Another weekend, another fabulous Sywell flight line!

The fighters from Air Leasing are all lined up for their trip to The Victory Show and unique 1939 built Douglas C-41a N341A is visiting. Serial 40-0070 returned to the skies in May this year and was used by Major General ‘Hap’ Arnold as a VIP transport during WW2.

Together with current airfield incumbent, C-47 ‘Night Fright’ (N308SF, 42-100521) we think the last time two such Douglas transports were at Sywell was probably the 1960s!

Time for the latest edition in the 'Sywell Aerodrome in Miniature' Series!

6 Elementary Flying Training School became 6 Reserve Flying School on 12th May 1947 and was operated by Brooklands Aviation. Initially equipped with the same Tiger Moths they operated during WW2, they re-equipped with Percival Prentice, DH Chipmunks, Airspeed Oxfords and Avro Anson T.21 navigational trainers.

The unit disbanded on 31st March 1953 when the RAF left the airfield for the final time.

One of our Trustees has constructed this model in 1/72 scale showing two of the unit's aircraft in its markings - a Percival Prentice (from the Freightdog reissue of the Skybirds 86 kit) and Avro Anson (from the Valom kit). The hangar doors are scratchbuilt, the David Brown tractor is from Airfix and the Chance Light - used to illuminate the runways in inclement weather or at night - is 3D printed. Acetate puddles and Deluxe products 'snow' effect were used. The scene shows thawing snow meaning that 'ops' are back on again and is entitled 'Thawing Tyros'. It is now on display in the Museum with the rest of the series 🙂

Phew in all the bank holiday bustle we forgot to mention that North American P-51D Mustang G-FISD (formerly N51VF) flew from Sywell on the 26th August in her new guise as the mount of Major Richard ' Bud' Peterson of the 364th Fighter Squadron, 357th Fighter Group 'Hurry Home Honey' - isnt she gorgeous! Well done to all at Air Leasing!

Photos courtesy of and with thanks to Matthew Foster 🙂

Well that’s a nice Bank Holiday surprise! We’ve now reached an amazing 16,000 followers which is incredible for a small museum like ours!

Welcome to our new friends and thank you all, new or old, for your kind support❤️

September is our last month of opening for 2026, so please pop along to see us - weekends 1030-1630hrs and Tuesdays and Wednesdays 1200-1600hrs

A quick Jetstream update and a reminder…

With the white part of the fuselage done thoughts have now turned to the wings.

Cunningly, the team have worked out that a modified Gala Tent will work perfectly as a spray booth due to her high aspect ratio wings, and this theory was tested out this week, meaning that the wings may be in top coat this season- stay tuned!

Meanwhile a reminder that the Museum is open this bank holiday Monday (as well as Saturday and Sunday and all weekends) 1030-1630hrs. We are also open Tuesday/Wednesday between 1200-1600. We close at the end of September.

Hope to see you soon! 🫡

Well we turned our back for five minutes and the Jetstream Team Chief Sander and Painter has gone rogue on the paint scheme on G-RAVL!

What a lovely flightline at Sywell this morning- it can only mean one thing- Shipping and Airlines are in the house! 🙂

SAM Sidequest!

This time we visited the fabulous museum at Hooton Park Hangars, Ellesmere Port. Here is the home of The Aeroplane Collection- one of the oldest aviation preservation groups in the country.

TAC are old friends of ours and the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire jet engine currently displayed in our Museum (which used to power our Hunter) is kindly on loan from them. It was good to see the Harvard cockpit which was on display with us for over a decade in new digs too!

Housed in lovely original Belfast Hangars they have some unique machines and its well worth the trip to see them 🙂

Update! The Mystery WAAF returns to her family…

Regular followers will remember that recently a visitor had dropped in a photograph of a mystery WAAF which was tucked inside a donated book they had purchased from the Museum.

The unknown lady was in fact Nancy Dalton who was 20 years old when the photograph was taken and she had recently enlisted in Hull.

She went on to serve at RAF Tempsford (where she met her husband Jack Boyson). They were subsequently married 2 years after the picture was taken in February 1946 and settled in Northamptonshire where they spent a long happy life until Jack passed away in 2008 and Nancy passed at 89 in 2023.

Her daughter Sheila visited us last week to collect the lost photograph which will be treasured by her family. She is seen here with Museum Trustee David Knight.

Thanks to all our followers for their help in tracking Nancy’s family down and to the kind lady for returning the photo to us.

JetsTeam update!

Great news! The white on G-RAVL is complete🙂 more early starts this week for the team to beat the heat and with the assistance of the cherry picker kindly supplied by our friends at Nationwide Platforms her fin, rudder and tailplanes are now under several coats of shiny gloss white.

Whilst we had the equipment we took the opportunity to take some aerial shots of our ladies!

Thanks again to all at Nationwide Platforms we couldn’t have done it without you!

www.nationwideplatforms.co.uk

Photos courtesy Andy Shemans