Aircraft to ID (sans picture)

Foo Fighter

Foo Fighter

Cum adolescunt hominem verum esse volo.
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A report of an unidentified aircraft flying over north Wales has proven to be a conundrum.

1. Hump backed.
2. Contra propped.
3. Single engine most likely.
4. Single seater.

Apparently closest to the Westland Wyvern in appearance.

Can anyone come up with an alternative that actually has flight status in the UK?
 
Foo Fighter said:
A report of an unidentified aircraft flying over north Wales has proven to be a conundrum.

1. Hump backed.
2. Contra propped.
3. Single engine most likely.
4. Single seater.

Apparently closest to the Westland Wyvern in appearance.

Can anyone come up with an alternative that actually has flight status in the UK?
Click to expand...

There are one or two Fairey Gannets still flying. Perhaps?
 
All stored or on display, except for one. Fairey Gannet AEW.3 G-KAEW XL500 was shuffled from exeter to St Athan in 2012 and has been in restoration since then. NO firm information which rather rules out flying status. I found some suggestion that a large quantity of spares had been stolen from owners some time ago but nothing since.
 
I thought XT752 was still (or again) flying, but the last mention I can find is 2017, so probably not.
 
A friend, whose father worked on XT752, said there was some British joker who waited until the current owners invested their time and money getting it flying and then showed up with paperwork claiming title to the aircraft. My friend is quite pessimistic about the plane flying until this shadow is lifted.
 
Having read some of the history of XT-752, there have been a number of shady characters involved but no names or pack drill. Least the better perhaps. Some alternatives spring to mind but none are flying.

Supermarine Spiteful
CAC CA-15
Martin Baker MB-5

Off the top of my weary head that is about it.
 
What colour was it and what markings did it have?
 
Not my sighting but through the Welsh valley's might be indistinct.
 
The only hunchbacked aircraft with any business in the area concerned appears to be the Tucano which have been flying in ww2 camouflage colours for a while. No contraprop but none of those are licensed in the UK anyway until you get to the A-400M and they can barely get off the ground with a sail and the wind behind them.
 
Foo Fighter said:
The only hunchbacked aircraft with any business in the area concerned appears to be the Tucano which have been flying in ww2 camouflage colours for a while. No contraprop but none of those are licensed in the UK anyway until you get to the A-400M and they can barely get off the ground with a sail and the wind behind them.
Click to expand...

The A400M doesn't use contraprops.

I'm starting to doubt whether you could even really recognize contraprops from any significant distance. While they are running, all you see is a disk blur anyway.
 
Pardon me for my 'joke', it (The A-400M) is a much a contraprop fitted aircraft as the Hawker Hurricane but basically I am stumped unless it was a Tucano.
 
Any Hawker Sea Furies flying at the moment? Not contra props though.

Griffin engined Spitfire?
 
My first thought was a Tucano, hence my question on the colour.
I don't see how you would tell if an aircraft had contra props as an aircraft is flying by.
 
The Sea Fury has the wrong profile being a radial powered machine. Seafire/Spitfire is possible but again the hunchback is not apparent so something is missing in about every potential id. I know but, as a cerebral exercise it is quite absorbing.
 

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