Provost Comments and Corrections

I appreciate the efforts of David R. Lawrence for compiling these
CORRECTIONS TO THE "PROVOST COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS"
which I am pleased to post below.

WV418 Also reported as seen at Unimetals March 1973 and 15 April 1978

WV499 I have a note that it was seen stored at Weston Zoyland in 2007

WV501 Place is "Bait-al-Falaj" (note spelling of "Bait"). It means "House (or home)
of the Falaj". Falaj is old Persian for a narrow man-made irrigation channel
to channel water from the mountains to houses on the lower ground.

WV540 Cannot have been used to REBUILD R6307. R6307 was one of the illegal
Fairoaks Six, and WAS actually WV540. There IS a rumour that parts of
RRAF306 were used to make R6307 airworthy, although there is nothing to
substantiate this.

180 (IAC) I have the following details for this: Crashed in June 1968 at Castlebaggot,
near Casement Aerodrome after engine failure. The remains were seen on
the dump at Baldonnel in June 1968, and were later disposed-of for scrap. [See note below]

XF558 This was one of the last batch of 24 (or 25) Provosts shipped to Malaysia in
1967/1968. It was not used for flying purposes, but at some stage it was
selected to "represent FM1037" in the RMAF Museum. The original FM1037
was certainly XF547. It is not known what happened to this aircraft, possibly
it was the one reported to have crashed in 1970.

XF688 Bait-al-Falaj. (Bait is sometimes spelt BAYT).

XF691 The RRAF did not lose the prefix "Royal" after UDI. Rhodesia was still part of
the Commonwealth (albeit acting illegally!) until 1970. It was only after the
Declaration of a Republic on 2 March 1970 that the "Royal" was
"dropped".

XF851 (RRAF305) Interesting that you should ascribe the Code Letter of "N" for this
aircraft. I have a report that XF850 (RRAF304) used "N". Where did you get
this information from? [PJ reply: From African Military Aviation by Winston Brent]

XF872 (RRAF309) This aircraft (now serialled R3609) was the aircraft damaged near
Gwenora Dam. It flew through power lines. However, it was NOT the aircraft
"destroyed" in the ordnance accident at Thornhill on 23 July 1969. That was
RRAF303 (now serialled R3036), and it was not destroyed, but was rebuilt and
served until "the bitter end".

UB219 to UB221 Reports suggest that one of these used G-23-5 in April
1958. If G-23-5 WAS used by a Burmese Provost in April 1958, it could only
have been one of these.

UB233 To be strictly correct, UB233 did not "force-land". It was flying with
UB234 and UB235, and something happened to UB235 that required it to
force-land. The pilot of UB233 decided to land next to UB235, and ran into
soft sand which caused it to be written-off.

I'll not comment any further on the UB241/189/190 and their c/ns. I think Hunting must have been right.

The aircraft that crashed of Tarquinia, Italy, on 2 February 1959, could only have been Sudan No. 6. (I sometimes wonder if this aircraft ever did exist!).

R3160 Almost certainly not an illegal import. It was too ealy to be any of the "known"
illegal imports. It can really only have been the original RRAF310 rebuilt,
probably using a lot of parts from other available "spares" from other crashes.

R6309 Almost certainly this aircraft never existed. It can really only have been some
confusion with R3609.

[Additional comment by PJ regarding IAC 180:
An otherwise comprehensive listing of IAC aircraft avsitesireland.com
is as mystified as me regarding the demise of 180. The only accident at Castlebaggot is given as a Miles Master in 1946. Moreover no date more accurate than “6.68” is given for the Provost occurrence; the location is given as Baldonnel; and no names are given for two occupants killed. In the context of what else is known in detail of the IAC, these gaps in knowledge are unusual.
There is a conspiracy theory surrounding the aircraft’s demise.]

There's an interesting thread going on MSF at the moment relating to the sighting of several Provosts dumped outside at Warton in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
They seem to have escaped previous attention. Many were previously at Farnborough. To paraphrase:
"As I recall, the Piston Provosts were dumped alongside the perimeter fence that is at the back of the houses on Elder Close. The Pickwick Tavern was renamed about 10 years ago as "The Clifton Arms at Warton" and the chippie that was the Cod Cottage is now "The Raj" Indian take-away."
Aircraft involved included:

XF556 seen 9/5/69 (also 19/6/69)
XF550 seen 9/5/69
XF602 seen 9/5/69
WV683 seen 9/5/69 (also 27/2/69)
XF551 seen 5/8/69
XF548 seen 5/8/69
WV604 seen 9/7/70 (also 10/6/69)
WW449 seen 9/7/70 (also 22/2/72)
WW443 seen 9/7/70
XF680 seen 9/7/70
XF610 seen 9/7/70
XF888 seen 14/7/70
WV610 (undated)
WV664 (undated) - seems wrong to me?
XF890 (undated)