Two Gannets at Lowton, nr Leigh

[spargazer]

Does anyone have any record of them? during the early sixties there were two for scrap, picccies on flickr search with "Fairey Gannet AS4s at Lowton, near Leigh, 1961"

[viscount]

LOWTON METALS, LEIGH - dated 18th JULY 1964, (two images)





LOWTON METALS, LEIGH - dated 23rd DECEMBER 1964, (four images)









Can't answer your question, but as these photos show, part of the problem could be that registrations were not visible. The stacked fuselages are F-86 Sabres, while it is the same Gannet fuselage in both photos.

These photos come from the Don Stephens collection, although I strongly suspect they were sent to him as a result of his interest in wrecks and relics as the compiler of both the first and second editions of the Merseyside Society of Aviation Enthusiasts (MSAE) book "Wrecks and Relics" in May 1961 and April 1963. Neither of these early "Wrecks and Relics" (soon to appear in it's 29th edition) paid much attention to RAF MU 'graveyards' or metal dealers 'scrapyards' as in the late '50s/early '60s there was a very rapid turnover of aircraft - and once cut into sections, much of the airframe identity was lost. I don't have a copy of the May 1968, 3rd edition compiled by George Jones. In both the 4th edition of August 1974 and 5th edition of April 1976 Ken Ellis does not make mention Lowton Metals of Leigh, but does include mention of the Unimetal's Yard at Failsworth.

In the early 'Northern Aeronews' monthly newsheet of the Merseyside Group of Aviation Enthusiasts (MGAE) and after a name change to Merseyside Society of Aviation Enthusiasts (MSAE) and their monthly magazine to 'Flypast', there are lists of visits to some of the local scrapyards eg Failsworth - however it would take some time to work through all the issues from late 1956 into the mid 60s, with no certainty of any success. I've just gone through the 'Flypasts' mid 1964 to Mid 1965 to see if the visits that the photos show were covered - they weren't.

[ian531]

Never knew anything about this and live only a few miles away

Thanks for posting the pictures

Ian

[jbmack]

I remember a scrapyard where the fire station is now seeing what looked like an F84 wing with USAF markings in there presumably ex Burtonwood.
I visited Lowton Metals scrapyard and saw amongst other things part of an RAF Lockheed Neptune and the remains of the Bristol Freighter which had crashed on Rivington Pike.

Jim Mackenzie

[philglt]

I visited Lowton Metals on 21/08/1964 and have the following log from the visit;

I have 15 RCAF F-86E Sabres: 23383,23733,23378,23795,23545,23548,23597,23599,23386,23421,23448,23554,23717,23736,23765

I have one RAF Vampire T.11 XE953

I have one Fairey Gannet AS.1 WN354

I have one Avro Anson VP953. This registration is incorrect as it corresponds with a Devon, so it is an incorrect transfer from the original notes, but could have been something like VV953???

I don't know if this extra information helps, but doubt if there would be much change from the date of the excellent pictures put up by Viscount.

Phil

[sabre]

UK Serials Resource Centre shows WN354 as a Gannet AS1 delivered 12/04/1954, passed to training as A2412 in 30/07/1956 at Arbroath, w.o.c. 06/11/1961.

If you look closely at the rear fuselage of the Gannet aft of the rear canopy there seem to be a number of patches over holes?....seen similar on airframes used for battle damage repair training...

All those lovely Sabres

[viscount]

This somewhat obscure, 'nostalgia' topic, seems to have 'taken-off' with some great contributions.

George Jones has let me know by e-mail that his edition 3 of "Wrecks and Relics", May 1968 included a chapter contributed by S.N.Simms reviewing all scrapyards, including Lowton Metals, the location being given as Lowton St.Marys, Warrington. At that time (1968) had processed the Javelins and RCAF Sabres from Prestwick and was thought to have been abandoned, but a Vampire nose remained.

George reckons that he was taken to Lowton Metals once and saw parts of Gannets ex RNAS Abbotsinch (Glasgow).

[viscount]

LOCATION NOT RECORDED

In the light of the above posts, I've have had another look through my index to Don Stephen's images and find 6 more of a scrapyard, the prints filed quite close in sequence to the Lowton Metals shots already used. There is no location or date for these shots. Likely be around late 1963/early 1964, but where?

BE AWARE THIS COULD BE A TOTAL 'RED HERRING' - AT AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT LOCATION!





Clearly two shots of the same Gannet '106'.



Avro C.19 Anson. Not much metal scrap in an Anson fuselage, although the wings were metal on late-build aircraft. The stack of wings behind could be Javelins, just a guess.





Clearly the same pair of Gannet fuselages, one clearly WN393 (and with partial Navy maintenance aircraft number A242·), while the other has rectangular repairs to the starboard side of the rear fuselage as noted by 'Sabre' on the port side of the Lowton Gannet several posts up.



General shot of aircraft scrap. That could well be an F-86 tail pipe near central in the shot.



Remains of a DH.115 Vampire T.11 nose pod wearing code '19'.

Had a quick 'google' and came across links to a long forgotten NWAN thread regarding scrapped F-86 Sabres! Doesn't add anything though. derbosoft.proboards.com/thread/15321/canadair-sabres-86e-raf-f4s

[sabre]

Link to a photo on Abpic taken at Abroath in June 1961. UK Serials have no info on its scrapping date.

Gannet WN393