimes had centimetric, higher frequency, radar systems, with fully faired in nose cone radar aerials, but that area was given over to the FuG.280 infrared in the case of "Air Ministry 32".
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/p...l/08c3a18f.jpg ..and here's the infrared detector and scanning mirror, with the covers off. I imagine that the heat signal-shielding grid on the glass cover, corresponded with a matching grid on the face of the cathode ray tube in the cockpit, used by the operator. If the operator was not the pilot himself, then he would be able to quickly guide the pilot towards the target with simple grid sector voice steering guidance e.g., "low left", "middle centre", "upper right", etc. http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/p...l/3be45745.jpg |
Fern Lane Ju88 crash
Have just got my used/good condition copy of "War Prizes" via Amazon (thanks for the lead, Kieron) - looks brilliant and, on Page 84, there's some more information on the aircraft. It was delivered from Schleswig, Germany to CFE West Raynham, on 25 September 1945, by Flight Lieutenant D.G.M. Gough. When it crashed at Heston, on 15 October 1945 (so CFE only had it for 20 days), it was inbound from a trip to Germany, collecting spares for an Me 262 also operated by CFE. Why Heston? Customs clearance? Crash pilot not confirmed but I'll see if Flt Lt Gough crops up anywhere else in the book, perhaps confirming that he was Canadian, for example - at least we now know the mission the aircraft was on. The crash photograph, on Page 85, is very much clearer than the scanned copy we've previously seen here, ex the web, but it still doesn't show the baby sleeping inside the house, who we now know about, and have recently heard from!
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