Blackburn Beverley

Was Beverley in Beverley, Yorks.
renamesd to Blackburn Beverley
Kevin - Mod



I took these in Beverley, Yorkshire. 1993-5.

Wouldnt it be great if the RAF museum were to purchase it? Or would that be a little bit embarassing?

They had one but being outside it deteriorated and was scrapped in 1989. The size of the airframe limits internal storage and the cost of maintaining external aircraft is prohibitive. The survivor at Hull is likely in poor condition by now and would be a drain on the budget of any museum. But, it is the lone survivor and there may be a benefactor lurking.....

If this has survived so long, I believe its never been exhibited indoors. How come the Hendon one with all the help available from the RAF didnt last as long??? And as for size, well thers a B52 inside at Duxford.

News about the closure of Fort Paull broke last week and obviously since then the future of the Beverley has been the main talking point or typing point within the aviation community given the demise of both the Finningley and Hendon aircraft with this one being the last of it's kind while two cockpit sections , one each , at the Doncaster and Newark museums also survive . Two press reports here ;
www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-y...reopen-plans-3759700
and
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-51192579 .

A friend of mine was a cadet with 399 (Beverley) Squadron ATC who frequently worked on XB259 when it was at Paull Airfield , Beverley and then Fort Paull , one of his instructors served with a Beverley in the Far East and recalled some perhaps apocryphal tales ;

When I was a cadet at 399 we had an instructor who had served on Beverleys in the Far East . Told stories of front wheel bouncing into the jungle shortly after lift off – never found the wheel !
An airlift between airstrips of an airfield fire truck , the Beverley struggling for height after take-off – someone had forgotten to drain the water out of the truck !
Being buzzd by Migs when doing low level supply drops – solved by making a local mod of browning machine guns inside the fuselage firing out of the rear with the clam shell doors removed !

Two photos from him too of the Beverley at the Museum Of Army Transport in 1989 . The site in Flemingate was cleared when the museum folded and it is now a mixture of commercial and housing property . From memory the pub opposite , now The Potting Shed , but previously something else , has a small stained glass insert of a Beverley above it's front door which can be made out on GE Street View .

I flew in one several times in Malaya/Borneo in the '60s. One tale often told was of an aircraft on the ground .There was an Elsan type toilet in the rear of the tail boom and in front of door of the cubicle, in the floor of the boom, was a removable door through which paratroopers could drop. An unspecified person, said to be a 'brown job' had gone into the toilet but on exiting the panel in the floor had been removed and he fell through onto the concrete pan and was injured.

Muharraq 1966

Muharraq 1966 (the original 35mm transparency is quite good but this scan is muddy)