Beaufighters X7688, JL946 & JM135

By: Dave T - 19th October 2005 at 22:36 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

JM135 and JL946 are now one & the same, as they form the composite 'A19-144' which is the TFC's one at Duxford; photo's & much debate in the threads.... 'Aussie Beaus', 'Beaufighter Restorations' and 'TFC's Beaufighter'

Cheers........

.

By: mark_pilkington - 20th October 2005 at 01:55 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

I believe both airframes are resulting in seperate restorations, JM135/A19-144 is contained within the Duxford restoration in the UK but with significant Australian built mark 21 parts, while the remains of JL946/A19-148 is in storage in Australia.

The RAAF Museum was reported in a Classic wings 2-3 years ago as receiving a Beaufighter "kitset" from Robert Greinhart or HARS consisting of various Bristol and DAP parts, its my understanding this is largely the centre fuselage/centresection of Bristol A19-148 (A19-144 is in the UK?) and other Bristol/DAP parts including wing panels, cockpit, rear-fuselage, tailplane fin etc to complete the major assemblies, beyond that the RAAF Museum were then donated seperately a New Old Stock DAP Centre Fuselage which was displayed at the 2001 Avalon Airshow, all of the above is information in the public domain,

A19-148 - Rob Greinhart's description of what went where

Both of these beaufighter remains were recovered by HARS (or its founders) from North West Australia, they largely each consisted of centre fuselage still mounted on the wing centre section.

HARS recovery at Drysdale

regards

Mark P

By: setter - 20th October 2005 at 06:42 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Hi Folks

The Beaufighter recovery - history of events in Australia is very interesting and Aussie Beaus account for the majority of the breeds survivors worldwide. In this post I don’t purport to be the world authority or anything like it. I have just had a long held interest in the breed. Firstly so we all understand there are two broad categories of Beaus which served in Australia. Those coded A8- ** were Australian constructed Mk 21s and those coded A19-** were imported UK early series machines. The easy way to tell was the MK21s had the nose bulge for the compass and a dihedral horizontal stabilizer – Nearly all the imported aircraft in the A19 series had no nose bulge and a flat horizontal stabilizer.

Aussie Beau survivors / recoveries include but are not limited to
A19-43 / T5049 a Mk 1c which was in the care of Moorabbin Air Museum but which was later traded to the USAFM and rebuilt partly by HARS with parts from other Australian recoveries Inc A8-371
A19-144 Now at Duxford and discussed at length here
A19-148 Also discussed here
A8 186 at Camden Museum of Aviation in NSW – almost complete – lacks a few minor panels
A8 -328 at Moorabbin Aircraft Museum in Melbourne Complete
A8 - ** A “kitset” of parts held by HARS / Rob G at Bankstown – currently moribund whilst other projects are attended to
A8 -** Another kitset as described by Mark Pilkington and with the RAAFM – I would really love to see the manifest of Beau holdings there.

As I said in an earlier post I believe a lot of other Mk21 material and the partial remains of A19-148 made their way to the UK along with A19-144 at Duxford.

It would be nice if Mark P or HARS could reveal how much and what was included in the MK 1 rebuild for USAFM – I have not seen much coverage on this aircraft and what was involved – it would be very interesting.

At the time of the HARS recoveries a lot of material including I think 3 or 4 more fuselages were recovered as well as the unused Centre section mentioned earlier – from memory one of the fuselages had never been used either.

I personally think it would be great to gather all of this stuff together in much the same way as the Bostons/Havocs at Wangaratta and build them all together and avoid splitting the resources in this way you would get a static for the RAAFM, a flyer for HARS, buy the Skysport example and restore it as a flyer and sell it and the AWM would obviously have an interest in the Leftovers which could be assembled into a representative Mk21 for it’s collection. The East Fortune example could also be outsourced to this facility to speed up their process. I am not going to be territorial here and say this should happen in Aus but that would make sense. The mass rebuilding process could also make use of the fantastic resident intellectual property with the Duxford Crew and Ralph Cussaks Beaufort crew here in Brisbane who has a lot of experience with Beaus and Beauforts as well. Perhaps a couple of Beauforts could be done as well for Moorabbin and RAAFM?

Tonight I will edit this and put in some old articles and some pics I took when this was all happening in the 1980s - 4 Beaufighters in a shed was a real sight!

As I said this post is not definitive and Mark P and others please feel free to jump in as well

Regards
John P

By: Dave T - 20th October 2005 at 07:37 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

I personally think it would be great to gather all of this stuff together in much the same way as the Bostons/Havocs at Wangaratta and build them all together....

John,

Do you have any info/pictures/websites.... on the current disposition of all remaining Boston/Havoc remnants left over from the two rebuilds ?

Eg: Where is 'Big Nig' ?

Cheers........

.

By: setter - 20th October 2005 at 07:55 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Hi Dave

John,

Do you have any info/pictures/websites.... on the current disposition of all remaining Boston/Havoc remnants left over from the two rebuilds ?

Eg: Where is 'Big Nig' ?

Cheers........

A deal has been done and all the remaining A20 parts from the restorations of the two Bostons / Havoc were /are being transfered to Wangarratta from Point Cook. 4 are to be made airworthy and Two of these will go to the US. "Big Nig " as we speak sits on the floor of the restoration facility at Wangarratta in fantastic condition and lots of pics are up on my Webshots account which I will post tonight as I am at work at the moment and forget. "BigNig" will be staying as Murray Griffiths personal aircraft and be a flyer.

The first set of A20 wings are in the Jigs as well.

It is rummored that some of the RAAF stuff went to the UK and US restorations but this has never been confirmed - There were remains from 10 aircraft involved although not all of these were complete.

Regards
John P

By: Dave T - 20th October 2005 at 08:15 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Hi Dave

It is rummored that some of the RAAF stuff went to the UK and US restorations but this has never been confirmed - There were remains from 10 aircraft involved although not all of these were complete.

Regards
John P

John,

A very good article appears in the Crowood Boston book covering the UK side of things, including photos of the import of A-20G 43-9628 'Lady Constance' recovered by the RAAF in 1985.

The fuselage extends back to just past the gun turret.

Look forward to seeing your pics.....

Thanx........

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By: setter - 20th October 2005 at 12:52 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Hi a few articles from the time to show what was achieved in gathering all the Beau stuff

Regards
John P

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By: setter - 20th October 2005 at 23:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

A20 shots

Hi Guys

Here are links to my Webshots pages - if you go to the A20 Wangarratta page in http://community.webshots.com/user/setter125 and the first two folder in http://community.webshots.com/user/setter126007 you will see a few of the A20s being restored - particularly nice shots of Big Nig

Regards
John P

By: jeepman - 21st October 2005 at 13:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Hi Folks

Firstly so we all understand there are two broad categories of Beaus which served in Australia. Those coded A8- ** were Australian constructed Mk 21s and those coded A19-** were imported UK early series machines. The easy way to tell was the MK21s had the nose bulge for the compass and a dihedral horizontal stabilizer – Nearly all the imported aircraft in the A19 series had no nose bulge and a flat horizontal stabilizer.

John P

The dihedral tailplane was introduced midway through production of the Beaufighter VI and thereafter applied to all later marks of the British built machines as well. I don't think that the Roman nose was ever retrofitted to Brit built Beaus particularly as I read somewhere that the Sperry Auto pilot was rarely fitted to the DAP Mk21s anyway

Other ways of identifying Brit/Aussie Beaus are the two 0.50 Brownings in both wings on the DAP21 compared with the Britsh provided 2x0.303 Brownings in one wing/4x0.303 Brownings in the other wing to take a/c of the landing light in the wing leading edge.

Other differences included a more ergonomic cockpit in the 21 and the shape/arrangement of the Observer's blister - particularly when the observer was provided with a 0.303 Browning as well. The Brit blister had much more framing in those circumstances

By: setter - 21st October 2005 at 14:05 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Jeepman

Thanks for that

I don't think as i say we ever got any aircraft from the UK with the dihedral tail etc

As you say the Mk21 was in some ways a refined example

The armament fitted was varied a fair bit in service I believe

Regards
John p

By: jeepman - 21st October 2005 at 17:49 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Jeepman

Thanks for that

I don't think as i say we ever got any aircraft from the UK with the dihedral tail etc

John p

All of the British build Mk X, MarkXI and the later Mk VI production had the dihedral tail - the horizontal tail was ditched after the early Mk VI airframes

Useful webpage showing history of each RAAF operated, British built Beau

http://www.adf-serials.com/2a19.shtml

By: setter - 7th November 2005 at 07:18 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Hi all some shots of Beaufighter restorations, Recoveries and other useful pics in Australia - particularly of interest are shots of the HARS Beaufighter recoveries in the Hanger at Schyville NSW with A19-144 (Now at Duxford) and A19-148 parts of which are now at Skysport as part of their sale of the Beaufighter "Kit set"

Regards
John P

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By: alertken - 13th July 2011 at 10:35 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

(Revived unapologetically).

This is what was recovered to create the machine now painted as A19-144 at DX. On a track at (Drysdale River strip) Kalumburu, WA, 4/83 (ignore Kaloundra ident).

[ATTACH]197368[/ATTACH]

Posters have some of these chunks in Skysport/Hatch G-DINT/X7688/3858M. Mark had a pic on another thread. Here my similar, Halton, (I think: ) 9/62.

[ATTACH]197369[/ATTACH]

Unimetal Co. Droylesden, Failsworth, Manchester. 30/8/62. Brigand T.F.1 RH746 now at Kemble.

[ATTACH]197367[/ATTACH]

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