Fairey Battle Bits

[David Dunlop]

Just spinning this off the Armour Forum (in case it grows and gives Hanno more work than he needs).

Apart from the wrecked Battle out at Langruth Manitoba 30 odd years ago, it does not appear to have survived well here in the prairies at least. I have read of a collector, possible from Manitoba, who at some point post war assembled a small collection of BCATP aircraft to flying condition, one of which was stated as being a Fairey Battle, but I have never seen this particular aircraft to my knowledge. IIRC, his collection later formed the nucleus for another one somewhere in Canada.

I used to work with a former RCAF Wartime pilot who had delivered Battles to various Gunnery Schools across Canada in the early stages of the BCATP and he described them as a miserable aircraft to fly and he never got used to the two stage only pitch control for the prop - takeoff and cruise. Whenever you had to change the pitch, you lost power for a moment or two and the nose would drop. He conceded they were a good gunnery platform for training purposes, but that was all.

I have heard recurring rumours of a half dozen or so Battles hiding somewhere in the province, but nothing has ever come of it They were sold off in large numbers out of RCAF MacDonald, Manitoba after the war but scrappies have been picking the province clean of visible scrap for a number of years now. For now, I am content to lump the Battle stories in with the Lancaster sitting in a barn in the Interlake Region, complete and ready to go and the P-51's buried in the dump at Rivers, Manitoba. Of course I still do buy lottery tickets.

David