TNS 37 compliant Tiger Moth harness restrain cables, Pt No H70069A. Correct cable for both front and rear cockpits. Price is £35 per cable set (2 off) plus VAT where applicable. Surface mail included. Airmail extra. Available from deHMC HQ.

Wanted, DH80/80A Puss Moth Schedule of Spare Parts. A photocopy will suffice but an original would be even better. Offers please to Stuart McKay, deHMC HQ.

Tail trolley designed for Moth ground manoeuvring. Two piece construction for ease of carriage. Rusty Tack approval rating. Details from Richard Earl. Tel/Fax 020 8560 7182 (GB). richard@newburyaeroplanecompany.co.uk

Tyres 7.25 x 7.75 probably available from spring 2002, newly manufactured by Dunlop Aircraft Tyres against JAA Form One Release. If you, as an owner, (Hornet Moth, Leopard Moth, BA Swallow, Percival Proctor, Prentice, Provost, CAF Winjeel, and what else?) would be interested in joining the ‘purchasing group’ which will be set up, and have so far not expressed an interest, please contact deHMC HQ as soon as possible.

Sutton harnesses for DH82A Tiger Moths will be available from early in the New Year. New manufacture to original/improved specification and sold with JAA Form One Release. Details from deHMC HQ.

Commercial standard inner tubes for Tiger Moth tyres are back in (limited) supply in the Stockbox. Covered for use by CAA Minor Mod Approval. £15 each plus VAT where appropriate, plus delivery. Contact deHMC HQ.

Back in stock: New Zealand Tiger Moths 1938-2000 by Cliff Jenks and David Phillips. Published by the Aviation Historical Society of New Zealand Inc. A4 softback. 160 pages. Profusely illustrated. A complete volume covering every aspect of the Tiger Moth in New Zealand: individual histories, modification register, Aero Club fleets, colour schemes. The definitive work on the life and times of the DH82A Tiger Moth in New Zealand. £19.00 per copy plus postage. Available from deHMC HQ.

THE BROXBOURNE VIDEO

About a year ago, Rusty Tack disclosed that in pre-war days, some members of the London Transport Flying Club at Broxbourne had made a film of their Moth related activities, and asked where it might have got to. Did anybody know? Much to his and everybody’s astonishment, one of our own Club members, David Baker, immediately volunteered that he had all the original film at his home in California.
David Baker subsequently transferred the original images onto video, edited the whole and added atmospheric sound effects, thus producing for public consumption, something of the flavour of a fairly unique flying club of the Thirties. David has made copies available for sale through the deHMC Stockbox, and included with each is the following introductory note:

The film was shot between 1936 and 1939 at Broxbourne Airfield in Hertfordshire, at the then headquarters of the London Transport Flying Club. It was the idea of my father Ted Baker, a club pilot, and a friend, John Scott-Russell who was a keen movie buff. It is strictly an amateur film shot on 16mm in both black and white and colour.
The stars of the film are of course the aircraft. The LT Flying Club had a fleet of up to five aircraft: DH60 Moth, Moth Major and Avro Avian. In the opening shots can be seen the LTFC Moths and those of the Herts and Essex Aero Club who shared Broxbourne Airfield which can be seen in some of the landing shots to be quite small.
Early in the film can be seen some of the leading lights from the club, amongst them Ted Baker in his distinctive beret, flying friends in his favourite Moth Major, G-ADAN, and also clowning around in the wreck of an old DH9A which had lain abandoned on the field for many years. Another pilot in a trench coat (watch for the cheeky lifting of a lady’s hemline!) is Frank ‘Dawson’ Paul who less than two years later would be flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain as a sub lieutenant in the Fleet Air Arm.
The basic story line is centred around a typical flying busman’s day: local joy riding at Broxbourne followed by a formation cross-country flight to Croydon Airport for afternoon tea. This flight is via the centre of London and the East End with some interesting shots of St Paul’s, Oxford Street, Broadcasting House and the Houses of Parliament. The return flight is made over the River Thames east of London with views of Southend Pier and the Robin Hood pub on the A11.
At Croydon there are some superb close-up shots of Imperial Airways DH86 and Handley Page HP42 aircraft with six foot three inch Ted Baker standing under ‘Hanno’ giving scale to this impressively large but cumbersome four engined airliner. By contrast the KLM DC2 which is towed past the camera shows the shape of things to come.
The film later turns briefly to colour with group shots of club pilots wearing their Civil Air Guard uniforms, followed by some nice air-to-air formation shots over Hertfordshire with newly mown grass still hanging from the tailskids. If the viewer is very sharp, one might spot a Spitfire (or is it a Hurricane?) flashing briefly past in the opposite direction, in the lower left hand corner of the frame. Ted admitted many years later that not one pilot in the formation even saw it. The film concludes with a wonderful but rather grainy shot of a mass flypast of RAF bombers and fighters including Hendons, Harrows and Battles, practising for the 1938 RAF Display at Hendon.

The Broxbourne Video: £11.00 incl. surface mail worldwide, add £2.00 for airmail.