Fairey Barracuda DP872

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Member for

17 years 11 months

Posts: 409

Looking good Mike, thanks for the update

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 9,780

So refreshing to see effort being put into recreating an 'extinct' type !

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,835

Lovely work Mike!

Member for

16 years 5 months

Posts: 5,999

What an excellent start, and an excellent idea to help keep it original as much as possible.

Rob

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,446

Thanks for the encouraging feedback everyone, hopefully we'll have more to show you as time goes on.

Member for

14 years 7 months

Posts: 218

Nice bit of airtime for the proejct

Slightly alarmed to hear her mention that Donald Campbell & Bluebird crashed in 1921 though. Guess that's what you get for letting a new born baby drive a jet powered boat...

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,446

Quite. The journo lass wasn't that old herself...guess these things happen.

Member for

11 years 1 month

Posts: 79

While certainly time consuming, I really like this type of work, the extra effort to restoring/rebuilding using only original components as much as possible.

Not every restoration has to be flying.
Nice work.


This took two of us about a month to build...it's a conglomeration of original and new build parts BUT! the newly made parts are made from...scrap Barracuda! Yup, see all those rib booms for example? They are made to the correct section from the original Fairey drawings from tattered old bits of Barracuda skinning etc, making the elevator 100% original Barracuda material...nifty huh?

Member for

11 years 9 months

Posts: 151

Fine, fine work, Mike (and team). Really looking forward to following this project.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,446

Thanks chaps...still early days yet and there's still a certain 26 foot blue boat to finish, but there's a steady bit of Barra work ongoing too- there's a pretty much finished full-span tailplane spar now too, again 100% Barracuda. It's a big old beast, too!

Member for

13 years 4 months

Posts: 164

Pics

This thread opened with a request for pics of our Barra' coming out of the loch - we now have some. If you look at the history section of Barracudaproject.com there's a few on there. The site isn't quite live yet but it won't be long.

Member for

16 years 7 months

Posts: 564

While you are on the Barracuda theme,I saw when I was 13/14 years old (1955)about four aircraft circle RAF Hednesford ,I was about a mile and a half away.My firend and I thought they were Fairey Battles but later found out this was impossible so we then thought Barracuda,possibly from Fradley near Lichfield?Is this possible?

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,446

Just to let everyone know, our little site for the Barracuda Project is good to go now with it's first rebuild diary entry and a little bit of history on the type and our particular aircraft, including photos of the wreckage recovery in 1971. We have a guestbook there and an option to subscribe to our updates. It's early days yet but you can find it here-

http://www.barracudaproject.co.uk/

Member for

15 years 1 month

Posts: 136

Thanks for posting your link to the Barra site Mike. The photos of the recovery are very interesting.

I seen the wreck just after it was recovered from the small lake where it had rested for 27 years. I was 13 at the time.

The primary school I previously attended was adjacent to the crash site. In the sixties stories of the wreck and the dead airmen still buried with their aircraft circulated around the school. Perhaps this is what makes the restoration of this aircraft so fascinating for me.

Member for

18 years 2 months

Posts: 2,245

Amazing work you guys do!

Member for

13 years 4 months

Posts: 164

Amazing work you guys do!

Thanks for that. We have a great team and the Barra' build is really interesting. We're well on with putting the tailplane back together now so there'll be some more stuff on the diary soon.

Member for

14 years 6 months

Posts: 2,172

I fully agree, very interesting to read how your team approaches this task.

Amazing sight to see the canopy intact during the recovery.
Great site,
Cees

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,446

Thanks guys. Site suggestions/feedback, guestbook entries and even actual volunteers are all welcome.

Member for

13 years 4 months

Posts: 164

Thanks guys. Site suggestions/feedback, guestbook entries and even actual volunteers are all welcome.

Yes - we especially like volunteers. We get lots of folk who come and do a day here and there with the BBP and there's plenty to do on the Barra' Project too so if you fancy a Friday evening in the bar with the crew followed by a Saturday of tin-bashing (or any other time in between) give us a shout and we'll be delighted to meet you.