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The original Sindlinger HH-1 Hawker Hurrican Replica (HH-1 is a contraction of "Hawker Hurricane Mark 1") was designed and built by Fred Sindlinger, and first flew in January 1972.
It was initially a "one-off" design, but interest at U.S. air shows led to the designer passing all his plans for the aircraft to professional designers (who reportedly made few changes), and then releasing it into the "home built" market. It is a 5/8th scale flying replica of the Hawker Hurricane, but is not all to true scale - the cockpit and engine bays had to be enlarged to fit a standard pilot, and a sufficiently-sized engine. Fred Sindlinger chose the Hurricane for his replica because it was slightly larger than the Spitfire and ME-109, so these parts of the aircraft could be closer to their correctly scaled sizes. |
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Arthur Winstanley was a first class flight engineer, an Associate Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a Chartered Engineer.
After World War Two service, he studied at the de Havilland Technical School and on graduation worked with De Havilland flying as a flight test engineer.
He joined the BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) as a Flight Engineer, and flew in De Havilland DH.106 Comet 1 and Comet 4, Lockheed Constellations, Lockheed Super Constellations, Vickers VC-10s and then the Concorde.
Mr Winstanley was selected to become one of the Concorde team who carried out the later flight testing, 'hot and cold' trials and route-proving flights.
Mr Winstanley had long dreamt of building and flying his own aircraft. The first stage was to obtain a pilot's licence - although he had thousands of hours on multi-engined aircraft, none of it was as a pilot.
He decided that he would build a scale replica Hawker Hurricane, and purchased the plans for the Hurricane replica designed by Fred Sindlinger.
While still a Flight Engineer on Concorde, he purchased some of the basic parts in the United States and brought them back to the UK with him. It was, he subsequently said 'the only supersonic Hurricane in the world'.
In 1981, after 28 years as a Flight Engineer, he retired and started fulfilling his long-term dream, to build and fly his own aircraft.
As a result of three family visits to Western Australia Arthur and his wife Pam decided to settle there. |
G-BJSH |
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| 5 Nov 1981: |
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Registered to Arthur Francis Winstanley of Cucklington, Somerset, England. |
| Sep 1982: |
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Arthur Winstanley commenced construction of the aircraft in the UK. Over the next three years, work proceeded steadily. |
| 1985: |
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As a result of three family visits to Western Australia, Arthur and his wife Pam decided to settle here, and he moved to WA with his unfinished aircraft. |
| 19 Aug 1986: |
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The aircraft was de-registered by the UK Civil Aviation Authority as transferred to Australia. |
VH-AFW / "AF-W" |
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| 10 Jun 1991: |
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Added to the Australian Civil Aircraft Register as VH-AFW, the initials of the owner/builder - Arthur Francis Winstanley, of Kalamunda, WA. |
| Early 1993: |
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Construction of the aircraft was completed, and it was painted in an authentic World War Two colour scheme with the code letters "AF-W" (Arthur's initials), which were used by 607 Squadron, Royal Air Force. Ten years and 7,500 hours had gone into the project. |
| 17 Mar 1993: |
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VH-AFW made its first flight. |
| 20 Nov 1993: |
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VH-AFW suffered an accident at Serpentine Airfield, south of Perth, WA, when the right main gear collapsed on landing. |
| 26 Jan 1996: |
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The aircraft had another accident at Serpentine Airfield. Mr Winstanley was practising circuits and landings, and during the approach for another touch-and-go landing, when the aircraft encountered wind shear at 15 feet above the ground, resulting in a heavy landing. He applied power conducted a go around for another circuit and landing attempt. It was the pilot's normal practice not to retract the gear during circuit training. He noted that the gear indications were still green during the downwind pre-landing checks, but upon landing the right main gear collapsed. |
| 3 Feb 1997: |
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VH-AFW suffered its third accident - again at Serpentine Airfield. Mr Winstanley could not extend the aircraft's electrically-actuated landing gear and had to perform a wheels-up landing. |
| Jan 1998: |
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Arthur Winstanley passed away. The aircraft was stored at York, WA. |
| 16 Feb 1998: |
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Ownership of the aircraft was registered to Mr Winstanley's widow, Mrs Pamela B. Winstanley. |
| Early 1998: |
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Mrs Winstanley donated the aircraft to the RAAF Association Aviation Heritage Museum, Bull Creek.
The aircraft was easy to transport from York to Perth. With the outer wing panels removed, it was within the normal size for road transport.
Upon arriving at the museum, it was bolted back together and placed on display at the Aviation Heritage Museum in just over an hour. It is displayed in the North Wing of the Museum, alongside the Lancaster and Spitfire. |
| 27 Nov 1998: |
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The aircraft was struck off the Australian aircraft register by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority as "Withdrawn from use". |
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LEFT & BELOW: VH-AFW / AF-W Sindlinger Hawker Hurricane Replica at the RAAFA Aviation Heritage Museum in 2007 and 2008.
