The Cavanaugh Flight Museum’s CASA 2.111E, N99230, was moved 174 miles south-west by road from storage at Sherman, Texas to the workshops of Ezell Aviation at Breckenridge on 13 August.
As serial B.2I-27, this was the last of the Spanish-built, Rolls-Royce Merlin-powered bombers to be withdrawn from Spanish Air Force service during January 1975 after being flown from its final operational base at Gando in the Canary Islands to Seville. It was acquired by Korean War F-86 ace Dolph Overton III in Texas, and flown from Spain to Blackbushe, Hampshire by UK aerobatic champion Neil Williams during the late summer of 1977. Williams ferried it across the Atlantic that October, arriving at Harlingen, Texas on 15 October 1977.
N99230 was the subject of Neil’s final pilot report for Aeroplane Monthly, published in the January 1978-dated issue, his piece finishing with the words, “As an aeroplane it must rank alongside the DC-3 for the title of a ‘pilot’s aeroplane’. We became very fond of the old Heinkel, and when we stepped out of her for the last time in Texas, we were truly sorry to say goodbye”. Tragically, Neil, his wife Lynn, Blackbushe Airport air traffic controller Stephen Darnell and Joseph Donaghy, an ex-RAF pilot/engineer, were killed during the morning of 11 December 1977 in the crash of CASA 2.111D BR.2I-10/G-BFFS near El Escorial in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains during its ferry flight from Madrid to the UK.
N99230 was displayed at Overton’s Wings and Wheels Museum at Orlando, Florida from 1978 until being auctioned off in December 1981 and acquired by the now legendary David Tallichet, who displayed the CASA at the Combat Air Museum in Topeka, Kansas. The Cavanaugh Flight Museum — founded by businessman Jim Cavanaugh during 1993 in Addison, Texas — purchased B.2I-27 during 1995, and its ferry flight into Addison Airport is currently the last one in its logbooks. Ultimately the Cavanaugh Flight Museum didn’t fit in with the airport management’s plans, and it closed down for good on 1 January 2024, the varied fleet being moved to Sherman for storage.
Originally taken on charge by the Spanish Air Force in 1950, the lack of available Junkers Jumo 211 engines saw the machine going into storage for the next five years. Rolls-Royce Merlin 500s were eventually sourced for the Spanish ’Einkels, and it finally entered service during December 1956 after conversion to reconnaissance and mapping configuration.
Its moment of glory came while operating from Tablada, Seville during the spring of 1968 as one of 36 CASA 2.111s substituting for Heinkel He 111s during production of Guy Hamilton’s Battle of Britain movie, after which, still wearing its film camouflage, it carried on serving with 403 Escuadrón at Cuatro Vientos near Madrid from 1970-72. Much of the remaining ‘Heinkel’ fleet — still numbering more than 80 aeroplanes — was scrapped around this time at Cuatro Vientos, even though examples were for sale at US$6,000. B.2I-27 was one of the lucky survivors, moving on to 406 Escuadrón at Torrejón in November 1972. Its final operational posting came in January 1974, operating over the Western Sahara with 46 Grupo from Gando.