Ethiopian/South African restorations

[ozplane]

I was doing some "lockdown" reading of old magazines and came across a reference in a May 1999 edition referring to a cache of aircraft discovered and retrieved to South Africa from Ethiopia. Among the rarer finds were 2 Saab B17s and 2 Fireflies along with a clutch of Saab Safirs and Globe Swifts. Does anybody know whether they got restored or sold on? The outfit in South Africa was called Justinia.

[Cole]

Fairey Firefly or Slingsby T67 Firefly ?

[Cole]

The B17s were last noted in Lithuania in October 2012. with pictures

Source : https://lae.blogg.se/2013/february/balt ... ers-2.html (In swedish)

[Ant.H]

Fairey Firefly, deffo not T67.

One Firefly ended up in Canada with Shearwater Aviation Museum. It was being restored to fly but was badly damaged during taxiing trials, not sure what's become of it since.

[richw_82]

Shame no-one's gone after the last two Fireflies in Eritrea, after the Canadians took their two out. The ones that came out of Ethiopia were part of a different bunch at Addis Ababa, and at least one of them ended up in France.

[ozplane]

Thanks for the replies so far. So to summarise there are possibly 2 in Canada, one in France (?) and others in Ethiopia. Any updates on the one at Duxford?

[Mike]

No need for a (?) when mentioning the French one, I saw it myself a few months back. A lovely example of the dual-cockpit trainer variant.

[ozplane]

That's good news Mike. Is it airworthy?

[Mike]

No, it’s completely untouched since recovery by the look of it. It will make a lovely project for someone one day though.