LAHC Bolingbroke

The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre at East Kirkby recently announced that they had acquired a significant collection of Bristol Bolingbroke parts, the Canadian equivalent of the Bristol Blenheim. They also confirmed that the intention was to restore it to ground running condition although I am not sure over what period. As I was at EK I was interested to see what there was of the project. The worrying thing was to find the fuselage split in two and placed in the same hut as the Hampden project. I appreciate that the Hampden stalled when sadly the chap doing it died but really nothing much seems to have happened in 25 years. With the Lanc an ongoing project for a good while yet I wonder where the Bolingbroke fits in to their plans. Anyway, this is what I saw, including a couple of the Hampden.

Strubby Airfield

Strubby was built as a satellite field to East Kirkby. It was the closest Lincolnshire airfield to Europe but was built fairly late in the war, the first aircraft arriving in April 1944. After ASR duties in support of D-Day it became a Beaufighter base before Bomber Command Lancasters arrived in September 1944. 65 Strubby Lancasters were lost on ops by war's end. The airfield continued to be used after the war until being sold off in 1980 although gliders still use the field and part of the old perimeter track is now a runway for light aircraft. A cart track uses part of the airfield and an original hangar has become a large aquatics centre but many old buildings still survive. Some are in use but most are looking a bit sad.

Thorpe Camp

Thorpe Camp was part of the barracks serving nearby Woodhall Spa.Today it is a visitor centre but has seasonal opening which ends in October so I had to make do with a look over the fence at their two aircraft, a sad looking Wessex helicopter and a Lightning F1A.

LAHC Fireworks night

Yesterday was the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre fireworks night. The event itself was spread through the day with taxi runs from both the Lancaster 'Just Jane' and the Mosquito. In fact both aircraft did taxi runs in daylight and separately at night and culminated in both aircraft heading on to the field in darkness and running up their engines together which sounded pretty impressive - night great for photography due to low light levels but a spectacle never the less.

The museum was fully open through the day with numerous stalls, lectures, a searchlight display and fireworks to finish. It was a pretty grey day but the rain largely held off and it was something a bit different to the usual air shows that I do that we enjoyed.

Here's some pictures of the main action.

Woodhall Spa memorial

 Woodhall Spa airfield was home to the famous Dambuster's, officially 617 Squadron. The airfield is no longer in use but in the nearby town, on the central crossroads is a memorial to the dams raid itself and those that lost their life. I have visited in the past but here are a couple of pictures from today's visit.

RAF Cranwell

 Cranwell, in Lincolnshire, is home to the RAF College which trains the RAF's officers and aircrew. The college was opened back in 1919 but training commenced here in 1916 with the RNAS. The associated airfield is still active in a training role and is home to No.3 Flying Training School amongst other units. A couple of former training airframes serve as gate guards. These  are a Jet Provost and a Hawker Siddeley Dominie and as I was passing close by I went for a quick look.

Petlyakov Pe-2

 The Pe-2 was designed as a dive bomber but was also used as a standard bomber, for ground attack and reconnaissance. When introduced in 1941 it was one of the fastest aircraft on the Eastern Front.

This model that I have just completed is an old Airfix kit picked up cheap on ebay. Believed complete said the listing but it turned out to be missing 3 of the 4 engine cowlings so the build was more of a challenge than anticipated!