Warbird Information Exchange

Marine- I had the incredible experience recently to fly both the P-51 and the Bristol powered Sea Fury in the same week. It was the first time I had been in the front seat of either airplane. They are very different machines and the 5 year difference in development start times is apparent.

I appreciate all of the kind words of encouragement regarding the Fury, it's fun to share.

Here are some more photos from this week. The shelf holds the remaining parts and project boxes, as you can see there's not,much left. The black seat is one of the cockpit seats, Sanders Aircraft made 10 of them as there aren't any more and the world needed 8 or so. It's not possible to tell it from an original without looking for part number stamps. Those guys are amazing.

Loved Critical Mass! Love your restoration just as much! Nice work! The old Critical Mass tail and canopy hung on the wall are awesome reminders of the plane's racing history.

I forgot to add something some of you might be interested in. AFAIK most if not all surviving T Mk.20´s (and single seaters converted from them) were technicaly owned by the GAF (or better by the government through Bundesvermögensverwaltung, the entity that owned all the airfields and hangars and barracks), civilian registered and flown by civilian pilots. First operated by a company called DLB, after some serious (financial) allegations of fraud regarding overpriced items like aircraft, spares and maintenance, another company (RFB) stepped in and operated the Sea Furys until they were replaced by OV10 Broncos. First Zieldarstellung (ZD 1 and ZD 2) target representation (?) was operated by the Belgian company COGEA with Spitfires, the target sock put in the partly opened flaps. Then it was decided to buy Sea Furys and to fit a wind driven generator, winch and deflection installation in front of the tailwheel in Switzerland. Operation started in 1958, last flight of a German Sea Fury was in 1975 from Lübeck (operation area) to Köln-Bonn, where they were parked until sold. Originally Germany operated 18 T Mk.20, and 1 single seater. 5 were lost (crashed) during the 17 years of operation. Ken, your aircraft had 2 German regs. Originally D-FOTE (prior to installation of target tug equipment), due to MTOW below 5.6 (metric) tons a/c have to have D-Fxxx regs. When the equipment was installed, MTOW was 6.35 tons, so reg had to be D-CXXX, yours was D-COTE, just changing the F for an C. The (only) single seater was D-CACY , under restoration in Australia. TFC´s one WG655 was D-CACU (one of 2 dual control ones, all other 2 seaters had a seat for the winch operator, sitting crosswise to flight direction), the red one at MeierMotors, VX302 D-CACE, the one of RNHF that made a belly landing last year, VX281 was D-CACO. N924G (VX300) was D-CAMI, NX233MB (VZ351) "September Pops" was D-CEDO, N62143 (WG652) "Riff Raff" was D-CAFO. C-FGAT (VZ365) was D-CACA, (2. of dual control ones). Several others used for spares, parts used for others, under long term restoration or destroyed.
All (and much more!) to be read (German only) here:

http://www.luebecker-luftfahrt.de/index ... r-sea-fury

Pic of D-CACE(at MeierMotors) under restoration. (Technically reg should be D-FACE, as no target tug equipment is installed, so MTOW under 5.6 tons. Same would have been with D-CACY, the single seater, and 2 T Mk. 20 - D-CACA and D-CACU - without target tug equipment but dual control, used for pilot training. I guess, as they were owned by government they did not take the regulations that serious, ) Last years pic taken by me at open hangar day in Bremgarten July 20. 2014:



Cheers
Michael

Michael, thanks for the information and the link to the German site, I hadn't found that one. I will add that there is at least one T.20 flying today which did not spend time a a target tug in Lubeck, that is the Sanders' Dreadnought. It came from Burma. It's been a really useful reference as it's the only T.20 we know of which has its rear cockpit and control linkages in original, unmolested condition. As you know the target tugs had the rear cockpits completely stripped of panels, seats, flying and engine controls as well as consoles. Dreadnought is the reference standard.

Here's a photo of WE820/D-COTE (C-Mass) at Hawker being converted as the prototype for the target tugs. Interesting that she is still wearing her RN colours and you can clearly read WE-820 on the tail. This would have been about 1958. I'll attach one more photo of its arrival day in Germany, now in the red paint it would wear for the next 20 years. Note the "suits" on the wing looking in the cockpit.

For the group, do you suppose that's a Hellcat in the background? I wonder what it would be doing at Hawker.

Hurricane

PZ865, still flying with the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

Ken, thanks for your brilliant pics, a lot of history involved. There were 2 full dual control Sea Furys with DLB / RFB used for pilot training regarding the Luebecker-Luftfahrt site. D-CACA (ES3612, VZ365, G-9-61, N1324 C-FGAT) in Canada (or meanwhile in the US?), and D-CACU (ES3616, WG655, 246/GN, 910/GN, G-9-65, N20MD, NX20MD) now with The Fighter Collection, Duxford. I guess, from what I could find on the internet, that C-FGAT was heavily modified - or even used for getting a single seater FB.10 into the air. Was NX20MD (the one at Duxford) modified as well, or did you state that Dreadnought is the only one in stock condition that´s reasonably near to get the required information from? I thought the Duxford one were in stock condition too. And yes, you were right, the ones converted to target tug duty had everything removed in the rear seat, the seat for the winch operator was just a small board 90° to the flight path. Interestingly your 2. picture shows your Sea Fury in red, but with reg. D-FOTE. As the winch seems to be installed, regarding the deflection devices (stabilizer and fin and tailwheel) it should be D-COTE. But maybe not all of the equipment was installed, or they did not check the weight. As they were in fact owned by the FRG, it did not really matter that much.

Michael

The Duxford one was largely built up from parts after the original one crashed in the UK whilst with the RNHF and was substantially damaged.

The aircraft now racing as 'Sawbones' (formerly 'Southern Cross') contains a centre section that had red paint on it when the aircraft was built up back in the 1980s.

'Dreadnought' came out of Burma, so is not one of the ex-German examples

When we were down there at the Jurist/Tallichet hangar viewing those 25 airframes on palettes, I noticed something odd. There was Johnny Williams, The Louderbach twin brothers, and a couple unknown mechanics. They had the canopies open and were removing throttle quadrants, sticks, and other cockpit items from some of the aircraft, as well as a few engine components. I was only about 12 years old and asked my dad what the deal was. He said he didn't know but they were Tallichet's mechanics. It sure looked to me like they were quickly pirating items off those aircraft. It "felt" like they were stealing those items. As far as I know , no one else was taking anything out of there. To me, the mystery is now solved as apparently the target tugs were missing these items and they may have been in demand.
I begged my father to buy one and store it. Sort of a "buy and hold" investment. We had plenty of warehouse space at the family business back in Nashville. The economy at that time was really lousy so my dad didn't go for it. Also, the Sea Fury was not an established warbird at that time and it's value was yet to be established. Our friend Bob Friedman had been killed in one and that really hurt the early market values. It was post war and like the Bearcat "had no history."
The late Frank Sanders put on an amazing display with wingtip smoke generators that showed the vortices created by the disturbed air coming off the wingtips. He really revealed his Centaurus engined Sea Fury's speed and climb performance. Ellsworth Getchell also helped make the market. (Ask him about his parachute that failed to open at an airshow or his mother's descendants that came over on the Mayflower!)
The Centaurus won't hold up at race power settings. However this was a time when a lot of people still thought a Corsair or P-38 could win at RENO. The Sanders mating an american radial on Dreadnought really showcased the superb overall design potential of the Sea Fury. Nelson Ezell and others were early in the game to make the sought after modifications for the U.S. buyers.

As far as those items you listed go, the ones in the front cockpit don't work in the back, different parts. The cockpit seats do interchange, which is the reason for the shortage of those. I suspect they were pirating some of the shiny things as souvenirs.
Here are a few more of D-COTE from Thomas Genth, he was a teenager at the time with a photographic hobby. His Dad was flying the Fury for the DLB. It's thanks to him that we have such good records of our machine's time as a Target Tug.

Awesome pics Ken, thats my kind of snowblower!!!! You said you had flown the Centaurus Fury, what did you think of it compared to the 3350 powered ones?? Really keen to see your bird back in the air, best regards, Pete

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Give me a Centaurus over a Merlin any day

That picture launching off of the snow is AWESOME!

I've always been a big air race fan and Critical Mass is/was the sexiest, beastly-est racer out there in my opinion. With that said though, I'm so glad to see you guys doing what you are. We've had several airplanes in my family for 30+ years and I know how attached you can get to them. I love thinking of that same machine being enjoyed by multiple generations of the same family.

Will the "Critical Mass" name live on with the airplane post-restoration?

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Ryan Pemberton
www.pembertonandsons.com

Ryan, some of these airplanes seem to get a name attached which sticks. I think this is one of them.

[quote="TheBoy"]That picture launching off of the snow is AWESOME!

I've always been a big air race fan and Critical Mass is/was the sexiest, beastly-est racer out there in my opinion. With that said though, I'm so glad to see you guys doing what you are. We've had several airplanes in my family for 30+ years and I know how attached you can get to them. I love thinking of that same machine being enjoyed by multiple generations of the same family.

Will the "Critical Mass" name live on with the airplane post-restoration?[/quote]