Good Morning Carson,
I hope that you are well and enjoyed your spot of gardening at the weekend.
This latest offering of yours unfortunately has me a little stumped. High wing cantilever design, 1920’s perhaps? A milestone in aviation history? I thought that maybe it was the use of the Cantilever wing (Hugo Junkers 1915).
Obviously this design came to fruition in the 20’s, apart from that I’m at an empasse. A clue perhaps. Cheers.
Dear Colonel,
my gardening spot was OK but very tiring…how was your weekend?
I’ll try to give you a couple of clues:
Good afternoon Carson,
Yes I had a busy weekend, currently in the process of renovating my house-originally built in 1665. My garden will have to wait!
Would this aircraft be the Zeppelin Staaken R-XVII. I can only think that this aircraft would have taken a giant leap forward in aircraft design during this period. Fingers crossed. Regards.
Good afternoon Colonel,
Blimey a 1665 house, it must be a mansion! Actually I shouldn’t be that impressed because during the first thirty years of my life I lived in a house which was a former nunnery of the XVth century!
Yes you’re right my dear Colonel it is the civilian version of the Zeppelin-Staaken RXVII i.e. the Zeppelin Staaken E4/20. I attach a pic showing the size of this 1920 airship as compared to that of a man standing besides her wheel.
The ball is yours,
carson
Good afternoon dear Carson,
My house is a Manoir built as a hunting lodge for Louis XIV, your old XV century nunnery sounds interesting. Do you have any pictures? Meanwhile here is my latest offering. Cheers.
Good evening Colonel,
this is a difficult ID also because the pic is vert small and I cannot read any registration number: at very first sight I’d say french and avion de rallie…but I’ll have to do lot of research
cheers
carson
My dear Colonel
good morning and have a nice weekend.
Sofar I made no progress concerning your yesterday’s offer.
I would appreciate if you could let me have a clue like for instance nationality in order to shrink my research field…also I’d like to know whether my yesterday’s assumptions are correct.
Cheers
carson
Good Morning Carson,
I wish you a pleasant weekend too. I have enclosed an updated picture for you to make life a little easier. Unfortunately y our assumptions were incorrect. It is actually British! First flew 1928, hope this helps! I have actually posted here a better photo of the same aircraft. Regards…
Good evening Colonel
thanks to your significant clues I found out that aircraft in question is the Fairey Long Range Monoplane of 1928 …just think of those undaunted pilots who trusted their lives on such primitive machines over long distance hauls like UK to Karachi or UK to Walvis Bay…although I have no great merit in this challenge I will nevertheless work out a new offer for you
carson
Dear Colonel
I hope I’m not rushing you to submit this offer but tomorrow and Monday I won’t be available therefore good luck to you…and take your time
carson
Good morning Carson,
Hope that you are well and had an enjoyable weekend. Now… the aircraft. Would it perhaps be a variant of Petlyakov, or am I barking up the wrong tree ? Speak to you soon…regards.
Good afternoon Colonel
yes, I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree…as you can see from the various emblems (the fascio littorio on the nose and the royal coat-of-arms on the fin) it is italian and from a very well known factory…
Please keep trying
carson
Good afternoon Carson, thanks for the clues, although the fascio littorio on the nose is exceptionally difficult to see. I believe there was another at the end of the lightning streak, but this appears to have been removed. I think that the lightning streak was widely used by FIAT at the time. Please correct me if i’m wrong. Still searching…
Good afternoon dear Colonel
sorry if this proves to be more difficult than I thought.
This is no FIAT product and only one fascio littorio was painted on the nose: this pic is not doctored.
Now I’ll give you an important clue:
Good evening Carson, Right here we are again. I will hazard a guess at this one, because I cannot find any pictures of the aircraft to substantiate. Would it be the CA.405 Procalleria by Caproni. I can only hope! regards.
I think you are right sir.
Here is another picture:
Good morning Colonel,
well done it is indeed the Caproni CA/405 “Procellaria”…your turn and let’s extend our thanks to Kiwimac who supplied a pic of the above a/c
Cheers
carson
Good evening Carson,
If KIWIMAC is out there thank you very much for the picture, it was very much appreciated. Yes the ‘Procalleria’ certainly was a pilots aeroplane and as you probably know, the second prototype built was destoyed, killing the test pilot Mario Gamma.
Now to my latest offering, similar in style to the Caproni and hopefully the photograph is clear enough for your delictation. Good luck !
Good evening my dear Colonel,
yes, the Procellaria wasn’t born under a lucky star, it was badly damaged at first then it crashed killing his pilot. Yet two important factories Caproni and Reggiane worked very closely on this project using furthermore the expertise
gathered by Piaggio over their bomber P32/bis. To top it up it couldn’t even participate in the race for which it was purposly built!
Now coming to you pic (which looks to me more like a silhouette) I’m pretty sure it is the De Havilland DH95 “Flamingo”.
I would appreciate if you could confirm (or not): have a pleasant evening.
carson
Good evening Carson,
Spot on with the type. This aircraft though is the Dehavilland ‘Hertfordshire’, the military variant of the civilian ‘Flamingo’. This model was a troop carrier and communications aircraft, and was developed from the civil airliner shortly after war broke out, to an Air Ministry order. This type differs from the civil type chiefly in having smaller windows and later type airscrews. It was the standard equipment of No.24 (Communications) Squadron, RAF. You have the Con!!!
