Identification please?

[goldox]

I was going through my wife's uncle's papers (he passed away some time ago) and found this photo inscribed "Me at Bembridge IOW". I guess from around 60's -70's?

I know he was a radio ham and had been in the RAF as a radar engineer, but now wonder if he was a pilot, or maybe even owned this aircraft?

So, any help identifying the aircraft and possibly even the reg???

Many thanx! I know its a bit blurry....

[eckhard]

Robin in the foreground and Aztec in the background.

[goldox]

Thanx for the quick ID!

I wonder if anyone with enhancement software can bring out the reg on the Robin? I think I can make out ...T A L ??

Of course he may have been a club member, or even just standing beside the aircraft on a day trip!

[Hotel Tango]

There's an outside chance that this is Robin DR.400 G-BALF. It was registered in January 1973. This aircraft is still active today. Could also be G-BALG, G-BALH or G-BALJ. All are DR.400 variants.

[goldox]

Thanx Hotel Tango, that's promising, I can hopefully look up the ownership history of those.

[DaveReidUK]

Some time spent with the original photo and a good magnifying glass might yield more results than uploading a very low-resolution scan.

Just a thought.

[goldox]

Thanx Dave, tried that, the original photo was very old and faded so the scan is not much worse than the original, honestly!

It is often surprising and delightful to me what can be learned from the members on PPRuNe even from the scantiest details!

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by goldox

Thanx Dave, tried that, the original photo was very old and faded so the scan is not much worse than the original, honestly!

I take your point about the quality of the original, but nevertheless the small size of the JPEG and the amount of dithering make it very difficult to discern any detail.

If it was possible to use a grayscale scanner at 600 (or preferably 1200) dpi you would almost certainly get a more usable image - probably too big to upload to PPRuNe in its entirety, but you could crop around the individual aircraft.

Even if the registrations were still hard to make out, the colour schemes (albeit in B&W) might give a clue. For example there's a distinctive logo on the Aztec's tail that rings a vague bell, but with more than 300 of them on the UK register over the years some more clues would be a great help.

[goldox]

Thank you Dave useful advice... next step, hunt out the elusive photo again!