Battle of Britain

[Kev367th]

I was fortunate enough to be based in Middle Wallop in the late 80's when they had the biggest gathering (20+) of Spits since the B.o.B.
Even Gary Numan turned up in a Zeke lol!!!!
Just watched The B.o.B movie got me thinking -
Apart from the B.o.B. flight how many airworthy Hurris are there?
Just as important, how many Mossies, I know even in the mid 80's there werent any.

[Furball]

Originally posted by Kev367th

Apart from the B.o.B. flight how many airworthy Hurris are there?
Just as important, how many Mossies, I know even in the mid 80's there werent any.

There was an airworthy Mosquito, it crashed though in the 90's i think.  There are one or two that i have heard of that are supposed to be restored to flying condition.

for a list of surviving hurricanes, see this list

http://www.jacksonharrison.co.uk/BoB2/HurricaneSociety/hurricane_list.htm

[rogerdee]

well i know for certain ther is only 1 sea hurrican flying ,and i think  world wide  there are about 53 hurricns on display or in a airworthy condition.7 of which are replicas

rogerdee

[storch]

I believe Kermit Weeks has a Mossie http://www.fantasyofflight.com  but I'm not sure

[Replicant]

Originally posted by Kev367th
I was fortunate enough to be based in Middle Wallop in the late 80's when they had the biggest gathering (20+) of Spits since the B.o.B.
Even Gary Numan turned up in a Zeke lol!!!!
Just watched The B.o.B movie got me thinking -
Apart from the B.o.B. flight how many airworthy Hurris are there?
Just as important, how many Mossies, I know even in the mid 80's there werent any.

Sure Gary Numan wasn't in a Harvard?  He owns one, and I remember seeing him in it during the 80s.

Sure there was a Mossie flying in the 80s, think it crashed in 1996.

[Angus]

I was at the BoB festival at Duxford in 2000, and was fortunate enough to have a press pass.
I belive there were 24 Spits in the air, and 4 Hurricanes.

[Karnak]

There are no Mosquitos currently flight worthy.  I have heard of a couple of restoration projects, but there doesn't seem to be much progress on them.  Mossies don't age well due to the construction materials used.

[Kev367th]

Replicant - you may be right, was a long time ago.
Big thing was it was the largest collection of Spits in the air in one place since BoB/WW2.
Although I remember two other incidents -
1) Guy in bi-plane standing it on its nose after touch down.
2) Running around the area trying to find a main chute one of the display team had to cut away.

Of course as usual, one of the highlights is helicopters appearing from behind trees and all moving in to the tune of "Ride of the Valkyiries". Last one I seen in early 90s had around 100 Gazelle, Lynx, and some RAF Pumas, Sea kings.

Luckily was based there at the time so had pretty well unrestricted access.

[Guppy35]

A number of Mossie projects in the works. None near flying at this point.

Roughly a dozen Hurricanes flying with many others in process of being recovered, restored etc.

Go to:

http://www.mossie.org/

For all the Mossie info you want.

Go to:

http://www.hawker-restorations-ltd.co.uk/

For the best of the Hawker Hurricane restorations.

They just finished a Battle of France vet that flew last week for the first times.  A number of Hurris in the States and Canada as well as another Battle of France vet in New Zealand. flying

Dan/Slack