Shackleton engine run

 Avro Shackleton WR963 is a 'live' aircraft. Currently at Coventry airport but slated for a move to Elvington there is an ambitious aim to restore the aircraft to flight. Whether this is possible I am not sure but for the present there are special event days when all four griffon engines are run up. We were in the general area so made the most of the opportunity to catch a scheduled engine run today and quite an impressive sight and sound it was. The engines were run for a good while and not just on idle either. To coin a phrase it was 'awesome'

Also on site is Nimrod XV232 which is also a live aircraft and has its own engine run event days. Since Coventry airport is being built on this aircraft is also scheduled to find a new home.

The hangar across the way was also briefly, slightly opened giving a quick glimpse of the resident Dakota and I grabbed a couple of shots of derelict looking airframes across the way.

Resurrection Shuffle

I have been making model kits for a long time now and so have a reasonable collection of spares, being unused bits or parts from damaged kits etc. Searching through the other day I realised I had most of  Fokker Dr1, albeit looking pretty sorry for itself. It's a kit I made as kid. I decided to see if I could put it back together.

I had to fabricate struts as only one remained. The engine is part of a Sopwith Pup, the prop is a reshaped item from a Pup and one machine gun came from a Sopwith Camel. I had a spare set of decals although a bit yellowed with age.

Not a work of art or award winner by any stretch of the imagination but it does now look like a Dr1 again.

P38F Lightning

This Lockheed Lightning was bought for me by a school friend when I was probably 12 or 13 so I have it a long time. As a consequence it suffered a bit with lost undercarriage, missing cannons and stuff. However, a little while back Ebay provided some left over bits for the same model being sold as spares. So I bought them and gave the old kit a bit of a make over with some cobbled together decals from the spares box.