Lancaster defences
Q Bob Hickox asks why the Lancaster never had a ventral turret to defend it from below, since many were shot down by nightfighters from this quarter.

Catapult launch

Can anyone pinpoint this occasion?Q Charles Stewart sends a photograph, believed to have been taken on HMS Victorious in 1967, possibly in the Pacific or Indian Ocean, showing the disposal of a saloon car from the catapult. Can anyone pinpoint the occasion?

German aircraft relics

Q Tony Gregory says that a pub named The Battle of Britain, a wooden structure and once part of the Officers’ Mess at RAF Gravesend, had a Messerschmitt Bf 109 rudder in the saloon bar, The pub was demolished and rebuilt in brick, but the rudder disappeared. Similarly, the local Tollgate Hotel pub on the A2 had a Dornier Do 217 propeller blade with other German aircraft engraved on it, all shot down by the AA gun opposite the pub, but this disappeared when the pub was rebuilt in the 1970s. Has anyone information on either the aircraft crashes or the present location of the relics?

Blohm und Voss Bv 222
Q Phil Rech quotes a Wikipedia entry on the Bv 222 flying-boat, saying that V2, the second prototype, was filled with spare parts and scuttled by the British between Fagervika and Monks Island, where it lays preserved on the sea bed due to low oxygen levels in the water. There were said to be plans to raise and restore it. Is this true, and, if so, who is behind the project?

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Write: Q&A, Aeroplane, Cudham Tithe Barn, Berry’s Hill, Cudham, Kent TN16 3AG

Danish aircraft
Can anyone identify this biplane?Q Neil Jensen seeks identification of a biplane, probably dated late 1920s /early 1930s, in a photo with inhabitants of the city of Randers, Denmark, posed in front of it. His grandfather owned a restaurant in Randers and is in the picture, but what was the occasion, and was the biplane civil or military?

Captured DC-3

A DC-3 in RAFmarkings, 1940Q Geoff Mansfield writes from New South Wales, Australia, with a photograph of a Douglas DC-3 in RAF markings, purchased on-line from a seller in Germany. He refers to my feature Civvies at War in our October 2011 issue, which said that ex-Sabena OO-AUI was used by 24 Sqn RAF for a few days in March 1940 but did not acquire an RAF serial. Assumed to have been shot down on March 23, 1940, it may have forced-landed and been destroyed on the ground by troops. The picture shows it with Wehrmacht troops, a replacement rudder looking rather too large and fin stripes that are too high, while the single door is appropriate for the period (note this door in the February 1940 photo of a Swedish DC-3). Maybe it is OO-AUI; does anyone have further comments?

Marauder fuselage

Q John Sawyer recalls a scrapyard on the Ely side of Cambridge railway station in 1959 housing a Martin Marauder fuselage section painted sky blue, and asks if anyone has details.

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Write: Q&A, Aeroplane, Cudham Tithe Barn, Berry’s Hill, Cudham, Kent TN16 3AG