Keep you eye on the sky around the West Midlands

[Malibumax]

Hi Chaps

While enjoying the sunshine and a beer in the garden yesterday afternoon I noticed a light aircraft flying in the vicinity. It appeared to be just flying around but as it got closer it struck me that it looked rather like and old military training aircraft rather than a modern civvy light ac. I didn't pay too much attention at first as light ac are reasonably common around where I live.

I had a longer look at it however and saw that it was a low winged, prop driven monoplane (fighter type) with a large rounded nose and cowling, and a faired-in single seat canopy. It was painted a light blue/sky blue underneath and appeared to have a mottled darker shade finish on the upper part of the fuselage.

Eventually it came closer and I went and got my binoculars, just in time to get a closer look as it flew directly overhead at about 1000'.

With the binos I got a pretty good look at it. The ac silhouette looked very similar to this one, and even appeared to have black crosses on the underside of the wings...



Needless to say I was

I am fully aware that FW190s do not normally fly over Shropshire but the silhouette lloked right, the colours looked right and I couldn't think what else it might have been.

I do know that there are NO flying FW190s in the UK (only a couple of static display ones) but I have been told that there are a number of 3/4 size flying replicas in the country. A check on the web shows that, as of several years ago, there were at least two which were licensed to fly, and at least two others which were non-flying at that time.



If anyone knows any more about this, or can identify the aircraft, I'd be interested to hear about it. I would like to think I saw one of the flying 3/4 replicas but I only got the one close look and there is probably a good chance I misidentified it, but I can't think of anything else which matched that silhouette.

Max

[Tonx]

Well spotted Max! I have a possibility (or two) for you but it will need to be confirmed ...

Halfpenny Green Airfield near Wolverhampton is reasonably well known for an assortment of unusual and kit-built aircraft based there. Less so Sywell in Northamptonshire but I personally have seen a number of Hawker Humdrums and Westland Whippets flying from there! I'll check around my contacts to see if your sighting has originated from either location

You deserve a for this sighting too - one of whatever you are drinking awaiting you in the Officers' mess.

[Malibumax]

Thanks for the info - funnily enough my wife suggested it might have come from Halfpenny Green...

All the best

Max