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Historic Aircraft Collection "At Home" event, IWM Duxford


Jonny

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Folks,

 

I spent a wonderful afternoon today at Duxford as a guest of the Historic Aircraft Collection,

 

After being greeted in their workshop and given coffee and free access to biscuits etc. by many HAC Volunteers we had a talk by Flt Lt. Charlie Brown RAF Rtd.  He was the pilot who with Clive Denning in a Hurricane flew a Spifire all the way to Malta a few years ago (see Merlins oveer Malta).   We then went to Hangar 4 where Charlie gave a brilliant talk about the Bf109E there, contrasting it with  IWM Duxford's airworthy Spitfire Mk. 1 N3200.  Charlie mentioned he'd been test flying the Bf11099G-12 2-seat trainer iconstructed by Meier Motors n Germany.

 

After that we went to Hangar 3 for a close-up view of HAC's Hawker Fury 1 G-CBZP, Hawker Nimrod 2 G-G-BURZ, Sypermarine Spitfire Vb G-MKVB and Hawker Hurricane XIIa G-HURI (the latter two aeroplanes are those which went to Malta in September 2005).  Charlie gave us an in-depth talk about each aeroplane before we were able to (very ) closely inspect each aeroplaneand ask questions of one of the HAC Volunteerrs.  All of us were given the opportunity to sit in the Spitfire, we were able to take photos of the Fury and Nimrod cockpits and some of us were able climb onto the Hurricane's wing to take photos of the cockpit.  Getting onto the wing isn't easy, ler me assure you!  One wonders how Douglas Bader managed ... .  I waas able to walk over to examine HAC's Sopwith Pup N6161.  Only recently reconstructed this aeroplane was captured by the Germans on 1st February 1917 and test flown by them.  The remaining components were acquired by HAC and incorporated in a new-build Pup.

 

A fascinating day.  Please understand that, other than being a fee paying customer of HAC's 'At Home' event I have no other connection with the organisation.  However, I do recommend it as a really worthwhile experience.  For more info. look at http://www.historicaircraftcollection.ltd.uk/index.html .  Enjoy!

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Thanks, Head-in-the-Clouds ...

 

i haven't had time to really.look at the snaps I took yesterday.  As always, some will be junk. When I get the chance I'll put  them into some sort of order on the PC.

 

THEN I'll try to work out how to upload some of them to this forum ... I've never tried it!

 

J.

 

 

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