landing gear of what type of aircraft

[spijkerfestijn]

This landinggear was found some weeks ago on the Northsea.
Who can give information about the type of plane. I don't think the markings reveal the exact plane.
Markings were found on the marked parts of picture 1
picture number 4 shows the location of the first marking (A circle with sign SBL 1) and the number 28516.S40BS)
and 5 show the location of the second markings found (B06 A4439 28550(^)457 6L1 and something wit a circle and symbols and a 2)

 

[Airframes]

Initial thoughts are Blenheim or Beaufighter, but someone here can maybe add more accurate info from the numbers.

 

[Crimea_River]

Not a Beaufighter

 

[Airframes]

You're right Andy. Just a quick guess on my part, going of the 'X' shaped cross braces.
Possibly a Wellington though ?

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks closer. I'm wondering if the inspector stamp might be for Short Brothers.

 

[spijkerfestijn]

This weekend we will try to remove more of the northsea artifacts of the gear. And perhaps we can make some parts moving so we show the gear in a way we can identify it better. Up until now we have these pictures.

 

[rochie]

Short Stirling ?

 

[Crimea_River]

Looked at that Karl but I think the Stirling gear would be WAY bigger.

 

[Airframes]

I'd considered the Stirling too, but it was massive. The other option might be a Hampden, but it does look very much like a Wellington's gear.

 

[Crimea_River]

I'm warming up to the Wellington gear.

 

[Airframes]

Yep. I've been looking at the pics I took of the Brooklands Wellington and the one under conservation at Cosford, and there are similarities with the upper sections, in the wheel bays, and those that are folded or crushed on the recovered gear.

 

[rochie]

Yes i got distracted by the shape and forgot about the size !

 

[vikingBerserker]

Wouldn't a Wellington be much bigger? It kind of looks like an Anson

 

[Crimea_River]

Ansons are very different.

 

[spijkerfestijn]

The Wellington drawing is plausibele. Number 12 in the drawing is the massive part with the markings in my first set of pictures. Tomorrow I Will try to place the parts like the picture shows. To be continued

 

[A4K]

First thought was 'Beaufighter!' but looking again I'd agree Wellington (if correct size) or possibly Airspeed Oxford.

 

[MiTasol]

Look at the photos with the lifting strops and the hand. These oleos are only about 50-60mm diameter so we need to be thinking small. If spijkerfestijn could post some dimensions that will help everybody visualize the size of the unit better. The spacing between oleos and the diameter of the oleos just above the axle clamps and where that label is would greatly assist and A minus B x2 will provide the maximum outside diameter of the tyre.

A4K is on the right track with Oxford for size but the Oxford has wooden spars and the Oxford legs have long braces to the rear and there is no sign of them or their attachments. My memory is the Oxford has the retract mechanism attached to the braces and rear spar and this appears to have that attached to the leg in the photo 3.

The English label almost certainly means UK or US built.

 

[spijkerfestijn]

Thanks to the drawing and a picture found on http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/howard_mason2/wellington/images/wellington_28_of_42.jpg we are now pretty sure it's a Vickers Wellington landing gear. On the drawing inside the circled area there we miss electronic operated parts placed on the cilinder. But If you look closely on the picture you can see them. It took us a complete day to get the gear in more a less the same position as shown on the drawing. The dimensions shown on the drawing are not 100% accurate. I thought Inches would be easier for you all so I changed the measured cm into inch values. Thanks for leading us towards this discovery. We will clean the gear and if we can mount it on a surface we'll put in on display in our museum(www.bevrijdingsmuseumzeeland.nl). Is there by any change a way to connect this gear onto its original plane. We found a lot of part/serial numbers. Is there a database in which we can make a translation from these towards the plane that crashed?

 

[nuuumannn]

Is there by any change a way to connect this gear onto its original plane. We found a lot of part/serial numbers.

Highly unlikely. Even with the serial numbers and part numbers you have, they identify the individual part and as far as I'm aware there was no database of sorts which recorded what gear was fitted to what aircraft. The best you could have done was accessing maintenance records for individual aircraft, which are likely to have been destroyed. Aircraft wouldn't necessarily always have had the same undercarriage fitted throughout their career, particularly if there was an issue or incident that required the gear to be changed.

Your best bet would be to pinpoint the co-ordinates of where the leg was recovered and access RAF loss records where the aircraft was recorded as ending up in that part of the North Sea. Yes, it sounds implauseable, but it can be done through research. At the RAF Museum at Hendon are copies on microfische of Aircraft Accident Cards (RAF Form 1180) which outline the fates of individual machines. You could also trawl through such books as RAF Bomber Command Losses by W.R Chorley (Midland, 1992 through 1998); this series records all the known losses of British bombers based on their Form 1180s.

 

[spijkerfestijn]

Thanks for the reaction nuuumannn. We only know it was found somewhere on the Northsea. There it was picked up by a Fishingtrawler. They knew about our museum in they decide to keep it on board so they could hand it over. Perhaps they have a record of the place were they were fishing at that moment. I already did a quickscan in the aircraft losses but without coordinates I thinks it's impossible to do. Instead of display the name of the aircraft and the aircrew we will show a short article about the Vickers Wellington aircraft in general and their function within Bomber and Coastal Command.