An original design drawing for the Concorde will be among the lots on offer when Bonhams returns to the RAF Museum in Hendon for its annual sale on Monday April 29.
The 135cm x 76cm graphite on design paper technical sketch Definition Of Compartment Boundaries, Ventilation & Drainage, No D73.5050, dated 10th September 1968 and signed by test pilot Brian Trubshaw, is estimated to garner between £1,000 and £1,500.
When the Concorde prototype 001 first took to the skies in Toulouse on March 2, 1969, it represented the achievement of the best part of a decade of collaboration between the British and French aircraft industries. The thousands of design drawings generated from that partnership were the last such to be produced entirely by human hand, without computerization, for a leading aircraft project.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Corcorde’s final flight, on Oct. 24, 2003. Among related lots on offer at the auction is the very front point of a Concorde nosecone, which is estimated to realize between £2,000 and £3,000.
The Bonhams auction of Collectors’ Motor Cars and Automobilia will feature some 61 lots of aviation art and aeronautica, including more than 20 original aviation paintings – the majority of which are offered at no reserve – a number of signed and limited-edition prints, and an aviation library.
Particular highlights include the oil-on-canvas ‘Over Beachy Head’ by Michael Turner (pictured above), which depicts two Hurricanes from 605 Squadron engaging a Junkers 88 over Beachy Head on Sept. 28, 1940 during the Battle of Britain (estimate £6,000 – £7,000).
Meanwhile among the limited-edition prints is ‘Operation Chastise (The Night They Breached The Dams)’, after Robert Taylor, signed by the artist and 12 Dambuster aircrew (estimate £200 – £300). The print, which is offered together with another by the same artist – ‘Broken Silence’, depicting de Havilland Mosquitoes and signed by the artist and three great wartime pilots – is offered for sale in the 70th anniversary year of the Dambusters, and depicts the attack on German dams carried out by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron from 16-17 May 1943.
Other lots of aeronautica on offer at the sale include an RAF sector clock (estimate £3,000 – £4,000), and a silver presentation plaque ‘The London Aerodrome Trophy’, presented to Cheridah de Beavoir Stocks as a souvenir of her flight on Ladies Day, July 6, 1912 (estimate £800 – £1,000). Mrs de Beavoir Stocks (1887-1971) was only the second British woman to gain a Royal Aero Club aviator’s licence, passing her test at Hendon in 1911 using a Farman biplane.
Images and full descriptions of all lots included in this sale are available on the Bonhams website. Items will be available to view between 10am and 5pm on Sunday April 28, and from 9 am on Monday April 29. The sale will begin at 11 am.