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  #11  
Old 6th September 2018, 12:40
paulmcmillan paulmcmillan is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

All

There is some confusion over the Harts and Audax

But lets start with the Harts

A Pride of Eagles: A History of the Rhodesian Air Force

1936 Government "6 Hawker Harts by end of Year"

However we also quoted (Internet)

Hart (seven a/c shipped in crates from the UK to Beira, Mozambique in March 1937, and then to Cranborne, SR by railway):

K3877 (became SR1), K3888 (SR2), K3889 (SR3), K2986 (SR4), K3886 (SR5), 'K3025' and K3026 (perhaps SR6 and SR7).


K3025 was written off in crash landing in RAF in Feb 1937 'spun in' I wonder if supplied as Instructional airframe or a mis-ident for K3028

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=207001


Anyway

Rhodesian Air Force: the sanctions busters

Has

SR1 Hawker Hart 1937 -> K3877
SR2 Hawker Hart 1937 -> K3888
SR3 Hawker Hart 1937 ->K3889
SR4 Hawker Hart 1937 -> K2986
SR5 Hawker Hart 1937 -> 'K3025' -WRONG Photo evidence has this as K3886
SR6 Hawker Hart 1937 -> (K3028) maybe K3026

I assume in brackets for unproven

This is different


It is possible the 'extra Hart' was an Instructional Airframe and may have been given a SR serial later

I think K3025 (if right was the Instructional Airframe)

Not convinced the Gauntlets are the missing numbers

http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/aa-a...types/hart.htm
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  #12  
Old 6th September 2018, 13:01
paulmcmillan paulmcmillan is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

I think SR14 was possibly Hawker Audax K7540 or K7546

and K7540 or K7546 is either


SR15 Hawker Audax (Rhodesian Air Force: the sanctions busters)
SR17 Hawker Audax (Rhodesian Air Force: the sanctions busters


I think SR16 is the Instructional Airframe Hart
and the Other Audax (SR15 or SR17) is also Instructional Airframe
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  #13  
Old 6th September 2018, 14:08
Sid Guttridge Sid Guttridge is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

Hi paulmacmillan.

SR1 to SR6 were Harts. These arrived in crates.

SR7 was a Tiger Moth.

SR8 and SR9 were Rapides. SR8, at least, was ferried in from the UK.

SR10 to SR13 were Audaxes. These were ferried in from Egypt.

It is over SR14 to SR17 that there seems to be no clarity.

Certainly three Gloster Guntlets were delivered in crates in late 1939. Above their local serials are given as 150 to 152.

It has also been stated above that SR14 was another Audax, and it seems clear from Pride of Eagles that at least five different Audaxes (reportedly K7534, K7540, K7545, K7546, K7548) were in use with No.1 Squadron's successor, 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron RAF, in Kenya by June 1940.

There seems to be a gap in the air-historiography regarding S14 to S17 that doesn't yet allow a definitive answer.

Chronology and logic would suggest that SR15 to SR17 should originally have been allocated to the three Gloster Gauntlets, but this may not have been the case if four further, unknown, Audaxes reached the Rhodesians in 1939-40.

Cheers,

Sid.
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  #14  
Old 6th September 2018, 14:29
paulmcmillan paulmcmillan is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

Sid

I accept SR1 to SR6 were HArts

But what about

£
Hart (seven a/c shipped in crates from the UK to Beira, Mozambique in March 1937, and then to Cranborne, SR by railway):

K3877 (became SR1), K3888 (SR2), K3889 (SR3), K2986 (SR4), K3886 (SR5), 'K3025' and K3026 (either perhaps SR6).

My issue is with the actual number of Harts shipped - I cannot believe that they would not ship an extra one (if one available) to act as an Instructional Airframe


Paul
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  #15  
Old 6th September 2018, 14:54
Sid Guttridge Sid Guttridge is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

Hi paulmacmillan,

I suspect the seventh crated aircraft may have been the Tiger Moth SR7.

The Rapide SR8 was ferried in by air.

On their first tour of Rhodesia in September 1938, only five Harts were used. Perhaps the sixth was the instructional airframe you are looking for.

Regarding the three Gloster Gauntlets - We know they were promised in April 1939 and we know they were used for meteorological flights in WWII.

On top of this we know from p.62 of Pride of Eagles that the first job that six apprentices, who had just been trained by the RAF in the UK, were given on their return to Southern Rhodesia in October 1939 was to build crated aircraft. These presumably can only have been the Gloster Gauntlets (though the author mistakenly writes "Gloster Gladiators").

It is noticeable that your source Rhodesian Air Force: Sanctions Busters also gives the delivery dates for Audaxes SR15 and SR17 as October 1939.

My guess is that this identification is wrong and that SR15 to SR17 were originally the three Gloster Gauntlets and they soon received new serials (150 to 152) in the general reordering that saw the creation of SRAS.

To confuse the matter further, apparently the Rhodesians were originally promised six Audaxes, not the four or five known to have been received!

Cheers,

An ever more confused Sid.
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  #16  
Old 6th September 2018, 17:10
paulmcmillan paulmcmillan is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

Sid

Thanks unless there is a dusty file found in some archive anywhere or a photo Gloster Gauntlet turns up we may never know

OK so what was SR20

Paul
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  #17  
Old 6th September 2018, 22:19
Sid Guttridge Sid Guttridge is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

Hi paul,

Rereading Pride of Eagles, it appears that the SRAF got six, not four, Audaxes, though one was damaged on the ferry flight.

If the extra two were SR14 and SR15, that doesn't leave enough blank serials for three Gauntlets.

That would presumably mean we are looking for two other aircraft to be SR16 and SR17.

Cheers,

Sid.
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  #18  
Old 14th September 2018, 18:13
Ruud1970 Ruud1970 is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

Hello,

SR 25 was ex-SAAF Dakota Mk III 6842 with c/n 13865/25310 and later re-serialed as 157 and w/o 02-06-1977

SR29 was ex-RAF Anson C. Mk 19 VL356; to SP-YNX

SR30 was ex-RAF Anson C. Mk 19 VM335; to SP-YNY

SR31 was ex-RAF Anson C. Mk 19 VM337; to VP-YNZ

Best regards

Ruud
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  #19  
Old 16th September 2018, 11:14
Stig Jarlevik Stig Jarlevik is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

In a very interesting article Andy Thomas makes a somewhat different interpretation, listed here with some further comments by me

SR 1 to 6 Hawker Hart (K3877, K3888, K3889, K2986, K3886, K3028) I can't see how either K3025 or K3026 could have made it to Rhodesia. K3025 seems to have been smashed to pieces and K3026 went to SAAF as 352 on 5.8.1938.

SR 7 DH 82 Tiger Moth

SR 8 DH 89 Dragon Rapide (SR 9 has in the past been reported as another one, but so far no one has come up with an identity!)

SR 9 to 14 Hawker Audax (K3108, K3117, K7534, K7540, K7546, K7548)

150 - 152 Gloster Gauntlet (As far as I can see they may well have been intended to become SR 15 to SR 17)

The wartime SRAS is quite underresearched and so far I have seen reports about:
Hawker Hart/Audax: 101 to 112
DH Tiger Moth: 201 to 204 (but photo exists of 231 in 1943)
DH Leopard Moth: 250 to 252
DH Dragon: 260
DH Dragon Rapide: 300 to 305

Postwar it seems SRAF continued with SR 18 and up, but I cannot find any aircraft fitting SR 20

Someone also asked about SR 28. This was an Auster J1 ex G-AGTU

Cheers
Stig
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  #20  
Old 16th September 2018, 20:15
Sid Guttridge Sid Guttridge is offline
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Re: Missing Southern Rhodesia Air Force serials SR14-SR21?

Hi Stig,

There seems to have been a new serial system introduced early in the war that involved the 100s, 150s, 250s, 260s, 270s and 300s. These included a mix of former SRAF aircraft and pre-war civil aircraft.

I suspect this has something to do with including all impressed civil aircraft and existing Government aircraft by type in a single registration scheme.

Where can I find Andy Thomas's article?

Many thanks,

Sid.

P.S. This still leaves SR15, SR16 and SR17 a mystery. I suspect they were part of the pre-war sequence rather than the post-war sequence.

If the Audax sequence really is SR9-SR14, this would leave open the possibility that the three Gauntlets were SR15-SR17.

The other reported Rapide (previously given as SR9) is indeed a mystery. It was not used to support the SRAU's initial move to Kenya and it does not appear in the later 300+ Rapide sequence. By contrast, Rapide SR8 was involved in both.
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