Don Everall Aviation Ltd

[RAF_Quantum]

The Wolverhampton coach company Don Everall Ltd. had an aviation division which was based at Wolverhampton Pendeford airfield and Birmingham in the fifties and sixties. Don Everall operated a Jersey Service from Birmingham Elmdon airport in the fifties first of all using De Havilland Dragon Rapides and then later Douglas DC3 Dakota aircraft of which they had two.Don Everall Aviation also started a service to Exeter from Birmingham in 1961.

G-AMSF



G-ANEG


Rgds

John

[DaveB]

I don't care how many great paints you shove out John.. you're not gonna get me behind the yoke on one of those things

Nice job sir ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[RAF_Quantum]

If only the grand old lady had been built by DeHavilland :goodman:



Rgds

John

[DaveB]

How true John.. how very true At least it'd have had a nice panel ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Kevin Farnell]

John

I really like these, as my Mom used to work for Don Everall in the 1960's (unfortunately, not for their aviation section, but for car sales).
I've searched on Avsim, flightsim and classicbritishfiles, with no luck.
Are these available for download?

Kind regards

Kevin

[RAF_Quantum]

Hi Kevin,

I'm in the process of building files for upload of several recent repaints at the moment. Should be availablbe by the end of the week.

Rgds

John

[Kevin Farnell]

Many thanks, John!

I'll look forward to these.

Regards

Kevin

[markw]

For those who fancy a Don Everall Viking I did a repaint (listed under FS2002 which I was still using at the time) which is available at FS.com and Avsim. In search type in "Don Everall" and it'll come up, and of course it still works in FS2004!

Don Everall had a fairly torrid time with crashes in the twelve months between Summer 1959 and 1960 losing a Rapide (although it has been suggested it was owned by Wolverhampton civil engineers Tarmac and operated by Don Everall on their behalf, in any case it was attempting a take off from the under-construction M1 at the time), A Viking (G-AMNK, on a cargo flight at Heraklion, crew killed) and a DC3 (at Elmdon, G-AMSF, no fatalities) which seeing as they only ever had about six airliners in their fleet at any one time is a fairly poor attrition rate although probably fairly common at that time. They eventually pulled out of schedules (they flew at various times Birmingham to Jersey, Sandown IOW and Exeter, and Wolverhampton to Jersey, Blackpool and IOM, plus charters and some Birmingham to London schedules on behalf of BEA) although they continued to manage Pendeford Airport for Wolverhampton Corporation until closure on the last day of 1970, when their management contract expired and the Corporation decided to cut their losses which had been mounting up on the airport, although the decision was also partly due to safety concerns following a light aircraft crash into a neighbouring house, the surrounding area having become intensely developed since the war. Pendeford is of course famous for the Boulton Paul factory which relocated there from Norwich in the 1930s, and also for a starring role in the Jack Hawkin's film "The Man In the Sky", co starring a Bristol Superfreighter, and cult ATV serial "Crossroads", co starring Noele Gordon flying one of Don Everall's "Piper" light aircraft for which they had a dealership until coming out of aviation activities altogether in 1970.

Don Everall continued to run a Ford dealership and their bizarrely liveried orange and red coaches for a number of years after closing the aviation side of the business, although the coaches passed to National Travel Midlands in about 1975, including the team luxury coaches for both West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers, one of which even more bizarrely turned up as my school bus one day when on hire to Midland Red....how it survived the tender mercies of our lot I don't know as most of the lads on our school bus were the sons of ex-Geordie miners who supported Newcastle United!

Anyway, nice repaints, saves me a job as I had made some FS2002 DC3 texes for a Don Everall DC3 which I was going to rework for the default FS2004 DC3 but never got round to finishing!

[Garry Russell]

Perhaps Mark you would consider uploading your Viking paint at Classic British Files?

ATB

Garry

[DaveB]

Hi Mark,

It's certainly not forgotten as I have it on my current fleet ;-)

Incidentally, when my big sister was at Grammar School (I went to the other one!!), she was picked up every morning (and returned in the afternoon) by Don Everall coach. As I went to the local Secondary Modern.. it was the bus or pushbike (usually the bike)



ATB

DaveB :tab: