Thought you folks would like to know

[Garry Russell]

A bit of an RAF disaster

It was suppose to be able to operate from grass runways but when they tried, the props would hit the ground, even taxying across grass could do that

Bought as a replacement for the Devon's.....the latter type far outlived it.

This was on top of all the bad engineering and terrible reliability that stopped any chance's of civil success.

Shame really as the cabin was big for an aeroplane that size and it did look rather neat.

For reasons best known to them Beagle failed to adress the well known general issues

There was a guy in the States that had some success selling them but only after importing them and ripping out all the electrics and other bits and rebuilding.

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[Harry Basset]

There are no quality issues with my Bassets. The build may be a little suspect, Daisy has a saggy back like a little Shetland pony and Rosie has one brown eye as per spec and one blue eye. There is also a rear facing third eye but that is usually closed.

I thought the Beagle Bassets were bought to move V-Bomber crews and all their bits and bobs to dispersal bases, hence the large cabin. If they were meant to fly to dispersal bases why did they need grass strip capability?

[Garry Russell]

The big cabin was already in the design...that was not a military thing

They were used on many roles in communications etc and would have been used extensively not just a V bomber hack.

Why the grass was in the spec I have no idea but there again Britannia's were delivered to the RAF with black propellers despite Bristol suggesting they were better off not painted. But RAF specs said all props had to be black to stop exhaust flames and searchlight beams reflecting off the prop during night missions.

After problem repainting and re-balancing the props they went au natural..very quickly


So the grass may have just been a left over.

Still the Basset had poor ground clearance and the props were damaged on a few occasions whilst taxiing across grass.

Funny...I saw once just recently US registered in RAF basic lightning strip livery.