de Havilland Tiger Moth N82KF,
alias N-5490, resting quietly at Harvey Field, Snohomish on 29th January
2012 before acquisition.
Appearances can be deceptive.
After sitting in this open T hangar for over ten years, the airframe had
deteriorated singificantly.
On close inspection and
stripping down, many wounds from a long and hard life were uncovered.
N-5490 is currently undergoing
a meticulous restoration to full airworthiness and will be restored
as closely as possible to
its original 1938 specification and 20 ERFTS colours, including its original
pre-war instrumentation
and Air Ministry equipment.
Follow the restoration here.
If you would like to support
the restoration of this historic aircraft, please
make contact.
Latest Project
News
18th March 2014
Bill Graham gets ready to fire up N82KF at Schellville, California in the
summer of 1987.
This and two more superb
photos have turned up recently. They were taken by the late Mike
Ody and were kindly passed along
by George Trussell via Air
Britain. The other two photos may be found in the Crew Room.
30th December 2013
Apologies for not having reported any news or restoration progress for
over a year - where does the time go?
I will be making more updates
shortly - particularly relating to the restoration which is now getting
under way.
Just before Christmas, I
received an e-mail from Jim Hutchings, aged 85 who learned to fly in N-5490
in 1949 at 21 EFTS, RAF Booker.
He was a trainee Army pilot
training to be a glider pilot. He went on to Airspeed Horsas.
That was 64 years ago and Jim is the only living pilot
I have been able to trace
who flew N-5490 in its RAF service days. His logbook shows that he
flew N-5490 twelve times during his flight training.
I have added a page to the
Pilots
section of the website, detailing Jim's service career and his association
with N-5490.
2nd December 2012
On a bright September morning in 1986, N-5490 arrives at Petaluma, California
at the end of its epic delivery flight from Fairbanks, Alaska.
What makes this photograph
remarkable is that I took it! See many more of my photos of the arrival
in the Crew Room.
23rd November 2012
More pilot biographies of those who trained and instructed at 20 ERFTS
are being added t0 the Pilots page.
So far, fifteen have been
written and there are many more in the research phase that will be added
in due course.
Included are remarkable
stories of courage, sacrifice, achievement, humour and record breaking
that make compelling reading.
19th November 2012
Filling up somewhere along the Alcan - the Alaska Canada Highway in the
Yukon - on the epic flight from Fairbanks, Alaska to
Petaluma, California in
September 1986. Note the packed snow on the ground. The Tiger
was landed on the dirt road every few hundred miles for a fill-up,
creating quite a spectacle
for the other customers. This and many other superb images of N-5490
were sent in by Dave Treversi today.
18th November 2012 Ken
French sent over a set of photos of N-5490 this week that were taken when
he operated
the aeroplane from Plum
Island in the seventies. Here's a delightful study taken over the
coast near the airport.
12th November 2012
Today a discussion forum was added to the website so that frequent updates
on the restoration can be posted
and everyone can become
involved more directly in the project. Just click The Crew Room link
at the top of this page,
register and you will become
an active part of the project.
Remembrance Day 2012 I
was sent
this
tribute to Flt Lt Ian Smith today. It is the remarkable story
of another heroic pilot
that should never be forgotten.
With thanks to Peter Hills, who comments: "A sober read, amazing he was
not awarded the DFC and DSO".
8th November 2012
This evening I uploaded a tribute to my parents - both DH workers - here.
Among other things, this
page tells the story of the October 1940 bombing of Hatfield and includes
many images of the downed
Ju-88 and the terrible damage it wreaked.
4th November 2012
Today this website was re-hosted to its new, permanent home here at www.N5490.org.
Many more files have been
uploaded and the content will continue to expand in the coming days, weeks
and months.
31st October 2012
This morning I received this e-mail from Bill Clark:
"I am very pleased to have
been pointed to your website and found it fascinating. It was a huge
surprise to see the photos of Gravesend Airport as it was then known and,
as a "flying/aviation mad
keen eighteen-year old" spent many an hour on the outside of that place
watching the newly formed 20 ERFTS Tigers performing
and it was this that induced
me to apply to the RAFVR to train as a Pilot at Gravesend's sister airport,
Rochester, also in Kent. I was successful in my application
but it was not until WWII
was underway that I was called to commence my flying training on Tigers.
By this time most training establishments had moved away from the southern
part of England
and so I trained in The
Midlands at Desford EFTS on the western side of the City of Leicester.
At the end of my training in various other places in the UK I flew off
the aircraft carrier Ark Royal
in a long-range Hurricane
Mk II to Malta and later went on to join other Fighter Pilots in squadrons
in the Egyptian and Libyan Deserts in 1941/42.
As you would expect I am
now a 92 year old person but still very much interested in all things aviational
concerning WWII.
I will continue to look
on your website for updates of your project and wish you every success
in this venture.
With very Best regards,
Will"
31st October 2012 Mike
Lithgow's logbook from 1939 when he was learning to fly with No. 20
ERFTS, Gravesend is preserved in the museum at Brooklands.
Mike mentions in his autobiography,
'Mach 1', that the
only memorable event at Gravesend was spinning the Tiger Moth, which made
him violently ill.
This entry in Mike's logbook
for July 6th 1939 shows that he did his spinning in N-5490 with his instructor
Pilot Officer Porter.
This morning I received this
e-mail from Pilot Officer Porter's son Peter.
"When my father moved from
Bexleyheath, Kent, he left a lot of stuff in the attic at the old house.
It is a great pity that one of the items
that he left was his log
book, particularly as I would loved to have had it after he passed away
in 1999. It would have been a mine of information
and I would have dearly
loved to use all that information as part of the website
that I was able to put together. If you look at the site
you will see that he kept
an amazing amount of stuff from his time in the RAF, including photographs
and training excerpts,
but not the most important
item, his logbook. The chap who bought his house called him to ask
if he wanted it but
my father told him not to
bother, It's possible that it is still available so I will see if
the current owner still has it.
I can't remember the address,
but my brother may be able to tell me. I'll call him tomorrow and
see if he can remember."
30th October 2012
The task of uploading biographies of thr RN pilots who learned to fly at
Gravesend in the summer of 1939,
including several who are
known to have flown N-5490 is underway and can be found here.
Many more are waiting to
be added and research continues. We are particularly interested in
tracing the logbooks of these pilots.
Four logs have been traced
so far, and of these four, two of the pilots - Mike
Lithgow and Anthony Tuke - trained
on N-5490.
Heroes one and all.
27th October 2012
Website launched.
