I actually found this aeroplane when testing an ROV called Seapup for a company named Oceonics plc! The umbilical of the ROV was caught on a propeller on the Wimpy when I took the ROV back to see what the problem was. I recognised it straight away as a Wimpy and we told the RAF. The Wellington was then recovered in 1985 by Oceaneering Ltd. As life would have it, my great uncle worked on the Starboard engine when it was restored by British Airways at Heathrow. I also gave the video tape of the ROV dive to the Brooklands museum so they could see the how whole the aircraft was. It suffered only minor damage considering that it had crash-landed on the Loch!!
I watched this being recovered from Loch Ness in the 1980’s.I went to see it at Brooklands a few weeks ago and it was nice to see it in a restored condition.
My grandfather worked in London from 38 to 52. He got married in 1940 in Surrey. He was a stamper on the Wellington bomber with Vickers at Weybridge. He was a member of the homeguard. He returned home with his wife and their two girls (one my mother) to his native Tipperary Ireland in 52 and bought a little farm. He spoke greatly of London and the bomber and air raids and doodlebugs. They saw it all.
I worked on Wellington Mk 10’s 1951/3 and enjoyed a few flights in them so its good to see a Wellington more or less complete, pity there wasn’t an airworthy example.
I was a draftsman for McDonnell Douglas back in the day, and every time I see a Wellington or one of Barnes Wallis’s related designs, I think of the myriad drawings it must have taken to document every bit of this alloy wickerwork, accounting for compound curves, intersections, and rivet holes, all while making the thing build-able by shops not normally associated with aircraft, viz. MG at Abingdon building the nose section for the Albemarle.
I had an Airfix model of a ‘Wimpy’ in my childhood which I treasured. I was given a book about WW2 which showed the amazing range of the plane when compared to other aircraft of both Allied and German air forces. We should have at least one flying but this one looks like the only one in existence.
There are in fact two examples in the UK the other is MF628 at the Royal Air Force Museum, currently it is not on display as it is being refurbished. This aircraft was flying until January 1955 when it made its last flight into Wisely and since then when moved it has travelled by road in sections. If there was the money and the will this one could be put back into flying condition, but sadly our 'Robert' could not.
I saw her the morning after she'd been pulled from the Loch. Water was still pouring out of her and flying hats stillthere ,bullet belts from the gun dangling down !
No for that you need to visit the other one in the War Museum. The Brooklands one was too corroded after spending so long at the bottom of Loch Ness and so is preserved (as close as possible) as it was at the time of the crash, hence the bent props.
It is not complete deliberately, as we wanted to preserve it as it was when it was recovered after it crashed in to Loch Ness. The wings could have been covered, but it was left exposed to let people see the engineering inside. This is especial relevant today, where it is on display with displays of engineering in aircraft manufacture. Cheers Andy
My Dad's Brother Flt Sgt Roy Barnes flew Wellingtons. On 19th May 1943 he was flying a MkX Wellington with full crew when both engines siezed. You can guess the rest :(
My Father trained in one @ 84 OTU Desborough. When he first went up in one he complained to the pilot that the wing was going up and down six foot - the pilot replied that if it didn't he wanted to get off!
Very sad. I have sat in that very position in both the surviving UK Wellingtons and tried to imaging what it must have been like at night around 10,000ft up in freezing conditions and I just gave up! He must have been a very brave man.
It will be open to the Public from mid November and I am sure you will get a pleasant surprise. Also check out my video th-cam.com/video/NFmoeLpBsH8/w-d-xo.html and see another exhibit being placed inside.
@@davidblurton7158 From the few photos I have seen plus a short video clip, it id not a commercial proposition and of course that assumes it is not already a war grave. Shame!
I was a kid back in the 90's with a step father who used to run a fastners business..... Out of the blue one day he asked if I wanted to come to his work for the day and help him out.... I ended up sitting at one of his machining lathes making loooooads of rivets.......I had no idea what I was doing it for or anything....... Hours later I had finished a lot of these rivets.....he then said we had to go deliver them.... Again a bit of a mystery but then it was his business so I didn't pay much attention.... Turns out all these rivets I had made ended up being used in the restoration of the wellington bomber..... My reward was I got to sit in the cockpit of the harrier jump jet they had there... As a kid the whole thing blew my mind.... To this day even though I may have only made a tiny contribution.......it's one of my proudest moments.... I'm an old git now and have moved up north but one day I really hope I get to see the wellington bomber again....
Interesting story, you can't be that old, you say you were just a kid in the 90,s! i was born 6 of June 1975 and will be 48 this year, people say that is not old but it was considered an old age back in the 40,s when this plane was flying. Lol.
In the 1950.s I watched at air show at RAF Cosford there was a Wellington Bomber on her belly I watched as six jets came in and bomber the Wellington (heart breaking)
You're joking? They used her as target practice? That pushes the time period forward even more of when the RAF didn't care about their surplus ww2 planes. It must be the 70s when they proper started to care about their heritage (after the battle of Britain film basically)
@@zuletango That must of been hard to watch. Though it was common place back then and it's only like using an old Ford focus for crash testing now but in 50 years time that would be hard to imagine. It's like the Seafires that were pushed off an aircraft carrier, purely because they were "in the way, taking up space"
I agree, it made a massive impact I can still see the plane alone behind the flight line and the fighters coming in to bomb the aircraft. In some ways I can accept that the number of Aircraft was so large it made it impossible to keep them all but surely they could have kept a few of each type. Years ago I heard that in the 1920's someone suggested keeping one aircraft of each type if only they had listened to the voice of reason.
@@zuletango Oh wow so even back then they thought about it. If only everyone was as passionate about preserving history back then as they are now. In theory, we have the technology to remake some of those non-existent planes again, it just requires the blueprints to exist. However they wouldn't be the same as an original but then again a lot of airworthy and static aircraft are not original. The most original spitfire is maybe 98% original, which is the mk.xvi of Fantasy of Flight. An original spitfire straight from the factory had parts replaced probably days after use, therefore not being original. Suppose it's the people who want it, don't have the funds and the people who have the funds to just do it, don't bother with history. Oh well let's just hope a time machine gets made
I remember it being raised. And they connected power to one of the navigation lights just after it was out of the water and it worked! Are the wings going to re-fitted?
@@AndysVideo thanks it's really great to see her and an amazing team there doing a brilliant job. So very important we keep all that we can to remember the few.
It is a great idea but not a financially viable after spending all those years under water, so much would need to be changed to get an airworthy certificate it would be cheaper to build it from scratch with new components. There is one other Wellington that was taken out of active service in the RAF Museum however!
They were refitted once we got the aircraft inside the hangar If you do not know about it there is a Wellington playlist at www.andysvideo.com along with a lot of other videos.
Well spotted and it is a long story - Short version is that the 1950 Control tower at RAF Booker (now Wycombe Air Park) was replaced with a new one and the old one was to be demolished. At the last moment it was offered to Brooklands and of course I got a phone cal "Could National Rescue go and get it" Of course we did and you can see the recovery at th-cam.com/video/tbnXZ4S1ZAE/w-d-xo.html Of course there was nowhere to put it out of the way, until its future was decided and so it was put up there until something was worked out and that is where it has stayed for the last 20 years!
I seem to remember watching a wartime documentary on a Wellington bomber being built from scratch rolled out of the hangar and flown in 24 hrs. I dare say the logistics were all prepped and in place for the build which made for a moral boosting bit of Cinema propaganda at the time.
Yes you are right in all respects Barry, it was a well choreographed piece of progander at a time when it was needed. Of course no production line could actually work like that, but if you added all the individual separate sections of work done up it was not that far off the truth.
Are you sure of this as I have checked with the team at Brooklands and no one there now has heard this before, of course a lot of the team have passed on?
@@AndysVideo Pangbourne College...the salvage guy came to the school and gave lecture due to the link and mentioned it ,this would have been in the early 80's
Sergeant Lewis Alan White DFM (Distinguished Flying Medal) (20) 626213 (Wireless Operator/ Air Gunner) Royal Air Force, 75 Sqdn. "EVERLASTING REMEMBRANCE OF OUR DEAR SON. MAM, DAD AND FAMILY" Wellington IC T2463 AA-E The aircraft took off at 21.15 hrs on 20th September1940 from Feltwell, Norfolk to bomb the invasion barges moored in channel ports. The aircraft was hit by AA fire from Alpha battery sited west of Oostende. As a result of which the aircraft caught fire and crashed in flames at 23.00 hrs that evening. The pilot and Captain that night, P/O. Michael Braun alone baled out and landed within the small town of Leffinge, just West of Oostende, Belgium. He was severely wounded, apparently, according to locals who recall the incident, by small arms fire from the occupying forces. He died from his injuries in Oostende Hospital that same night. The other 5 crew, consisting of distressingly few physical remains, were buried in one coffin in Leffinge churchyard.
This is the most famous Wellington in the world. It crash landed in to Lock Ness while on a training flight and sunk. It stayed there for many years but was eventually recovered and rebuilt (in its crashed condition hence the bent props). There is much more on the Brooklands Museum website. www.brooklandsmuseum.com/
Same... i would preferred to seen her restored to her full glory, i always think they should be returned to near as full flight worthy as possible, even if it is only off to a museum piece, as it it a Aircraft, not a Landcraft, so in my mind i always think they should be restored that way! But at the same time they could easily showed all how it was pre-restoration condition via a multimedia display, as well as showing it being restored as well!
The rule when rebuilding the plane was to keep it as close as possible to its origination condition when it went into Loch Ness and so the props have been left as they were after the crash.
Its still in remarkably bad shape. Still many yrs of restoration left to do on it. The engines need completely removed and torn apart, and cowlings disassembled completely and corrosion removed.
I think maybe you are not understanding the Museums philosophy, for this war memorial. It was restored to a level where it was safe to go on display as it was when it crashed in to Loch Ness. There is no intention (or funds) to go further than that.
Nunyer beeznaz. And the Scottish, Welsh and Irish ones? And the Kiwi's and the Aussie's, the Canuck's, Indian's and Saffa's? They were fine I guess? Is it obligatory to have a stupid tag, before you make stupid posts on TH-cam? Because yours is exactly that.
I actually found this aeroplane when testing an ROV called Seapup for a company named Oceonics plc! The umbilical of the ROV was caught on a propeller on the Wimpy when I took the ROV back to see what the problem was. I recognised it straight away as a Wimpy and we told the RAF. The Wellington was then recovered in 1985 by Oceaneering Ltd. As life would have it, my great uncle worked on the Starboard engine when it was restored by British Airways at Heathrow. I also gave the video tape of the ROV dive to the Brooklands museum so they could see the how whole the aircraft was. It suffered only minor damage considering that it had crash-landed on the Loch!!
th-cam.com/video/7jR_eXWjv6c/w-d-xo.html
Great Story !
I watched this being recovered from Loch Ness in the 1980’s.I went to see it at Brooklands a few weeks ago and it was nice to see it in a restored condition.
I hope to see one airworthy one day, it would be a swell sight
My grandfather worked in London from 38 to 52. He got married in 1940 in Surrey. He was a stamper on the Wellington bomber with Vickers at Weybridge. He was a member of the homeguard. He returned home with his wife and their two girls (one my mother) to his native Tipperary Ireland in 52 and bought a little farm. He spoke greatly of London and the bomber and air raids and doodlebugs. They saw it all.
When I was an apprentice I worked with a guy who flew Wellingtons, it’s a great tribute to all of the air crews of WW11.
Incredible video
I worked on Wellington Mk 10’s 1951/3 and enjoyed a few flights in them so its good to see a Wellington more or less complete, pity there wasn’t an airworthy example.
I was a draftsman for McDonnell Douglas back in the day, and every time I see a Wellington or one of Barnes Wallis’s related designs, I think of the myriad drawings it must have taken to document every bit of this alloy wickerwork, accounting for compound curves, intersections, and rivet holes, all while making the thing build-able by shops not normally associated with aircraft, viz. MG at Abingdon building the nose section for the Albemarle.
A very good point Gryf. Computers no doubt do it faster, but without the satisfaction of a job well done.
I had an Airfix model of a ‘Wimpy’ in my childhood which I treasured. I was given a book about WW2 which showed the amazing range of the plane when compared to other aircraft of both Allied and German air forces. We should have at least one flying but this one looks like the only one in existence.
There are in fact two examples in the UK the other is MF628 at the Royal Air Force Museum, currently it is not on display as it is being refurbished. This aircraft was flying until January 1955 when it made its last flight into Wisely and since then when moved it has travelled by road in sections. If there was the money and the will this one could be put back into flying condition, but sadly our 'Robert' could not.
Love to see one of these flying again.
my parents were part of the team that helped raise R for Robert from Loch Ness. Our son John was aged 11 and went on the trip to Loch Ness.
What a spectacular machine!! And what a wonderful sight to behold, all those great, dedicated men giving their heart and soul to make this all happen!
What a Beautiful old girl she is....BEAUTIFUL.
I was at loch ness when it was recovered!
Love this aircraft my granddad worked on them in the vickers Armstrong factory in Broughton during the war
I saw her the morning after she'd been pulled from the Loch.
Water was still pouring out of her and flying hats stillthere ,bullet belts from the gun dangling down !
The recently released 1/72 Airfix model kit has the markings for this very aircraft. The plane was recovered from Loch Ness in Scotland.
Such a prized possession, hopefully she'll look as good as the day she left the production line.
No for that you need to visit the other one in the War Museum. The Brooklands one was too corroded after spending so long at the bottom of Loch Ness and so is preserved (as close as possible) as it was at the time of the crash, hence the bent props.
What a beast. Beautiful even if not complete.
It is not complete deliberately, as we wanted to preserve it as it was when it was recovered after it crashed in to Loch Ness.
The wings could have been covered, but it was left exposed to let people see the engineering inside. This is especial relevant today, where it is on display with displays of engineering in aircraft manufacture.
Cheers Andy
My Dad's Brother Flt Sgt Roy Barnes flew Wellingtons. On 19th May 1943 he was flying a MkX Wellington with full crew when both engines siezed. You can guess the rest :(
That old Barnes Wallis geodetic airframe. Tremendously damage tolerant.
tell that to the crew who flew them.
@@skidzholeshot1316 I will indeed, dear.
Alex Harmon That’s awesome.
My Father trained in one @ 84 OTU Desborough. When he first went up in one he complained to the pilot that the wing was going up and down six foot - the pilot replied that if it didn't he wanted to get off!
My father in law was killed when his wellington crashed off the east scottish coast in 1942. He was a tail gunner. It was not a hostile occurence
Very sad. I have sat in that very position in both the surviving UK Wellingtons and tried to imaging what it must have been like at night around 10,000ft up in freezing conditions and I just gave up! He must have been a very brave man.
They were bigger than I expected.
The Bellman Hangar looks a lot nicer now than it did before! Can't wait to visit this beaut back inside it :)
It will be open to the Public from mid November and I am sure you will get a pleasant surprise. Also check out my video th-cam.com/video/NFmoeLpBsH8/w-d-xo.html and see another exhibit being placed inside.
< - My Daddy ( RAAF ) was flew RAF Vickers Wellington for training in England in 1941.
I was unaware that there was a Wellington left in existence. Good to see one being rebuilt
I know of two in the UK, the one at Brooklands that crashed into Loch Ness during the war and a complete one taken out of service at the RAF museum.
@@AndysVideo there is also one in Greece in the med underwater and begging to be recovered,,, looks recoverable too
@@davidblurton7158 From the few photos I have seen plus a short video clip, it id not a commercial proposition and of course that assumes it is not already a war grave. Shame!
For those interested you can see it here th-cam.com/video/4NmTfsEMZAE/w-d-xo.html
Man I love this plane.
I was a kid back in the 90's with a step father who used to run a fastners business.....
Out of the blue one day he asked if I wanted to come to his work for the day and help him out....
I ended up sitting at one of his machining lathes making loooooads of rivets.......I had no idea what I was doing it for or anything.......
Hours later I had finished a lot of these rivets.....he then said we had to go deliver them....
Again a bit of a mystery but then it was his business so I didn't pay much attention....
Turns out all these rivets I had made ended up being used in the restoration of the wellington bomber.....
My reward was I got to sit in the cockpit of the harrier jump jet they had there...
As a kid the whole thing blew my mind....
To this day even though I may have only made a tiny contribution.......it's one of my proudest moments....
I'm an old git now and have moved up north but one day I really hope I get to see the wellington bomber again....
Leo Bullock Old? You’re maximum 45-46 years old.
Leo Bullock Old? You’re maximum 45-46 years old.
@@erichhartmann1 lol that's not old?
Interesting story, you can't be that old, you say you were just a kid in the 90,s! i was born 6 of June 1975 and will be 48 this year, people say that is not old but it was considered an old age back in the 40,s when this plane was flying. Lol.
My father flew in Wellington MkIIs of 405Sqdn. He was a front gunner.
In the 1950.s I watched at air show at RAF Cosford there was a Wellington Bomber on her belly I watched as six jets came in and bomber the Wellington (heart breaking)
You're joking? They used her as target practice? That pushes the time period forward even more of when the RAF didn't care about their surplus ww2 planes. It must be the 70s when they proper started to care about their heritage (after the battle of Britain film basically)
@@radiationking9875 I wish I was the memory has stock in my mind since the day I saw it (I was seven at the time) and that was over 65 years ago
@@zuletango That must of been hard to watch. Though it was common place back then and it's only like using an old Ford focus for crash testing now but in 50 years time that would be hard to imagine. It's like the Seafires that were pushed off an aircraft carrier, purely because they were "in the way, taking up space"
I agree, it made a massive impact I can still see the plane alone behind the flight line and the fighters coming in to bomb the aircraft. In some ways I can accept that the number of Aircraft was so large it made it impossible to keep them all but surely they could have kept a few of each type. Years ago I heard that in the 1920's someone suggested keeping one aircraft of each type if only they had listened to the voice of reason.
@@zuletango Oh wow so even back then they thought about it. If only everyone was as passionate about preserving history back then as they are now. In theory, we have the technology to remake some of those non-existent planes again, it just requires the blueprints to exist. However they wouldn't be the same as an original but then again a lot of airworthy and static aircraft are not original. The most original spitfire is maybe 98% original, which is the mk.xvi of Fantasy of Flight. An original spitfire straight from the factory had parts replaced probably days after use, therefore not being original. Suppose it's the people who want it, don't have the funds and the people who have the funds to just do it, don't bother with history. Oh well let's just hope a time machine gets made
Parabéns ao povo britânico que sabe preservar suas memórias !
Obrigado Mario nem sempre é fácil. Há muitas coisas que não são salvas
@@AndysVideo O importante é passar esse espirito de preservação , para as gerações futuras .
A very rare "street use only" version of Wellington bomber. The last one survived the war.
My father was there when they pulled it out of Loch Ness.
I remember it being raised. And they connected power to one of the navigation lights just after it was out of the water and it worked!
Are the wings going to re-fitted?
Yes! - See other videos on my Channel especial the one with HRH opening the rebuilt Hangar to see it where it now lives.
@@AndysVideo thanks it's really great to see her and an amazing team there doing a brilliant job. So very important we keep all that we can to remember the few.
Yes I was and thank you.
Surely it's better to get it finished off and completed. Imagine if that were flying with the Lancaster
It is a great idea but not a financially viable after spending all those years under water, so much would need to be changed to get an airworthy certificate it would be cheaper to build it from scratch with new components. There is one other Wellington that was taken out of active service in the RAF Museum however!
What happened to the wings? They were on the aircraft when she was lifted from the Loch.
They were refitted once we got the aircraft inside the hangar If you do not know about it there is a Wellington playlist at www.andysvideo.com along with a lot of other videos.
Pity this old Wimpy will never be restored to Flying order .
amazing !!!!!
Is it ever going to fly again
Very unliklly, but given a huge amount of money and a lot of work it would not be imposable!
why is there an observatory from a control tower on the building next to the hangar
Well spotted and it is a long story - Short version is that the 1950 Control tower at RAF Booker (now Wycombe Air Park) was replaced with a new one and the old one was to be demolished. At the last moment it was offered to Brooklands and of course I got a phone cal "Could National Rescue go and get it" Of course we did and you can see the recovery at th-cam.com/video/tbnXZ4S1ZAE/w-d-xo.html Of course there was nowhere to put it out of the way, until its future was decided and so it was put up there until something was worked out and that is where it has stayed for the last 20 years!
Most produced British aircraft of world war 2 and non flying. Here's to hoping one day!
Lucky to be in a Wellington or Whitley, rather than a Hampden, Blenheim, Beaufort, Maryland, Albermarle, Baltimore etc...
Not sure anything other than a Geodetic Wellington would have survived this well.
Has she got any outer wings to go back on? 😕
Yes see other videos on my channel
There is a stowaway on the front gun turret.
Yes we held a raffle for that position and raised over 50p !
I seem to remember watching a wartime documentary on a Wellington bomber being built from scratch rolled out of the hangar and flown in 24 hrs. I dare say the logistics were all prepped and in place for the build which made for a moral boosting bit of Cinema propaganda at the time.
Yes you are right in all respects Barry, it was a well choreographed piece of progander at a time when it was needed. Of course no production line could actually work like that, but if you added all the individual separate sections of work done up it was not that far off the truth.
Over 10000 made only 2 left.
Trivia moment, the pilot who ditched her attended the same school as the salvage team leader who raised her from Loch Ness
Are you sure of this as I have checked with the team at Brooklands and no one there now has heard this before, of course a lot of the team have passed on?
@@AndysVideo Pangbourne College...the salvage guy came to the school and gave lecture due to the link and mentioned it ,this would have been in the early 80's
@@fredbloggs6404OK thanks for that I will pass it on and see if we can find out more.
@@AndysVideo glad to help ,just an old memory in a mind full of trivia
Sergeant Lewis Alan White DFM (Distinguished Flying Medal) (20) 626213 (Wireless Operator/ Air Gunner) Royal Air Force, 75 Sqdn. "EVERLASTING REMEMBRANCE OF OUR DEAR SON. MAM, DAD AND FAMILY" Wellington IC T2463 AA-E
The aircraft took off at 21.15 hrs on 20th September1940 from Feltwell, Norfolk to bomb the invasion barges moored in channel ports. The aircraft was hit by AA fire from Alpha battery sited west of Oostende. As a result of which the aircraft caught fire and crashed in flames at 23.00 hrs that evening. The pilot and Captain that night, P/O. Michael Braun alone baled out and landed within the small town of Leffinge, just West of Oostende, Belgium. He was severely wounded, apparently, according to locals who recall the incident, by small arms fire from the occupying forces. He died from his injuries in Oostende Hospital that same night. The other 5 crew, consisting of distressingly few physical remains, were buried in one coffin in Leffinge churchyard.
I don’t know the story behind this aircraft,was it airworthy and crash?
This is the most famous Wellington in the world. It crash landed in to Lock Ness while on a training flight and sunk. It stayed there for many years but was eventually recovered and rebuilt (in its crashed condition hence the bent props). There is much more on the Brooklands Museum website. www.brooklandsmuseum.com/
th-cam.com/video/7jR_eXWjv6c/w-d-xo.html
I must admit, I don't like seeing her with Bent Props.
Same... i would preferred to seen her restored to her full glory, i always think they should be returned to near as full flight worthy as possible, even if it is only off to a museum piece, as it it a Aircraft, not a Landcraft, so in my mind i always think they should be restored that way! But at the same time they could easily showed all how it was pre-restoration condition via a multimedia display, as well as showing it being restored as well!
Shame to think these lovely aircraft flew right up to the 1960s and no one bothered to try and keep at least one airworthy very short sighted times.
Especially when you consider the Wellington was a very easy aircraft to maintain and keep flying.
Not too sure aboutthos props....
The rule when rebuilding the plane was to keep it as close as possible to its origination condition when it went into Loch Ness and so the props have been left as they were after the crash.
Beef Wellington?
Its still in remarkably bad shape. Still many yrs of restoration left to do on it. The engines need completely removed and torn apart, and cowlings disassembled completely and corrosion removed.
I think maybe you are not understanding the Museums philosophy, for this war memorial. It was restored to a level where it was safe to go on display as it was when it crashed in to Loch Ness. There is no intention (or funds) to go further than that.
were there is an aeroplane there are always loads of fat men wearing base ball caps, usually stood with their arms crossed
Fat men in base ball caps who give up their spare time for free to keep a British ledgend alive for futer generations to appreciate.
The "Lanc"s and the "Wellies" all had the same problem. English pilots !!!
Oh shut the fuck up. I can see your charisma bypass surgery was a big success.
Idiot!!
Wimpeys had aircrew from all over the world (except Huns, Ities and Nips, obviously).
Nunyer beeznaz. And the Scottish, Welsh and Irish ones? And the Kiwi's and the Aussie's, the Canuck's, Indian's and Saffa's? They were fine I guess? Is it obligatory to have a stupid tag, before you make stupid posts on TH-cam? Because yours is exactly that.
enter the complete idiot