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From: aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: European Aircraft Museums
Message-ID: <5300007@ccvaxa>
Date: Sat, 1-Mar-86 19:35:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.5300007
Posted: Sat Mar  1 19:35:00 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Mar-86 04:46:42 EST
References: <968@ihuxx.UUCP>
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Nf-From: ccvaxa.UUCP!aglew    Mar  1 18:35:00 1986


English aviation museums:

Try to see the Shuttleworth Collection.
I'm afraid that I don't know exactly where it is, but perhaps knowing the
name will help you find it.

While you're there, take a look at the Blackburn monoplane which they bring
out once a year and try to fly - the oldest flying aircraft in the world.
They don't mention it, but that was my grandfather's plane. My grandfather,
Francis Glew, bought it from his brother-in-law Cyril Foggin, and flew it
around to exhibitions and the like. We have several old magazine photos
of this `intrepid aviator' standing beside his crashed monoplane. One crash
was too much, so grand-dad put it up in the barn. Quite a few years later,
grand-dad overheard Shuttleworth in the local pub asking about aircraft,
said "we've summat down at the farm", and sold it to him for 10 quid. It turns
out that the problem was a hairline fracture in the engine, which couldn't
have been repaired at the time.

This plane has appeared in a few British first-day covers, and the like, but 
they always say that it was "found in a barn in Leicestershire" without
mentioning the daring young man turned old farmer who'd preserved it in
such good condition.

(Other stories: grand-dad always claimed to be the first to fly the air-mail
from London to Newcastle, in that plane - we aren't sure about this. 
Great-uncle Foggin was taught to fly by Bleriot - seems he was the only
French-speaking person in a small English town.)