Merlin Heritage

A trip to a nearby Diy store ended up with this when the wingman asked if I had seen the aero engine across the road outside Hornby Hobbies. I had managed to miss it but parked up and went for a look. This late merlin would have come from an Avro Lincoln and is un full working order and a demo run was only 20 minutes away so we hung around.

Cheviot hills Memorial

There were a number of aircraft crashes in the Cheviot Hills, Northumberland, during WWII often with multiple fatalities. Some years ago a memorial was erected relating to 19 such crashes, including a couple of Luftwaffe aircraft and it has been renovated in more recent times. The memorial is within the Northumberland National Park meaning taht you require a permit to visit in a car and we went to pay our respects a few days ago.

Armstrong Aviation Museum

Bamburgh castle in Northumberland is owned by the Armstrong family, the family with the engineering background that included Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. Due to this a small area of the castle has been turned over to an aviation museum that includes a number of relics, some being A-W related such as Warwick fuselage wreckage and an Albemarle throttle quadrant but others such as a Spitfire section and Me110 tyres have been recovered from the local area. There are some pictures relating to the rest of the castle here.

St. Aidan's, Bamburgh

The sole Commonwealth Wargave in St Aidan's Church Bamburgh. May you rest in peace.

Solway Sea King

As mentioned below I visited Solway Aviation Museum last week. As we were about to leave the museum's latest acquisition turned up on a low loader in the shape of a Sea King helicopter. The Sea King was XV659 which I was told had come from Gosport. I hung around to catch a few pictures of the delivery.

Brunton Airfield

Brunton in Northumberland was never a major airfield. It opened in 1942 but only ever served as a satellite and consequently did not have any permanent hangars. It did however serve an important role in training a large number of pilots. After the war the Borders Parachute Centre occupied Brunton until the airfield was sold in 2004. Today the airfield is used for farming with no access allowed although some buildings including air raid shelters can be seen from an access road. A memorial has recently been erected by the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust.

All in a day!

To celebrate 40 years with the Wingman we nipped over to Amsterdam from Newcastle today. So, a view from the cabin window at 6 a.m. and our plane waiting to bring us home which touched down back in the UK just before 11 p.m.

Blackburn Beverley

As mentioned in older posts the last surviving Blackburn Beverley was acquired by the Solway Aviation Museum a while back following a fund raiser. The museum have put hard standings in place for the wheels and started reassembly but they are taking the opportunity to repaint parts whilst they are on the ground and more accessible so it will be some while before the aircraft is complete again. I was chatting to one of the volunteers about it and there is no set time line for it to be finished.

Solway Aviation Museum

I had an 'out of hours' over the fence look at Solway three years ago but today we travelled from our holiday cottage for a proper visit. This is a small but growing museum with many exhibits outside which was a shame given the intermittent rain but it kept people out of th ebackground of my shots. There are displays inside as well as a few aircraft such as a Vampire, Chipmunk and Auster under cover although they are a little cluttered. Staff were friendly and overall it was a good visit.