Auster G-AGXT. My first 2 flights.
 

Back in the early 1950s I saved my pocket money to pay for 2 flights from Elstree.I think Derby Aviation operated the flights.I'm currently laid up in a care home with lots of time on hands and I can remember that aircraft was used to dump a body over the Romney Marshes and the names Hume and Setty come to mind.Does anyone have any ideas where I might find out more about what I think was a murder. Since I am now 80 I realise this is a very long shot.
Colin aka Springers

You've got a helluva good memory, better than mine, but when you mentioned it, it stirred up vague recollections for me of that sensational (for those innocent days) story. On this computer I am unable to post links for some unfathomable reason, but I googled Auster G-AGXT and immediately found a picture with the caption:

"The Auster Autocrat G-agxt That Donald Hume Hired From Elstree Airfield To Dump The Body Of Stanley Setty. The Headless Torso Of Car Dealer Stanley Setty Was Found In The Essex Marshes 1949. Donald Hume A Business Associate Of Setty Was Arrested But ......"

That should give you a starter for 10 for further googling. I also spotted another entry that seemed to say that this venerable aircraft was destroyed in an accident a few years back.

Best of luck in that care home!

Donald Hume: The Setty Case | Crime+Investigation UK (crimeandinvestigation.co.uk)

Thanks for the prompt reply.I seem to recollect he might have actually taken off from Southend. In those days I often Cycled from Watford to Elstree and other local airfiields. I can also remember a Gemini in a bunker at a local golf course. In the 1970s I learned to fly at Ipswich School of Flying and the Suffolk Aero Club.Peter Collier was the CFI. We also used to cycle from Watford to Heathrow and i can remember cycling through the tunnel when it first opened and spending the day on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth building.There was a commentator announcing the traffic.

KING6024 !

I once did a cycle trip from LAP with a bunch of "spotters" that went far and wide, including Fairoaks, Brooklands, Wisley and Redhill. I'd had enough by the time we got to Gatwick and 3 of us got the train back to Victoria. Some of the boys went on to Shoreham, I never found out what time they got back...................................

Although G-AGXT was written off at Bickmarsh in 1969, sure I came across her vestigial remains at some point in my spotting career circa 1980. There was a cache of Auster fuselages at Leicester East, perhaps she was amongst them. Alas my logs and Civil Aircraft Markings have long since disappeared...

The longest trip we did was Hatfield,Panshangar,Bassingbourne,Oakington,Varsity's and 2 B29 Washingtons,,Duxford,and Waterbeach,we missed Cambridge.We never did a long trip like that again always Hitch Hiking..One lift came up Gold when we were taken into the Royal Aero Society's Garden Party at White Waltham and saw the Rotordyne fly..There was flight of Fairy Gannets awaiting delivery to the German Navy and they flew the Fulmar and Firefly.

Hello KING6024 Like you I had my first two flights (on the same day) in one of those blue Austers at Elstree tho' I suspect a few years (late fifties) after you. Also like you watched the Aeroplanes by the Traffic Lights at Bovingdon. Happy Days !

I seem to remember as a kid Hume admitting his crimes in a tabloid ( probably the Daily Mirror) it would be c. 1960-1 IIRC

Out of interest, were the Auster's registered sequentially as a production batch, or, individually as they were produced please ?

I ask because G-AGXN was, for many years when I was a kid , happily trundling around MAN doing pleasure flights.

You surmise correctly - all but one of the G-AGX_ series were allocated to Austers (assorted Alphas and Autocrats), and they were registered in serial number order.

Annoyingly, Geoffrey Wikner got in first with Waltzing Matilda, a war-surplus Halifax that he bought, converted as G-AGXA, and flew (with pax) to his native Australia in 1946.

The bare fuselage frame of GXT was in the hands of the Aeroplane Collection in the late 70's early 80s. I remember we took it to one of the IAT shows at Greenham Common and were a bit miffed that the people collating and selling the sheets of attending aircraft left GXT off their list.

G-AGXH was one of the Austers at Luton FC in `60-64,£3.7s.6d,Tigers £3.12s 6d,Chipmunk £5.5s./hour....dual/solo..

That may well have been where I saw her then. Funny how some reg's stick in your memory...

Same with 'GXU (Hampshire Aeroplane Club) !. Couldn't afford £5.50 an hour then and had to wait until 1980 when my income caught up!

The series continued into the G-AGY_ sequence (Civil Aircraft Markings 1960):

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7f2aa564cd.jpg

Reference the above list: all tail-draggers! 1960 was the first year the gov't allowed imports from the US so hundreds of spam can nosewheel types soon appeared (including Tri-Pacers and Comanches).

Interesting seeing the Lockheed 12 G-AGTL on that page, this was originally registered by Sidney Cotton for his, um, perfectly innocent flights over pre-war Germany. I remember seeing it at Yeovilton 40+ years ago as F-BJJY (and I think also at Gatwick at some point around then) and these days its better known as F-AZLL having been owned for a while by Bernard Chabbert.

Some "familiar faces" in that list. I had my first flight in G-AGTV, 7/6d round Blackpool Tower, when it was owned by a rather off the wall mink farmer called George Pine I think. The Rapide 'GSH was flying at Old Warden this weekend. Doubtless several of the Austers are airworthy.