The North West of England can boast a rich heritage in aviation design, testing and manufacture, which spans the entire history of manned flight. Unfortunately, much of this is now very much consigned to the history books and many of the factories and airfields from the past have long since disappeared. As a proud Lancastrian, I am still fascinated by the pictures of Lancaster fuselages, constructed at the nearby Avro factory at Chadderton, being transported by road to Woodford airfield, for final assembly and flight testing, before heading off to spearhead Britain’s war effort. As a young man, I would never miss the annual Airshows at Woodford and nearby Barton aerodrome, but all these glorious days are sadly very much in the past. With few local aviation venues still available to the enthusiast and all Airshow events being many miles away, I still seek a little aviation fix with a quick visit to Barton aerodrome – this beautiful little venue is something of an aviation best kept secret and there is always the chance of seeing something interesting.
Focke Wulf P-149D – A modern day Warbird
Amongst the plethora of private aviation delights at Barton, there are also a couple of very rare and extremely interesting aircraft that either visit regularly, or are based at the aerodrome. One of the most appealing is a Focke Wulf (Piaggio) P-149D, which really is something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing and could almost be described as a modern day Warbird. I became attached to this fantastic little aircraft some years ago now and it was initially because of the noise from its engine. Anyone who has spent time at a light aviation airfield will grow very used to the usual engine sound of the aircraft operating there and you are instantly drawn to anything that sounds a little different and dare I say, a little more interesting. That was definitely the case with the P-149D – it sounded fantastic! With a definite throaty growl to its engine, this classic training aircraft was much more interesting than anything else on the field and I simply had to find out more. It turns out that there is quite a bit of history attached to the aircraft and the fact that there is one based at Barton is extremely fortunate for me – let’s take a closer look.
The Focke Wulf P-149D is a very capable Luftwaffe training aircraft, which is very much the product of the Italian aviation industry. The Piaggio P.149 was a four seat all metal, low-winged monoplane touring aircraft, which featured a fully retractable undercarriage, large cabin area and powerful Lycoming engine. It was developed from the earlier P.148 two-seat primary trainer, which was a tail-wheel training aircraft, in service with the Italian Air Force. Initially, although the aircraft showed great promise, it had an uncertain future, as large orders were proving very difficult to come by and the earlier version was already in Italian Air Force service. At this point, the aircraft gained a pair of unlikely champions – former Luftwaffe fighter aces Adolf Galland and Eduard Neumann. In the summer of 1954, the pair had entered the Italian Air Tour Flying Rally and had the opportunity to fly the prototype Piaggio P.149, which impressed them very much – it possessed excellent handling characteristics and was an extremely reliable aeroplane.
Just one year later, the Luftwaffe were holding a fly-off event, to select a new training aircraft for the force. The competing aircraft were the Piaggio P.149, the US Beech T-34 Mentor and the Saab 91 Safir. During the fly-off, the Piaggio flew flawlessly and clearly impressed military officials – unfortunately, at the end of it’s display sequence, the pilot forgot to lower the undercarriage and made an ignominious belly landing, to the great delight of the other competing teams. Perversely, this was the best thing that could have happened and actually sealed the success of the aeroplane. By the morning, the aircraft was back on the line and ready to go, having been repaired overnight. The easy maintenance and rugged design left a great impression on Luftwaffe officials and the Piaggio won the contract.
The first 72 Piaggio P.149D (the ‘D’ denotes German) aircraft were supplied to the Luftwaffe in kit form and assembled in Germany – these aircraft carry Piaggio data plates on the fuselage. Following this, the production licence was sold to Focke Wulf and a further 190 aircraft were built at the German production line in Bremen, with these aircraft carrying Focke Wulf data plates. Bearing in mind the heritage of WWII Luftwaffe aviation, could those two numbers have been any more poignant – Total production run 262 aircraft – Number built by Focke Wulf 190! In actual fact, we are probably using a little poetic licence in calling the Bremen produced aircraft a Focke Wulf. Even though most of the aviation world refers to them as the Focke Wulf P-149D, the totally correct denotation would actually be the Piaggio FW P.149D, but it is not quite as good a story! The aircraft did go on to serve the Luftwaffe and Marineflieger with distinction, remaining in service for well over thirty years. I also think that I am right in saying that the Focke Wulf P-149D was the first German manufactured aircraft since the end of the Second World War, so all in all, she is quite an interesting little aeroplane.
The two ‘piggi’ pictures above are of D-EARY, which is the magnificently presented P-149D which is based at Manchester Barton and is a regular visitor to smaller airfields throughout the UK – the nose artwork is particularly striking. We end this feature with a look at one of two Focke Wulf P-149D’s that I spotted at last years Le Ferte Alais Airshow, as it lines up for its take off, following the end of the Saturday show. If you do get the opportunity to experience one of these delightful little aeroplanes for yourself, please do so, as I am sure that it will leave a very favourable impression on you.
Ruptured Duck – A die-cast aviation tribute. Our latest Offer of the Week.
Anyone with an interest in the Second World War will be able to name any number of actions, battles, or incidents that were significant in shaping the course of this global conflict. One of these stand out events was the US response to the heinous Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor, at the end of 1941. Determined to make a significant statement of intent, the US planned an audacious raid against the Japanese Home Islands and assembled a group of elite, volunteer airmen, to undertake this perilous mission. The raid was planned and led by Lt. Col. James ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle and was referred to in history as ‘The Doolittle Raid’ – displaying valour in huge quantities, these intrepid airmen signed up for a mission which had a high probability of death, injury, or capture by an incensed enemy and in truth, very little
hope of inflicting anything other than limited damage to the designated targets. In spite of this, Doolittle had no trouble in recruiting his aircrews, as they were all desperate to avenge the Pearl Harbor attack and must have been aware of the huge propaganda value of such a mission on the American public – the giant had been awakened!
On 18th April 1942, sixteen USAAF North American B-25B Mitchell bombers took off from the heaving deck of USS Hornet and not only headed for targets on the Japanese mainland, but also for a place in the history books. The aircraft headed off on their own, without the benefit of fighter escort and a little earlier than planned, as they feared that their presence had been discovered by enemy scouts. One of the aircraft taking part in the raid was 40-2261 ‘Ruptured Duck’. Taken from the 95th Bombardment Squadron, 17th Bombardment Group and flown by Lt. Ted W Lawson, the aircraft featured unique nose artwork, featuring a Disney Donald Duck character, with a set of crossed crutches. The aircraft was the seventh Mitchell to take off from Hornet and she dropped three demolition bombs and one incendiary bomb on an industrial target in Tokyo, before ditching in the China Sea, west of Shangchow. Despite injury to many crew members, engineer Sgt. David J Thatcher enlisted the help of some Chinese fishermen and managed to get his crew to safety and to avoid capture by the Japanese.
As you may well imagine, a raid of this magnitude was obviously going to attract the attention of the die-cast manufacturing companies and releases proved to be incredibly popular. The picture above shows Corgi Aviation Archive AA35312, which was the second Doolittle Raider Mitchell to appear in this series – this one presents us with 40-2261 ‘Ruptured Duck’ and was yet another sell out release. We only have FIVE examples of this fantastic model still available, which we have chosen to add to our latest OFFER OF THE WEEK feature, at a great discounted price – but that is not all, as it has company!
Bringing the ‘Ruptured Duck’ story to a much later aircraft, HA3014 presents us with another aircraft which carried the same name in to Air Force service. General Dynamics FB-111A Aardvark 67-7196 paid its own tribute to the heroics of the Doolittle Raiders, by carrying the ‘Ruptured Duck’ name on an aircraft which could possibly be described as a latter day B-25 Mitchell. This USAF machine flew with the 509th BW / 393rd BS, out of Pease Air Force Base in the late 1980’s and as you can see from the picture below, wears this distinctive late service camouflage scheme. Again available at a significant discount, this beautiful model joins the original ‘Ruptured Duck’ and the rest of our remaining F-111 models in this weeks OFFER OF THE WEEK listing. Numbers are extremely tight on all of this weeks models, so please do not delay with your order – as the models have to go on a first to order basis and I may not get chance to update the website as diligently over the coming weekend, we could have the scenario that orders are placed for models that no longer exist. I will try to avoid this situation at all costs, but I am afraid that it may occur, due to the limited availability of these models – Good luck!
Deal of the Day update
We end this weeks Newsletter with something that has become a recent phenomenon – a review of this weeks Deal of the Day model offers. Our latest web-traffic statistics show that a great many more people are viewing the Flying Tigers website on a daily basis and our Deal of the Day section is by far and away the most visited page at the moment. I suppose that this throws down something of a challenge to me and I will have to make sure that I keep selecting interesting and desirable models to keep collectors looking – I will certainly do my very best.
The week started with a beautiful little model, which resurrects a scale which seemed to have fallen by the wayside over recent years. HA9101 is a 1/144th scale Consolidated B-24 Liberator ‘Lady be Good’, which was lost over the North African desert in 1943 and lay undiscovered for many years. Cramming lots of detail in to this diminutive model, we have just one example left to be snapped up. Tuesday saw one of my favourite models take centre stage, in the shape of the Hobbymaster 1/72nd scale North American AT-6 Texan/Harvard, this time in South African Air Force markings. This really is a little beauty and at just £17.99 each, they are simply too good to resist – I can assure you that you will fall in love with this beautiful tooling if you see it in the flesh. We now just have SIX models still available.
I am afraid that there is no point featuring the model we offered on Wednesday, as our EF-111A Raven ‘Strong Arm Tactics’ was completely sold out only a couple of hours after going live with the offer. All of our remaining F-111 models are now available in our latest OFFER OF THE WEEK listing and I suspect that these will move just as quickly! Thursdays model and the one which will last through the weekend is one for collectors with a love of classic RAF transport aircraft. AV2ARG010 is a limited edition Armstrong Whitworth Argosy C.1 in 1/200th scale, resplendent in its Royal Air Force livery and is an exceptionally high quality product. A Limited Edition release of just 360 certificated pieces, this aircraft is now on display at the RAF museum Cosford and marks a unique period in RAF history. At almost half price, these magnificent models are a real bargain for the 1/200th scale collector.
Right then, that is all for this week. We have seen some severe disruption due to the snow over the past week, so lets hope that we have seen the last of that for 2015. Have a great weekend and thank you for reading.