Wednesday, April 12, 2017

catching up...

OK, so it has been a while since the last post. Here is what has been going on in the past couple of years.

The Blenheim Mk.I made its first flight from Duxford on 20th November 2014. It has delighted crowds at air displays in 2015 and 2016, and it looks like 2017 will be another good year to see this outstanding aircraft.

Another incredible first flight took place on 9th July 2015, when David Bremner's Bristol Scout took to the air. This project is based around three original items: a stick, rudder bar and magneto. It is a very accurate reproduction of a Bristol Scout, based on original drawings and authentic materials. A TV film of the project is due soon.

TVAL in New Zealand have completed a couple of Bristol Fighters, one static example for the Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego in Krakow, Poland, and a flyer for Jean Salis at La Ferte Alais in France. The latter first flew on 26th July 2014. Its first flight in France on 6 April 2015, and now appears at air shows at La Ferte Alais.

This now means there are nine Bristol aircraft regularly flying :
One Boxkite (At Shuttleworth, another reproduction in Australia is capable of flight but no longer flies)
One Bristol Scout
Four Bristol Fighters (UK, France, New Zealand and Australia)
One Bristol M1C
One Blenheim Mk.I
One Sycamore (in Austria)

The Bristol Aero Collection's efforts to built a world-class museum at Filton have nearly come to fruition. Exhibits are being put in place in the WW1 hangar and purpose-built Concorde hangar. It will open Summer 2017, as Aerospace Bristol. Interest in the museum has generated some new exhibits including a Bristol Pegasus powered Sea Harrier and a second Bristol Sycamore helicopter. In addition to the Bolingbroke rebuild, several new projects are underway, including a Bristol Fighter based on an original frame (from the Weston-on-the-Green cache) and a Bristol 170 Freighter from New Zealand.