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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 7, 2009 12:58:18 GMT 12
Over the weekend I finally got to visit a lady who kindly offered her late husband's collection of photos to me to scan. Kerry (fockewulf) came with me and we borrowed the album, and Kerry has kindly scanned the photos for me. Some very interesting things arise. This is the photo collection of the late Neville Jackson, who flew two tours on No. 21 Squadron RNZAF Corsairs, and was preparing for his third tour at Ardmore when the war ended. Now, to the more unusual shots we've found. This is a bit of a mystery. It looks like a very early Mustang, with long cannons, a long spinner, RAF-style roundels over US Stars and Bars (?)... any clues what this is?  |
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Post by camtech on Sept 7, 2009 13:20:44 GMT 12
Dave,
I wonder if it is one of those photos that photographers love to do just to confuse the rest of us poor historians at a later date. Very difficult to pick out the cockpit area, and looking at the wing markings to me just smacks of a photographers dream of what an aircraft might look like if they were allowed to design it.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 7, 2009 13:30:16 GMT 12
I wondered that too. I also posted the post above to the Wix forum and immediately got a reply from Jerry O'Neill who suggests it maybe a model, photographed against a cloudy sky. When you think about it, the recognistion models were often as badly mis-shapen as this, so he may be onto something. I know Neville was a keen photographer and they even had a darkroom set up at Bougainville apparently, but I'm not sure if he created this image himself.
The stubby wings indicate it may be the world's first Thunder Mustang ;D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 7, 2009 13:45:14 GMT 12
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Post by camtech on Sept 7, 2009 13:45:47 GMT 12
Yes - could be a model, as they did produce some rather crude recognition models. I have one made from brass of a Hurricane, and while interesting is definitley not to scale.
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Post by flycookie on Sept 7, 2009 14:46:01 GMT 12
Hmm, FlyNavy is the forum's photo-interpreter chap, but he's on sabbatical at the moment.
My twopence worth is that it's very, very unlikely to be a real aeroplane and that Mr Camtech might be on the right track.
Looks like something a schoolboy modeller did at home!
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Post by aotearoa on Sept 7, 2009 14:49:18 GMT 12
It looks like an P-51 B or C version Mustang which had the Hurrance cockpit unlike the D which had the teardrop canopy cockpit.They were used for bomber escorts in europe.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 7, 2009 15:03:03 GMT 12
Hmm, FlyNavy is the forum's photo-interpreter chap, but he's on sabbatical at the moment. My twopence worth is that it's very, very unlikely to be a real aeroplane and that Mr Camtech might be on the right track. Looks like something a schoolboy modeller did at home! I agree it looks like a model of some sort. I never had a chance to have a good look at it before posting but my first reaction was it didn't look quite right. |
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Moeggo
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 93
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Post by Moeggo on Sept 7, 2009 15:09:30 GMT 12
To me its a P-51A... but the curve areas from the wing to the Fuselage don't look right  |
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Post by flyjoe180 on Sept 8, 2009 11:21:10 GMT 12
Could it have been an early P51 as people asy, but edited for security reasons to hide the aircraft's identity?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 8, 2009 12:05:34 GMT 12
No, it is definately a model. Kerry has the full sized scan and has studied it. There is no cockpit, and it's from two negatives, one of the model and one of the sky. he says you can see the cloud shadow continue over the cockpit area. So it's a fake, probably made in their darkroom at Bougainville or possibly Ardmore. Why the model has such unusual markings is an odd one.
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Post by 30sqnatc on Sept 8, 2009 18:19:13 GMT 12
No, it is definately a model. Kerry has the full sized scan and has studied it. There is no cockpit, and it's from two negatives, one of the model and one of the sky. he says you can see the cloud shadow continue over the cockpit area. So it's a fake, probably made in their darkroom at Bougainville or possibly Ardmore. Why the model has such unusual markings is an odd one. I wouldn't catgorise it as a fake. I would say it was a model photographed to test aircraft recognition to test these who are identifying the aircraft versus those just looking at the markings. |
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Post by ams888 on Sept 20, 2009 20:56:16 GMT 12
It could be a propganda shot. I saw an interesting doco once about Allied model makers during the war, who's principal job was to make model German and British planes to film dogfighting, so the british public could see their boys doing something. It was very facinating. Also the Germans had a mock plane made up, which was made out to be the replacement for the ME109, but was just a model...
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