On 4 October 2015 I attended the ‘Shuttleworth Uncovered’ air show at Old Warden, Bedfordshire. This was the last UK air show of the season and the final public display of Avro Vulcan XH558 (although the old girl would go on to do a few more flights, this was her last public display). Needless to say it was a ‘sell out’ airshow!

[The Shuttleworth collection has a fine collection of WW1 era aircraft, many of which use rotary engines. One of the features of these engines is that the oil used to lubricate the internals of the engine is thrown outwards, leaking out of the valve/rocker assembles on top of each cylinder. They consequently need a constant supply of oil delivered with the fuel mixture. This is where castor oil comes in - the only oil (at the time) that was not soluble in petrol. However, castor oil is also a laxative, so imagine the effects of being behind an engine that just keeps on spewing out castor oil!

And long before Star Trek, Vulcan was the Roman God of Fire.]

Anyway, enough waffle and on with the pictures

A feature of the ‘Uncovered’ displays at Old Warden is that the public are given unrestricted access to the parked aircraft and their pilots.

'Silver Command' control tower with Percival Provost in the foreground


Pe2




Hawker Tomtit




Hawker Demon






To be continued …

Po-2, not Pe-2 Trying to figure out what that rearsight is supposed to do.

Awesome as always.

Hi RSColonel_131st, congratulations - you spotted my 'deliberate mistake' ... Just checking my audience is paying attention ..

Thanks for the correction ("doh, silly mistake!"). Glad you like them

PS/. It's a type of deflection correction sight fitted to the ShKAS machine gun.

Beautiful shots of beautiful aircraft.

Good start FlatEric,looking forward to more.

Nice stuff Flats. Lovely collection of really pretty kites from the 'Golden Era' there too. One of the best aviation museums I've been to. Opinion probably coloured by friendly and enthusiastic staff allowing me access to the Harry Tate they were working on.

MajorMagee, Chucky, BD-123, thanks for your comments.

BD-123 - I agree that Old Warden really is a fantastic place, full of interesting 'bits of kit' lovingly maintained by enthusiastic and committed people.

Hawker Hurricane R4118 is widely regarded as one of the most historic British aircraft to survive in flying condition from the Second World War. Built by the Gloster Aircraft company, R4118 was delivered new to 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron at Drem on 17 August 1940. She flew 49 sorties from Croydon during the Battle of Britain and shot down or damaged five enemy aircraft.





Here with a Fordson WOT 2H in the foreground:




With a bunch of living history guys posing in front of her:






… and in B&W


Se5a - this aircraft was built by Wolseley Motors and issued to No 84 Squadron RAF in France in November 1918. It was in action on 10th November piloted by Major C E M Pickthorn MC, the squadron commander, when he successfully destroyed a Fokker DVII in the vicinity of Chimay in Belgium.



Attracting quite a lot of interest ..


Bristol M1C replica:








To be continued

I wonder if I would get thrown out of the display part of an airshow for hugging the aircraft.

Probably - like strip clubs (so I've heard...), you can look but you're not allowed to touch

Bristol Scout C RNAS No. 1264 as flown by Flt Sub Lt F.D.H. Bremner. This replica was built by David and Rick Bremner (grandsons of the Flt Sub Lt Bremner) and incorporates the original stick, rudder bar and magneto found in his workshop after he died in 1983.

The original aircraft was built in August 1915 and shipped to No.2 Wing, RNAS at Imbros, an island near the Dardanelles peninsula for the Gallipoli campaign. It was flown by Flt Sub Lt Bremner from January to July 1916 from Imbros (against the Turks) and Thasos (against the Bulgarians).

Note that at the time the RNAS used French roundels and tail stripes (opposite to the RFC). The original magneto is a German Bosch – it was regarded as being more reliable than the standard Avia one. Bremner acquired it from Bartolomeo Constantini, who was in the Aquila Italia racing team at this time and went on to become the sporting manager for Bugatti. He was in the French squadron also located at Thasos and helped Bremner keep his engine in first class condition. He transferred it to every aircraft he flew thereafter.

Flt Sub Lt Bremner’s grand children are currently in Greece with 1264 – they are due to display it at the Kavala Air/Sea Show, Prinos Aerodrome, Thassos, Greece this weekend. They will fly from the actual aerodrome their grandfather flew from 100 years before; quite a unique and emotional event!

You can find more details about 1264 and follow Dave and Rick’s journey to Thasos here on their website: https://bristolscout.wordpress.com/







Dave talking about his grandfather’s plane

Awesome shots.


Wheels

What a beautiful propellor. Very nice photos.

Avro Tutor


Bristol Fighter - this one’s for you, oldgrognard


Bristol Fighter's 'sting in the tail' - note similar deflection site to that found on the ShKAS machine gun on the Po-2


The 1912 Wolseley M5 lurking in the background


Another 1912 vintage motor, this time a Ford Model T Tourer




Sopwith Camel










Po-2 with 1937 Fiat Topolino


"Not sure it's your size, mate.."








"Cup of tea, anyone?"

Won't be if the Lewis was fired; their doesn't seem to be any deflector plates on the prop. Contemporary pix and accounts state that the gun was mounted angled out to clear the prop arc.

The Bristol M.1 is a cute kite isn't it? I wonder what difference it's superior performance would have made on the Western Front if the War Office had not been so short-sighted and biased against monoplanes in 1916.

Indeed, a worthy collection of photos here.

BD-123 - I think the display commentator said that the pilots of the Bristol Scout simply accepted that they'd come back with bits missing from their propeller! Didn't know they could angle it sufficiently to miss the ark of the propeller - would have made aiming the gun an interesting challenge ..

The Levier Cosmic Wind was designed and built by Lockheed's chief test pilot, Tony LeVier, and a group of Lockheed engineers. A very small single-seat racer, it was aimed at the Goodyear Trophy for Formula 1 class racers initiated in the US soon after WW II. However, the type was not particularly successful in competitions in the 1940s, coming only 3rd and 4th in the 1947 Goodyear Trophy races.

Three Cosmic Winds were built at Lockheed's between 1947 and 1948 and a fourth rather later. A fifth was also built in the US by amateur constructors. The last example was built in the UK as late as 1972. One example of the first three, named “Ballerina” was exported to the UK and won the King's Cup Race of 1964.

Here is “Balerina” at Old warden




Unfortunately this was prohibited from landing on the lake at Old Warden in case it frightened the swans …


Replica of the Bleriot X1 that crossed the English Channel on 29 July 1909.

The Shuttleworth collection also has an original Bleriot X1. It was used by the Blériot Flying School at Hendon in 1910. After a heavy crash the remains were sold for scrap and bought by A E Grimmer of Ampthill. He rebuilt the aircraft and taught himself to fly on it from Bedford polo ground.

It was then put into store during WWI where it remained until acquired by Richard Shuttleworth in 1935 and rebuilt as his first historic aeroplane.

The Blériot was completely overhauled and re-covered during the winter of 2008/9 and is the world’s oldest aeroplane and aero-engine combination in flying condition.








DH88 Comet – this aircraft won the 1934 England to Australia Air Race in 70 hours and 54 minutes. After this success, G-ACSS was evaluated by the RAF but suffered several accidents and was eventually sold as scrap. It was rescued when bought by F Tasker and restored at Essex Aero Ltd at Gravesend. Renamed ‘The Orphan’ it gained fourth place in the England-Damascus Air Race of 1937.

After this G-ACSS was renamed yet again and as ‘The Burberry’ set a new record for the out-and-back times to the Cape, and also set a record when it travelled from England to New Zealand and home again in only ten days, twenty-one hours and twenty-two minutes.

After these record breaking flights G-ACSS was abandoned at Gravesend and spent WWII stored there. De Havilland apprentices statically restored it for the 1951 Festival of Great Britain, where it was displayed hanging from the roof. It was given to the Shuttleworth Collection in 1965 and a restoration to flying condition was begun. About fifty organisations supported the project and restoration was carried out first at RAE Farnborough and then at the British Aerospace works at Hatfield. This culminated in the first flight in 49 years on 17 May 1987.

Following the closure of Hatfield in 1994 the aircraft returned to Old Warden where, initially, the runway was too short to allow safe operation. The runway was subsequently lengthened but then, in 2002, the Comet suffered undercarriage failure when landing after its first test flight. Investigations revealed a design fault in the undercarriage; subsequently modifications to the structure were approved and implemented. After successful test flights on 1 August 2014 it is now a regular performer at Shuttleworth air displays.

Wonderful collection of aircraft, thanks for bringing them to us. Good eye on the details too.

Regarding the Scout, it doesn't seem the gun is rigged with a trigger mechanism?

Yep, another beautiful prop. It is amazing that they were able to make those back then without computer and laser measurements. Such wonderful craftsmanship. And to get that metal prop shield on. Artistry.

Thanks for sharing. And thanks dor the small write-ups to add some flavor to the photos.

It makes me think of Darts airplane. You can't appreciate a lot of what he did just by pictures. You have to lay your hands on it.

The Comet is a beautiful plane isn't it? A fine example of form and function of the thirties. One can see the influence for the design of the Mosquito there.
The tiny racer; gorgeous. I am not a pilot, but I can imagine that it was a sensitive handful to fly!

Thanks for your comments and feedback guys

RS_Colonel_131st - I think the firing mechanism on the Bristol Scout for the machine gun is the "Finger, Index Right - Mk1" ...

oldgrognard - my limit is building the odd plastic model (badly!), so I take my hat off to people like Dart who can build the real thing - very impressive!

BD-123 - agree with you there; the Comet is a real bute! So glad they managed to fix her problems and get her back in the air, where she belongs. Visibility on landing must be almost non-existent due to that long nose ..


Fauvel AV-36 Glider , constructed by Wassmer in France in 1955. It was brought to England in 1972, but since 1975 languished in a barn for nearly 40 years before it was brought to Old Warden. It was then completely restored at Booker in 2014 by Graham Saw. It is highly aerobatic and can perform loops in just over its own body length.




The motorbike in the foreground is a Sunbeam S8:



Avro C19 Anson, owned by BAE Systems. Developed from the Avro 652 airliner, the Anson, named after British Admiral George Anson, entered service on 6 March 1936. It was developed for maritime reconnaissance, but was found to be obsolete in this role. However, it was used successfully as a multi-engined aircrew trainer, becoming the mainstay of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

Ansons continued to be built by Avro at Woodford until March 1952, by which time 8,138 had been produced (plus another 2,882 in Canada). It’s hard to believe Ansons and Vulcans were being produced in the same factory at the same time; they look like they came from different centuries!



The Spartan 7W Executive was an aircraft produced by the Spartan Aircraft Company during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Built during the Great Depression, the 7W was the brainchild of company-founder William G. Skelly of Skelly Oil who desired a fast, comfortable aircraft to support his tastes and those of his rich oil-executive colleagues.
It proved popular with affluent buyers. Thirty four 7W Executives were built; notable owners of 7Ws included aircraft designer and aviator Howard Hughes, wealthy industrialist J. Paul Getty, and King Ghazi of Iraq.


She's very shiny