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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 5, 2011 8:44:08 GMT 12
Excellent, thanks for that Kerry. Much appreciated.
If only he'd noted about the strange coloured roundel bar on his aircraft. ;D
Luther, it depended on the unit. in the earlier days of the war, yes many fighter units allocated a particular aircraft to a pilot. It didn't mean they always flew that one of course due to damage or servicing preventing such things, but they often tried to fly their particular plane. They also had thei own fitter and rigger who often tried to make their aircraft the best for their pilot.
In the later days where squadrons (pilots) were seperate from Servicing Units (groundcrew) it was often just a pool of available aircraft and pilots took whichever was available on the day. However it seems with No. 4 SU when No. 19 Squadron was using their P-40 aircraft they were all personalised and from looking at Skip Watson's logbook he almost always had his own aircraft, Esma Lee. By the time pilots were flying Corsairs it was pretty much take whatever aircraft the SU gave you and I don't believe any pilot had his own personal mount by then.
With the bomber reconnaissace squadrons and the Catalina, Avenger and Dauntless units it seems all crews were allocated a particular aircraft and so long as it was serviceable they took it but that might only be on half their ops.The other half of the time they took what was available.
So there's no real cut and dry answer to your question.
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Post by pjw4118 on Jul 5, 2011 11:16:10 GMT 12
Yes the crew did die aboard the Tiki Stirling. I checked again with Graham Burgess and the serial was W7569. I had assumed , wrongly that as EF465 appeared in another crew photo it was the same aircraft.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 5, 2011 12:11:58 GMT 12
Thanks for that Peter.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 5, 2011 14:35:51 GMT 12
Looking at a photo that John Saunders sent me of NZ3007 HQ-A I now realise the name on it is not MAGNOLIA MUFFLEWORT, but instead it seems to be MAGNOLIA MUFFLEWURT.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 5, 2011 14:52:26 GMT 12
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Post by errolmartyn on Jul 5, 2011 16:42:03 GMT 12
Looking at a photo that John Saunders sent me of NZ3007 HQ-A I now realise the name on it is not MAGNOLIA MUFFLEWORT, but instead it seems to be MAGNOLIA MUFFLEWURT. x 4! Dave, Dave, You really must stop repeating yourself, repeating yourself . . . (He, he!). |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 5, 2011 19:29:18 GMT 12
Yeah, I just thought in the future someone will find one of the many threads that has the wrong name and I'd better correct them all. Felt dumb doing it though.  |
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Post by Tony on Jul 7, 2011 17:54:26 GMT 12
Regarding non-standard insignia,
The heading photo shows Corsair '74 with a light blue outline to the bar.
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Post by Luther Moore on Jul 10, 2011 23:41:36 GMT 12
Cheers for that David
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Post by pjw4118 on Jul 11, 2011 13:38:46 GMT 12
I am digging out a couple more but what about all the presentation aircraft donated by public and private funds, especially the buy a Spitfire drive. There must have been quite a few.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 11, 2011 13:58:33 GMT 12
Three RAF aircraft were donated in WWII by Sir Howard Ellis of Cambridge, NZ. and each carried a name. They were: Hawker Hurricane V7776 "Spirit of the RFC" Hawker Typhoon R8200 "Islands Of Britain" Westland Whirlwind P7102 "Comrades in Arms" See more on my website here: www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Howard%20Ellis.htm |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 10, 2011 15:40:00 GMT 12
WOW!! And this one too. It rips my kilt because the portable scanner only does up to 600dpi and that is inadequate to read the names on all these P-40's, but it is obvious that almost every aircraft in this photo has a name. We have: P- PADDY THE RIP G - GLORIA LYONS E - Erica J - ? T = ? V = ? B = ? S = ? N = ? = ? (not sure what the code is either) All those code lettered aircraft have names on the cowls. I might have to see if I can borrow the photo, and get the owner to post me it, so I can scan it with a decent scanner. What a find, I have never seen so many named aircraft in one place before. That is at least 10 in that shot.  Thanks to Doug Clark I have borrowed the photo above to once again try to scan with the big scanner, but I'm afraid that my plans are dashed because at higher resolutions and with higher percentages, the names on the other Warhawks are simply not getting any sharper. It's such a shame. I can confirm that there are definately names on the aircraft coded as: P- PADDY THE RIP (serial looks to be NZ3279, not sure)G - GLORIA LYONS E - Erica J = This one has a short word and might be Jug, or June, or something short like thatT = ? V = ? B = ? S = This one might possibly be SnafuN = ? = ? (not sure what the code is either) What I need is either the negative of the photo, or I need to find a No. 4 SU member's diary, letter or notes that list the names on the aircraft. |
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Post by Luther Moore on Dec 24, 2011 2:31:16 GMT 12
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pauld
Flying Officer
Posts: 65
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Post by pauld on Dec 24, 2011 15:36:01 GMT 12
We have not mentioned umsloppogaas's stable mate, name of "Parkyakarkus" with 14SQN My Great Uncle, Flt Lt F.H.Denton DFC flew a Lancaster PD377 WS-U with 9SQN and it was reputed to be called "Anzac Flag" Also...before i forget, Flt Lt F.I.Norris RNZAF, flew a Stirling BK654 which was reputedly called "Madam X" Great topic by the way  Regards Paul D |
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Feb 24, 2012 17:15:08 GMT 12
And for the list: C-47A Dakota NZ3503 'ANYTHING ANYWHERE ANYTIME' with stork and baby motif (port side of nose) This from "Whites Aviation" postcard  |
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Feb 24, 2012 17:26:57 GMT 12
...and what's this, Dumbo? (Also "Whites Aviation")  |
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Post by Bruce on Feb 24, 2012 17:59:46 GMT 12
Dumbo was a generic name for any Air-sea rescue flying boat - such missions were often recorded as a flying elephant mission tally, but generally the name was not an individual aircraft name. In the Picture of XX-P the large light coloured patch forward of the code is where the US Navy Star insignia was overpainted - for some reason they couldn't find even a closely matching paint colour, so most early RNZAF Cats had this big blob on the bow!
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Feb 24, 2012 19:00:10 GMT 12
Ah, thanks for the clarification
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Post by hairy on Feb 24, 2012 20:01:00 GMT 12
...and what's this, Dumbo? (Also "Whites Aviation") NZ4014. You can just make out in this picture that it appears they never got 'round to touching up the paint over the US Star before she was scrapped.  Whites Aviation  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 24, 2012 20:50:29 GMT 12
There were Catalina nose arts in No. 6 (FB) Squadron though including a black cat on "The Naughty Nine" and a with on XX-W 'The Wandering Witch".
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