BRISTOL BLENHEIM

[Gil Boyd]

Another iconic war bird was the Bristol Blenheim which at the start of WW2 was one of the fastest bombers.
A good friend who was in the upper turret in the last UK Blenheim which crashed at an airshow many years ago which nearly cost him his life, hand built this one shown at Duxford on the video.
In building it from scratch, he managed to salvage the front MK1 cockpit from a man who had converted it into a car............incredible story, and what a lovely aircraft.

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[Gil Boyd]

Heres the converted car built by a former Bristol employee Ralph Nelson, that Smudger Smith (shown) used and built the cockpit on the finished aircraft shown on the video, amazing feat of engineering.
Luckily, Ralph had left the controls in place when he built his car, otherwise it would all have been guess work as no plans survived the war

[mrclark303]

Nice one Gil, very interesting Indeed...

I still can't make my mind up re the Fighter nose, re the bomber nose...

[Gil Boyd]

Yes the later fighter variant was more ergonimically aeronautical with that large indentation by the pilot.

[GeeRam]

Smudger is a legend, and he and John Romain have built that bloody aeroplane 3 times now after the 2nd one was pranged at Duxford.......

I think that photo of Smudger was taken at Goodwood Revival when he was holding court on the just reflown Lizzie restoration

[Flying10uk]

https://www.aircraftrestorationcompany.com/blenheim

https://www.baesystems.com/en/herita...d-bolingbroke-

[Gil Boyd]

GeeRam,
Absolutely correct about the photo. John and I go back years as we were both Principal Technical Officers in the Police.
I marvel at his expertise. He has just finished building a Lysander which they recovered from a Canadian Prairie.
I only wish he would write what he does down somewhere, so future generations can marvel at his brilliance. Great bloke, great memories together in the Police!

I often think as a lad growing up playing on old WW2 aircraft piled up ready for scrapping on various RAF stations around the world, and why such things are so hard to find now. Beverly's/Ansons/Varsitys/ etc

[GeeRam]

GeeRam,
I only wish he would write what he does down somewhere, so future generations can marvel at his brilliance.

Its being passed on at ARCo. John Romain learnt as an apprentice at deHaviland, and has made a point of creating apprentice positions at ARCo so that his and Smudge's skill sets are passed onto a younger generation.

Great indepth interview article about John and ARCo here:

http://vintageaviationecho.com/john-romain/