Fly Past

CLASSIC WINGS HARVARD FLIGHT

124 FLYPAST September 2018

1947 the trainer was assigned to the

F 5 unit at Ljungbyhed – 5-47 codes

were applied, along with overall

yellow paint. Bomb and rocket

attachments were added during

1949, and then in September that

year she was stored at the Centrala

Flygverkstaden Arboga (central air

force maintenance workshop). The

aircraft was then issued to F 11 at

Nyköping with the code 11-047,

applied over green upper and grey

under-surface camouflage, on

December 20, 1956. On October

22 the following year, 11-047

was loaned to F 12 for a period,

returning to F 11 on April 25, 1958.

Hotter climes

A move to the Middle East occurred

on July 27, 1958 when 16047

was tasked for use by the United

Nations Observation Group in

Lebanon, and for this the aircraft

received an overall white scheme

marked with ‘04’ codes. It served in

the region until October 14, 1958.

By November 17 that year she was

back with F 11 before transferring to

F 21 at Luleå on July 3, 1962

with the codes 21-20 and

later 21-75, again placed over green/

grey camouflage. Eventually, the

time came for 16047 to be retired

and, on March 30, 1972 she was

allocated for sale and purchased by

Jan Murer of Oslo, Norway.

Around three weeks later she was

ferried from Västerås, Sweden

to Fornebu via Kjeller (both in

Norway) and was registered to

Mürer Engineering as LN-MAA on

September 12, 1972.

Yet another change of scenery befell

the Harvard when it was delivered

to Booker, High Wycombe, UK on

March 23, 1975 and registered as

G-BDAM for Mr D Gwyn Jones,

of Cardiff, Wales, who kept the

machine until July 1978 when it was

sold to Mr Roger H Reeves from

Manchester. During this time the

aircraft was painted in Norwegian

Air Force

colours, with

‘216’ codes.

The Harvard was then owned

by petrochemical entrepreneur

Malcolm Victor Gauntlet (chairman

of Pace Petroleum) from July 1981

to 1985 before Mr Gauntlet shared

the ownership with Norman Lees

and Evan English, operating the

aircraft from North Weald, Essex

from 1985 to 1998. During this

time, she became one of the founder

aircraft of the Harvard Formation

Team (HFT) and appeared at many

airshows in RAF markings and

painted with the serial FE992.

After the HFT ceased operations,

G-BDAM was displayed as one of

the Radial Pair, flown by Norman

Lees alongside rock star Gary

Numan in another Harvard, in

much the same scheme but with the

code letters K-T.

As mentioned, ownership

switched to Silver Victory BVBA

of Brasschaat, Belgium and the

aircraft was operated by ARC

from Duxford until its sale

to Ed Russell during 2003,

with the UK registration

void from September 30

that year. It was shipped

to Niagara Falls, painted

as RCAF Harvard ‘ER-992’

and stored until 2016 when

Black Star Aviation/Classic Wings

became the new owner, shipping

the Harvard back to the UK for

operation from Duxford.

IN THE ‘OFFICE’

Classic Wings has long flown

pleasure flights with its Dragon

Rapides and Tiger Moths, and

in fact I had already enjoyed an

excursion in one of the latter

examples at Duxford some years ago

Above,

left to right

The Pratt & Whitney

radial engine on

the Harvard, with

its 600hp, ensures

plenty of ‘oomph’.

MATTHEW ROBERTS

Cool customer:

Classic Wings’ Craig

Brierley was FlyPast’s

pilot for this feature.

His logbook also

includes the Learjet

and Islander, the

latter fl own while on

UK Coastguard duty.

MATTHEW ROBERTS

All Classic Wings’

pleasure fl ights

are preceded by

a detailed safety

briefi ng. The company

also has a fl ying

school operation,

which includes

conversion training to

‘taildragger’ status.

MATTHEW ROBERTS

Right

Craig Brierley and

FlyPast’s Chris Clifford

get airborne in ‘Pussy

Cat’ at Duxford.

MATTHEW ROBERTS