Firefly

One and three quarter Fairey Firefly Mk1’s arrived at ARC on Tuesday 10th February 2004. The Fireflies had been stored in a barn on the edge of Ska Edeby Airport, 12 miles west of Stockholm, Sweden by owner Bjorn Lowgren.

Currently stored in No 3 Hangar at Duxford the future of the Fireflies is being assessed. The better of the two machines, SE-BRG, is 90 per cent complete and both the internal and external condition is remarkably good. The cockpit is totally complete with all the instruments still fitted, and all the systems throughout the airframe are still in place. It will certainly be restored to fly, and ARC is looking at various options available to achieve this.

The second aeroplane, SE-CAU, will probably be restored to static condition, or be used as a spares airframe for SE-BRG.

The Fireflies are former Fleet Air Arm machines which later became part of a fleet of 16 Firefly TT.1’s operated by Svensk Flygtjanst AB in Sweden as target-tugs between 1948 and 1964.

SE-BRG was originally delivered to the Royal Navy as DT989 on July 21st 1944, and went to 766 Squadron at Rattray near Dundee, Scotland, in February 1946, but soon moved to West Raynham. The machine returned to Fairey on February 19th 1950, to be rebuilt as a target-tug, and was registered SE-BRG on September 20th 1950. It flew 2,800hr in Sweden before being retired on June 3rd 1964. It then spent many years stored at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport.

SE-CAU was delivered to the Royal Navy as PP469 on January 15th 1946 and served at Hal Far, Malta, from November 1947 until June 1948. After returning to England it was stored until July 1949 when it went on board HMS Unicorn to the Far East, where it also served on HMS Triumph with 827 Squadron. Converted to target-towing configuration by Fairey in 1954, it was registered in Sweden on February 29th 1956 and operated until September 6th 1963.