Date:	Wednesday 4 December 1946
Time:	day
Type:	Shapley Kittiwake Mk II
Owner/operator:	Shapley Aircraft Ltd
Registration:	G-AFRP
MSN:	ESS/2
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Dartmoor, Devon -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Test
Departure airport:	Plymouth Airport, Roborough, Plymouth, Devon
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
The Shapley Kittiwake is a 1930s British two-seat gull wing monoplane designed and built by Errol Spencer Shapley at Torquay, Devon.

The Kittiwake was a monoplane with a gull wing and a fixed landing gear. The first aircraft, a Mark 1 registered G-AEZN, with a single-seat open cockpit, was powered by a 50 hp (37 kW) Continental A50 piston engine and first flown at Roborough in June 1937, but was damaged in a crash landing later that year.

The second aircraft, a Mark 2 registered G-AFRP, [C of R 9052] on 23.3.39 was a larger two-seat cabin monoplane powered by a 90 hp (67 kW) Pobjoy Niagara III engine and first flown at Roborough in 1938.

The Mark 1 aircraft was dismantled before the Second World War. The Mark 2 was stored during the war only to crash on Dartmoor in December 1946. Registration G-AFRP finally cancelled by the Air Ministry on 4.12.46 due to "destruction or permanent withdrawal from use of aircraft". Note that the date of 4.12.46 was the date of the cancellation of the aircraft's registration and NOT necessarily the date of the accident

Errol Spencer Shapley, the "driving force" behind Shapley Aircraft, emigrated to Australia shortly after the accident, probably in early 1947, and the Shapley Aircraft Company was wound up and dissolved.

1. Jackson, A.J. (1974). British Civil Aircraft since 1919 Volume 3. London: Putnam. ISBN 0-370-10014-X.
2. Ord-Hume, Arthur (December 1976). "British pre-war ultra-lights: No. 9: Shapley Kittiwake". Aeroplane Monthly. Vol. 4 no. 12. pp. 664–665.
4. Flight magazine March 24, 1938 page 282 at https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1938/1938%20-%200796.html
5. http://afleetingpeace.org/index.php/15-aeroplanes/80-register-gb-g-af
6. https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-AFRP.pdf
7. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/gy/reg_G-A11.html
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_Kittiwake
9. https://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?97390-Shapley-Kittiwake
10. http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/shapley/173/

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
19-Feb-2018 23:51	Dr. John Smith	Added
24-May-2023 10:54	Dr. John Smith	Updated