Hi All,
Joining this forum primarily for my Dad, for whom I'm trying to find out a little bit more about the things he was involved in shortly after the war, and in particular his work with the AFEE at Beaulieu. Not as active as he used to be, he likes to talk about little else but the 'old days' and has endless tales of his exploits, both as a lad growing up in the New Forest followed by his time in the RAF - it's a wonder he's still here now, he's obviously got - and used - more lives than a cat!
But I share his interest in old stuff myself, being a collector of many things and with more than a passing interest in local history, and am keen to find out a little more about some of the old airfields where I now live, in Oxfordshire.
BeaulieuBoy
Welcome to the forum. Beaulieu is one of those airfields that you can't seem to remove from the landscape
I think it was in an old film that one old character said that he always looked to the past because there was little in the way of future to look forward to. Sounds logical to me.
No Amount Of Evidence Will Ever Persuade An Idiot (probably not Mark Twain)
Welcome to the Forum. I am another displaced New Forest resident ...now living in Torquay but spent 65 years in the Christchurch/Lymington area. I have very vague memories of aircraft at Beaulieu when I was a small child (around 1949 at a guess).
Returning once again nearly four years after my original post, disappointed I can't see the forum discussions on the individual airfields that I'm sure were here first time round - particularly Beaulieu - are these now closed to non-ARG members?
My Dad's still going strong with tales of his days with the AFEE at Beaulieu, working in the performance section mainly on mail pick-ups & towing gliders, and before that at the JSCW at Winterbourne. Though ground crew at Beaulieu, he was assigned to work for a couple of civilian scientists & spent much of his time flying in a variety of planes including Halifax, Hastings, Auster, Valetta, assisting with the experiments they were conducting. Still got his flying log book detailing many of he flights he partook in and the nature of the work. Some crazy stuff and a few very close calls - H&S would have a seizure if they heard some of the stuff they used to get up to!
I don't suppose there's still anybody else around from those early days with whom to share experiences?
Beaulieuboy.
I've read various tales about Beaulieu; some of them dealt with how to deliver a 'standard' Jeep by air. There were various experiments such as the fitting of a feewheeling rotor to the Jeep to enable it to be towed across the Channel then released to land, the rotor then being detached.
Another was delivering a Jeep by parachute. On at least one occasion the parachute failed to open and the Jeep fell unretarded and buried itself in the soil of the airfield so effectively they didn't bother to dig it up and apparently it's still there!
BeaulieuBoy, Having worked in the section at the A&AEE Boscombe Down which was the descendant of the AFEE I have a number of the official reports written about the trials conducted at Beaulieu.
The 1943 aerial shows its location and also some small marks from practice bombs. It was also dated May 1943 so a bit earlier than I stated. The other photo is from Bing Maps and shows a slightly oblique view, and although not the clearest I thought I'd use it to see if you can spot it Google Earth has many good aerial coverage years of it.
I think I found references to it as an archaeological feature as it is nestled amongst existing burial mounds and had it marked as "to check" for a couple of years until the IWM American Air Museum posted the Historic England aerial photos of the airfield. Sadly I can't find a record of where I came across its mention but believe it was a Squadron ORB. It will be in one of over a dozen A4 notebooks and I probably didn't transcribe the notes.
I should also point out that I have found many white circles that appear to be bombing range targets but checking against Victorian OS maps usually confirmed them as pre-historic feature with a well trodden path around it or a geological feature in some cases. It is unlikely that the Victorians used aerial bombing ranges!
No Amount Of Evidence Will Ever Persuade An Idiot (probably not Mark Twain)
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The Rotabuggy trials were over by the time the AFEE reached Beaulieu. The designer, Raoul Hafner had already left the AFEE to join the Bristol Aircraft Company to form their helicopter division and design the Sycamore.
The photo is from the AFEE report on the Fa330 rotor kite which had been designed as a spotter aircraft operating from German U Boats.
As I've mentioned the Rotabuggy its only fair to point out that the Jeep in the photo was the one used for the Rotabuggy, the rotor and tail have been removed but the tall windscreen and doors have been retained.
The trailer is the base from an Airfield Control Caravan and the winch is the type used in the Dakota for glider snatch launching. Well it was 1946, and the country was broke so you used what was available.
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