Pre War Bristol in Colour,......Filton, Blenheim`s etc!!

[Mr T]

1 hour ago, Max Headroom said:

It’s a Percival type. A Mew Gull or Proctor.

 

Trevor

I would have thought it unlikely to be a Proctor as the first flight was not until October 1939 at that time and definitely not a  Mew Gull. I still reckon it is a Vega Gull of which the RAF had a few (15)

[Graham Boak]

I haven't seen the Hart, whereabouts in the film is it?  There is however a yellow Tiger Moth just before the end of the flying sequence.  Agreed about the Vega Gull.

[dogsbody]

15 hours ago, lasermonkey said:

@dogsbody I did some screen grabs of the film, as there were some lovely scenes and I thought they were worth saving for posterity.

In the factory. Note the primer colour. It seems to change appearance somewhat, depending on the lighting

Hope this helps,

Mark.

 

Dude! That's awesome! Thank you so much.

 

 

Chris

[Graham Boak]

We can probably date the film to August 1939.  N6217 is near the end of the batch N6140 to N6242, delivered April to August 1939.  P4834 was the 10th of the next batch, delivered from August to October 1939.  So maybe the roundels were painted onto the fuselage before the camouflage, and they got slightly out of sequence in production, or Bristols had more than one paint shop and one of them wasn't up to date?    Anyone know the construction numbers/dates of these Blenheims?  But they certainly should have had the A roundel at this time.

 

Interestingly, P4834 was one of a consecutive batch of five that went to the RAE, and four of them then went to fighter squadrons.  Early conversions?

[Vulcanicity]

That's a wonderful film, thanks for posting! For those who know Bristol and Filton, it's amazing how rural the whole area looks in the footage showing the air test!

One for the really observant - who spotted the Beaufort nose? I suspect filmed accidentally - the prototype flew in November 1938 so surely it must have been relatively secret still?

 

(2:46 for those who didn't see it)

[Max Headroom]

30 minutes ago, Vulcanicity said:

One for the really observant - who spotted the Beaufort nose? I suspect filmed accidentally - the prototype flew in November 1938 so surely it must have been relatively secret still?

 

(2:46 for those who didn't see it)

Good spotting! Must admit I missed it first time around as I noticed that the rudders and elevators were pre finished in camouflage when being mated to the airframe.

 

Trevor

[Walter Lindekens]

Tony, thank you for sharing, that is absolutely brilliant footage!      As a Blenheim fan that just made my day :).

 

Thanks to John D.C. Masters too for his free VPN tip,  I installed one and managed to view the footage based in Belgium :).   

 

Cheers,

 

Walter

[Rabbit Leader]

On 1/24/2019 at 7:09 PM, John D.C. Masters said:

If you download and install a VPN (usually free) then you can change your ISP to the UK (or anywhere in the world for that matter) and watch this video, or indeed any national broadcast.  Their computer will think your computer is local.  

That tip (eventually) worked a treat John.. many thanks. I can now strike that off my ‘reasons why I should live in the UK’ list! Modern Technology - marvellous ain’t it?? 

 

Now back to the video, I was quite surprised to see footage showing Type A roundels on the upper wing surfaces on one of the Blenheims, could this have been earmarked for Coastal Command? I would have thought red/blue B type would have been common practice for Bomber aircraft. Anyway, thanks again for the video link and VP tip fellas.. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Muddyf]

A fantastic find. I will spend hours pouring over the video looking to see if my grandfather makes an appearance somewhere! 

 

The colours are fantastic, and the image showing the rudder etc pre-painted is very interesting. 

 

Oh for 1/10 of the aircraft shown in the factory scenes surviving to this day for restoration.

On 1/24/2019 at 9:27 PM, Vulcanicity said:

That's a wonderful film, thanks for posting! For those who know Bristol and Filton, it's amazing how rural the whole area looks in the footage showing the air test!

Unrecognisable now, it’s all Cribbs Causeway shopping centre and houses!

 

On 1/24/2019 at 9:27 PM, Vulcanicity said:

One for the really observant - who spotted the Beaufort nose? I suspect filmed accidentally - the prototype flew in November 1938 so surely it must have been relatively secret still?

The Beaufort nose was a great spot, I saw it first time around but the date didn't click until I read your post!

 

Matt

Edited January 26, 2019 by Muddyf

[noelh]

Brilliant, even though there was some stop start issues with the video I even love the door to door salesman and the Bananas. One thing springs to mind is that everything was so clean, more so than I would have thought. But I suppose it was really.

 

BTW again I had no problems seeing it despite being in Ireland. Not sure why. Maybe because I'm on Virgin media or perhaps the website includes us. I don't care as long as I see it.

 

Films like that really bring the era to life in a way we hardly realise. There was colour before the 1940s.

 

 

[TeeELL]

Fascinating, 

 just found this by chance!  The Blenheim IV P4834 interested me because 29(F) Sqn apparently received 3 Blenheim IVFs serials P4833 and P4835 with P4845 the third.  What I cannot determine is whether they received them with their Blenheim 1’s pre-War or whether they were part of the allocation when 29(F) had to relinquish their Hurricanes to become a night fighter Squadron in October 1939 - I suspect the latter although neither ‘first hand accounts’ I have seen mention the Mk IVF.

[Rumblestripe]

Thanks for posting a fascinating film. I even found myself watching the bit about the door-to-door brush seller!

 

I also took a couple of screen grabs and I have done some colour correction

 

Here is the original

 

From the well-defined shadows and background this looks like a bright, slightly hazy day, the sun is over the photographer's left shoulder. So I popped the image into Photoshop and this is what I ended up with

 

 

Possibly this is a little "pinkish"? But I think from the way the sky has come up and the grass it isn't too far away. Does anyone know when (time of year and time of day) this was taken? The sun looks quite low suggesting morning or afternoon? A couple of comments. First a bug bear of mine black... it isn't, it is dark grey only appearing black in full shadow. Second tyres, these are pretty new tyres and they are mid to light grey NOT black! Dark earth is quite light and the cockpit interior looks pretty close to the Dark Green in the camo rather than "interior grey/green".

 

As I have a Gloster Gladiator lined up for the BoB GB starting in July I was interested in the shots of the engine build and I notice that the notch to allow the machine guns to fire through the prop on the Glad are still present in the exhaust rings. I guess that those rings discolour pretty quickly in service? These ex-factory ones being in primer I guess?

[dogsbody]

1 hour ago, Rumblestripe said:

I guess that those rings discolour pretty quickly in service? These ex-factory ones being in primer I guess?

 

I'm guessing this Blenheim is new from the factory and the engine hasn't been run yet, or very little. I don't think the rings were primered.

 

Oh! Nice work on that photo!

 

 

 

Chris

[Rumblestripe]

On 1/24/2019 at 6:51 AM, lasermonkey said:

Just been looking a bit closer at the grab of the Tiger Moth and the top wing markings look very interesting to me:

 

It's hard to make out exactly what's going on, but I *think* that the wingtips are yellow, with the remainder camouflaged. What's interesting is that the registration is painted black on the yellow (?) portion, but it looks to me like it's painted in yellow on the camouflaged section. The registration may possibly be G-ABIA, but that was a Puss Moth, so maybe G-ADIA, which is a Tiger Moth (and survives to this day).

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject. It would make a striking looking model, don't you think?

 

Cheers,

Mark.

Had a go at this image with Photoshop to try to bring out the colours from the faded original and this is what I got

 

 

From the short shadows this was taken around midday, I think the original is a little over exposed as the flying suit worn by the Test Pilot looks like a Persil advert! But you can more clearly see the colours on the biplanes.

[tonyot]

Glad you all liked the film,...... at the same time as posting it, I also informed Airfix about the interesting Tiger Moths and sent them info etc,...... so you never know eh! 

Cheers

          Tony

[Sabrejet]

The DH.82 is from Bristol Flying School, which became an EFTS around the time that the second Bristol-run EFTS was set up at Yatesbury (1936). The gent in the 'Persil' flying suit is Cyril Uwins. The flying school initially operated civil-registered DH.82s, which were bolstered by military versions at outbreak of war. This explains the mix of colour schemes. Below is G-ADIX in similar scheme at Yatesbury (photo courtesy of Gordon Chivers). The '17' is a carry-over from its civilian days and shows that the camouflage was painted over the earlier colour scheme while retaining elements of the DH-applied registration letters and School numbers. As far as I can ascertain, the 'Bristol' Tigers were numbered 1 to 15 and Yatesbury's 16 onwards ('25' at rear is G-ADNU).

 

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Sabrejet