From the date in 1971 when John Bell donated the Vengeance it had been stored at various places in Albany, plus the whaling station aircraft hangar at the airport was mentioned in one document, but the whaling station closed in 1978 and this was the same year that the Vengeance aircraft parts were brought to Perth by truck and stored at the Air Force Association shed. Another two active members were Stuart Kirkham and Dave Saunders who travelled to Kalgoorlie in May and another trip in June 1986 to search for Vengeance parts. Various small parts and panels were recovered by Stuart and Dave, but no detailed description of these parts has been unfortunately made of what had been collected. Dave Saunders also refurbished some small items back in Perth but only because the budget was also small at that time too. On thinking that the only other Vultee Vengeance in the world at Camden, New South Wales, was a complete aircraft and they may have spare parts. A letter was sent to Harold Thomas, but a surprise message came back to them, that advised that he had nothing, but he needed parts himself to finish off his aircraft and could the A.H.G. help. His list was a rudder, a tail cone including the fairing below the rudder, wing to fuselage fairings, navigation light perspex ,armour glass behind main windscreen, gill cowl hydraulic cylinder, tail wheel & axle, tail wheel components and flap shaft. Because the A.H.G. group had various duplicate parts they gave the tail wheel parts Harold needed, which was item 21 part no 72/46033 support assembly, and a tail wheel hub. One item was not available as a spare, a link assembly and that was allowed to be borrowed to be fabricated by the Camden Museum Of Aviation. Correspondence with Camden Museum of Aviation was between 1972 and 73. Closer to home a Vengeance oil cooler had been donated to the A.H.G. from a G.J. Clark in Como,Perth during 1976 and this is still being used in 2018 on a running Armstrong Whitworth Cheetah engine at the museum. During this time offers came from interested people to the A.H.G. to either buy the Vengeance or swap it for a De Havilland Devon/Dove and in an interesting letter from John Bell in 1987, concerning a swap for the Vought Kingfisher held at Pearce Dunns museum in Mildura, Victoria. Pearce Dunn had wanted either P-40 wings or the Vultee Vengeance for the Kingfisher. These were all rejected as even though work on the Vengeance had taken a back seat to other aircraft and museum buildings, it was still accepted that they would still like to rebuild this aircraft eventually. At sometime after the whaling station had closed as a working factory, an organisation called Jaycees Community Foundation. (Inc) got involved to open the whaling station as a museum, and a hangar was built to display the spotting planes and the by then Vought Kingfisher that John Bell had eventually bought from Pearce Dunn at Mildura, Victoria and the Consolidated Catalina that ended up by being owned by the foundation. This ownership of the catalina is mentioned twice in documents by the people involved in the foundation, who also leased what was now called Whaleworld based on the old whaling station premises, the aircraft museum hangar has also been called the Malcolm Green Aircraft Museum. John Bell sent letters in 1987 requesting, that could he at his own expense collect the fuselage so that he could rebuild it in Albany and return it on finishing it to the museum in Perth as he was a member of the A.H.G. As the A.H.G. in Perth had so many projects at that time as another document by Mervyn Prime said that they had 18 aircraft and 50 engines, they accepted the offer that the fuselage would return to Albany to be rebuilt and the wings and tail plane would remain in Perth to be rebuilt by Philip Rose ( Ex Supermarine employee ) and this happened, with the wings being rebuilt in the workshop in Bullcreek, Perth, for static display. In 1987 a set of only one lot of four Vultee Vengeance canopies is mentioned, that had been found by a A.H.G. member and these were sent on to John Bell at Albany for the fuselage rebuild. You can find in these documents that although three aircraft are involved, only enough parts that would build one static aircraft were usually recovered and only where there was damaged fuselage or tails, plus anything of a mechanical nature, like undercarriages or the engines, did extra parts need recovering. A search for other Vengeance items due to the fact that the places at Kalgoorlie/Boulder and Coolgardie had dried up for parts.The A.H.G. had to go inter state in Australia and were able to exchange a Transavia Airtruck aircraft that had crashed in Western Australia for some parts that included a Vultee Vengeance windscreen with frame and engine mount for this aircraft with Moorabin Air Museum in 1993, also John Bell on his travels to the eastern states of Australia while looking for parts for his Kingfisher, he managed to find for the Vengeance a rudder and gun cupola donated from Ian Whitney in Melbourne, plus from Pearce Dunn at Mildura, he received what was called a few Vultee items that included a rear seat with the mechanism for raising and swivelling. He stated that he hoped to have the fuselage at Albany finished by 1989 and returned to Perth, so that he could progress on to the Kingfisher.
Last edited by DADE on Sun Sep 02, 2018 4:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
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