Hornby Visitor Centre

After many years of talking about it we finally popped in to the Hornby Visitor Centre yesterday. More or less on my doorstep yet it is something that I have never managed previously. There is only a small charge and you get to see a lot of historic model stuff charting the history of Triang, Hornby, Scalextric and various other names that form part of the empire. There are model railway layaouts, aircraft dioramas and numerous display cases full of stuff to remind to you of your childhood. Certainly worth an hour to go and have a look.

North Witham

 North witham is in the southe of Lincolnshire. It opened in 1943 and was used by the USAAF for their Troop Carrier Command, distributing transport aircraft and the means to maintain them. The filed was handed to the RAF in June 1945 but had limited use and closed in 1956. It was then acquired by the Forestry Commission and has been planted with significant areas of woodland although runways, perimeter tracks and other tracks can all be found.

New for Midlands Air Museum

In another move from Cosford this Auster has gone to the Midlands Air Museum which I visited for the first time last summer. Midlands Air Museum report here and this is the Auster in its old Cosford home.

Off to Hawkinge

The former Cosford museum Casa 352 has been dismantled and moved to the Kent Battle of Britain museum at Hawkinge. The 352 was a Spanish licence built version of the famous Junkers 52 and the museum plan to repaint the aircraft in Luftwaffe markings to represent a WWII aircraft. Presumably it will now be outside like the recently acquired He111, which seems a shame.

At Cosford, as seen below, the aircraft was parked up close to a wall making it difficult to get a decent picture but as Hawkinge have a weird policy of no photography at all I guess it will be even more difficult to snap it in future which is a pity and means I probably won't go and look at it.

Back soon

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Dakota 'Cannucks Unlimited' has been off line of late awaiting refurbished engines. These are now in the process of being fitted and the Dak should be back in the air next year.

Seen here at Hamilton back in 2012 when we visited for the air show.

East Kirkby engine starts

Always love the sound of merlins coming to life and running up prior to taxi. Here are Lancaster Just Jane and the Mosquito doing just that at East Kirkby earlier this month.

Handley Page Jetstream

The Jet stream was the last Handley Page design and this particular aircraft was registered in 1968 and first flew the following year. She last flew in the late 1990s but was then used for ground instructional purposes.

The aircraft moved to Sywell in March last year and is seen here last summer. It is currently under restoration.

Another move

 A further acquisition by LAHC at East Kirkby is the former Raf Museum B-25 Mitchell. It was dismantled at Hendon a little while ago but it was destination unknown at the time but it has had a free transfer (transport costs aside) to Lincolnshire. It will be reassembled in the main hangar and the longer term plan is to have the engines running and the aircraft doing taxi rides. Sounds good to me.

Woodhall Spa Airfield

Woodhall Spa Airfield was constructed in 1941 as a satellite to nearby RAF Coningsby which was actually a fighter airfield throughout its life. Woodhall Spa however became operational in early 1942 and was the base for 97 squadron one of the earliest squadrons to be equipped with the Avro Lancaster four engined bomber. The association with the Lancaster continued when 617 squadron moved to Woodhall in 1944. 617 was of course the famous Dambuster squadron, albeit for that mission they were based at Scampton.

Aircraft from Woodhall Spa were involved in the first operational deployment of the 12,000lb tallboy bombs, designed by Barnes Wallis, and also the mission that resulted in the sinking of the battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian Fjord.

Post war the airfield saw use as a missile site but ceased front line operations in 1967. The RAF retained a small part of the field, including an original hangar for engine testing purposes but the rest of the airfield was largely used for gravel quarrying although an accommodation site nearby became Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre which commemorates the sacrifices made on the airfield in WWII.

In 2015 the remains of the airfield were purchased by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and so it it is now possible to visit and walk what is left of the runways. The entrance in is the line of the main runway but as you walk further along the modern tarmac surface deteriorates  and becomes broken and weed strewn and at the point that it crosses one of the other runways a memorial stone has been erected. Not much else evidences the former life of the place.

We visited on a very misty morning which, in some way, gave a little atmosphere and allowed imagination to drift back to what must have been a very busy and noisy environment 80 years ago.

Gunby Church

Came across this memorial on the wall inside Gunby Church last weekend.

Duxford Drop In 7.11.22

A brief stop at Duxford on the way home. Winter closing and a delayed arrival meant we only had around an hour and we wanted a bite to eat as well - where we found that, apparently, member discounts no longer apply in food outlets!

Anyway, a quick spin around some of the hangars found the Conservation hangar stilled closed for maintenance with an 'opening Autumn' sign outside - they're cutting that one fine! Sally B is now indoors meaning that the BBMF Dak has been moved, presumably down to Arco. The Walrus was also elsewhere, maybe in the Arco hangar too. No Catalina in the hangar so presumably off travelling somewhere, hopefully not Loch Ness!

Everything else much as expected with no real changes since my late September visit.

Lest We Forget

More East Kirkby

The rest from East Kirkby on Saturday - including progress on Lancaster sections that will be swapped in to Just Jane so that the removed parts can be restored to airworthy condition and then put back. Plus a Proctor project and an Auster Mk5 that I believe is airworthy.