Blackburn Beverley

[kitnut617]

Is there a 144th scale Beverly available ? Would like to see one ( or die cast ) just to get the 'feel' of it.



Oh, and the bike in the above photos looks like an old Can-Am. Certainly sporting the big Rotax 4-stroke !

Welsh Models does one in 1/144 Todd (multi-media), in 1/72 Combat Models, Contrail (Sanger) (both vacuform) and Magna Models (resin),

[jcf]

Is there a 144th scale Beverly available ? Would like to see one ( or die cast ) just to get the 'feel' of

Yep, and I bought the one Narses sold off a few months back. 

[Mossie]

Oh, and the bike in the above photos looks like an old Can-Am. Certainly sporting the big Rotax 4-stroke !

Armstrong MT500 (later Harley Davidson) .  Replaced the Can-Am, IIRC.

[Captain Canada]

Thanks for the pointers guys !

[PR19_Kit]

How does one go to Gibraltar by mistake? 
Details please, Good Sir.

I knew someone would ask..........

When I was a CCF cadet I'd go down to the flightline at RAF Abingdon and bum rides off anything that was going, Hastings, Valettas and Yorks originally but when 47 Sqdn got their full quota of Beverleys I was able to 'upgrade' and had some memorable flights in them, specially on air-drop missions when they took the rear doors right off! Plus I also got a close-up view of the Paras dropping through the boom hatch about 20-30 ft away!

On this particular day I'd got off the last class in the morning somehow and got to the flightline early and found a Bev was going down to Thorney Island with two Griffons for a dead Shackleton that was stranded there so that seemed a good trip as I'd never been to Thorney before. I got my paperwork signed off in the Ops Room and headed off for the hardstanding and boarded the first Beverley I found with two Grffons in the hold. (Mistake No. 1....) I got the Captain to sign my forms, which he did without looking too closely (Mistake No. 2) and I went into the hold to sit with the Loadmaster. They all knew me well by then and he did look at me a trifle oddly but didn't say anything (Mistake No. 3) We took off and headed south as normal, at around 5-8000 ft and at a VERY slow speed, normal for Bevs. Looking through the drop window in the nose I could see the South Coast and the Isle of Wight appear and expected to start descent and make a left turn for Thorney but we headed on out over the Channel. After a while I asked the Loadmaster when we'd turn for Thorney and he said 'Thorney? We're going to Gibralter, where do you think we're going?' 

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing he said we better go upstairs and talk to the Captain again who was a bit shocked, to say the least, and he got on the radio back to Abingdon to see if he could talk to my Dad. Luckily he was still there, we lived at RAF Benson at the time but I still went to school in Abingdon and Dad spent a lot of time at both stations. I didn't hear the other end of the conversation but it seemed some 'language' was involved and Dad said he'd square it with Ops, but maybe NOT with my Mum! Of course I had no overnight stuff and no passport and I was in an Army CCF uniform which would stand out like a sore thumb when we got to Gib so we started some 'devious planning'.

It took for EVER to get there of course and we didn't arrive until early evening and made the classic approach from the south with a sharp right angled turn onto the 09 runway and parked up at the RAF base on the south side of the runway, alongside ANOTHER dead Shackleton which also needed two new Griffons.... (Needless to say there were TWO Bevs with two Griffons aboard and I'd got aboard the wrong one. The Captain should have checked my papers more closely so we were both in for a bit of carpeting when we got back!)

The crew hustled me aboard the little bus to the Accomodation area and with a bit of scheming at the other end I was given a bed and, more importantly, some RAF overalls to wear. In the Sergeants Mess they gave me dinner and there was a LOT of giggling behind hands of course, but they all managed to keep it quite quiet and I slept quite well afterwards, all things considered. In the morning I had breakfast under similar circumtances and by now EVERY one there seemed to know about 'Wrong Airfield Spackman' and kept coming past slapping my back and grinning hugely. We got back to the aircraft OK, but I have NO idea how they sorted out my lack of passport, and eventualy headed back for Abingdon where we arrived mid-afternoon the next day. Of course I SHOULD have been at school that day but it seemed I'd '....had a serious asthma attack...' the previous afternoon and I'd be back as soon as I was well, which was quite a common occurance for me in those days.

I eventually got home, courtesy of a ride in one of Dad's fuel bowsers, about 36 hrs late and my Mum was fit to be tied, needless to say. When I'd 'recovered from my asthma attack' the next morning I went back to school looking suitably pale and wan, and regaled my pals with the story, who all laughed like drains of course.

About 2 weeks later one of the aircrew on the Bev came up with a photo of us all boarding the bus with me in the middle and The Rock towering over us in the background.... 

[jcf]

Classic. 

Thanks for the story. 

[rickshaw]

Isn't Gibraltar UK territory?  Why would you need a passport, Kit?

It is an impressive tale.  I suppose you're lucky you didn't have an Asthma attack on board during the trip.   How did they treat Asthma back then?  I assume there were no steroids?  Must have been hell.   I assume that the Beverley not only flew very slowly but also quite low, as IIRC it wasn't pressurised?   What happened to the captain?  Did he get carpeted?

[sandiego89]

Great story Kit, a great little adventure.

-Dave

[The Rat]

How does one go to Gibraltar by mistake? 
Details please, Good Sir.

(The Captain should have checked my papers more closely so we were both in for a bit of carpeting when we got back!)

Ah yes, we usd to call it 'the hatless dance'. 

[PR19_Kit]

Yes, Gib is UK territory in a way, but you need a passport to fly there, in theory anyway. 

I was prescribed some awful tasting pills called Frenol back then, and they took at least 45 mins to have any effect. No fun at all knowing you were in for an hours worth of wheezing and chest pains but in '69 they switched me to the Ventolin salbutamol inhalers which quite literally changed my life. 

I did have a couple of REALLY bad attacks when I was in my teens and they gave me direct adrenalin injections which took about 5 sec to take effect, but put me to sleep for hours almost as quickly too. I'm so used to it now I just don't think about it, but as Mrs_PR19 has asthma too our house looks like a Ventolin parking lot, there are inhalers on almost every flat surface that doesn't have a model perched there already. 

Yes, the Bev was totally unpressurised, and hardly ever flew above 10000 ft, at least they didn't when I flew in them but then most of those flights were en route to some DZ or another. I wish Dad was still alive as I could ask him about the Captain's fate, but I never heard a thing about it afterwards. I suspect a lot of 'rug pulling'  went on as the system for cadets signing onto flights changed somewhat after my Gib adventure, and you had to tick in a box that you knew where the aircraft was parked before they let you out of the Ops Building!

[Captain Canada]

Great story...and what a lucky experience for you !

[PR19_Kit]

I didn't think it was lucky during the 'interview' with my parents when I got home!

But in later years my Dad did say that the whole affair caused much amusement on the Squadron at the time.

[Mossie]

Heads up for anyone not seeing the Micro-Mir thread, they are doing a 1/144 injection Blackburn Beverley, due at the end of August:
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234973041-blackburn-beverley-1144/page-3
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,37806.45.html

[PR19_Kit]

Heads up for anyone not seeing the Micro-Mir thread, they are doing a 1/144 injection Blackburn Beverley, due at the end of August:
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234973041-blackburn-beverley-1144/page-3
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,37806.45.html

Magic, a 'Got To Have' kit, that one, even if I'm not really meant to be buying any more. 

[The Rat]

Heads up for anyone not seeing the Micro-Mir thread, they are doing a 1/144 injection Blackburn Beverley, due at the end of August:
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234973041-blackburn-beverley-1144/page-3
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,37806.45.html

Hmmm... How long will it be before someone says "I'll bet Rat is going to put a hull on it!"?

Oh, maybe I just did.