How aviation began

The Wrights may have been first with their Flyer, but the original doesn't still fly. This Bleriot monoplane, powered by its original Anzani engine, seen here in the Shuttleworth Trust hangar at Old Warden aerodrome, Bedfordshire, still does.

Mind you the Bleriot - and all the other treasures there - are only wheeled out under ideal conditions, which means virtually calm air on balmy summer evenings.

When I was there yesterday the breeze was too high for the Edwardian aeroplanes to fly safely, and also for the crop of First World War "kites" to venture into the air, but read on for a touch of what Shuttleworth did show off...

...like the Westland Lysander, here bouncing along Old Warden's grass on its take-off run.

Because of the stiff breeze and thermal turbulence we have had to move into the 1930s for machines with a sufficiently beefy airframe and engine. Like the Hawkers Hind and Demon, for example...
You can see the Hurricane presaged in the fuselage shape, and hear the Merlin developing in the the Rolls-Royce Kestrel engines.

But aeroplanes are not the whole story at Shuttleworth. If it's motor transport, if it's old, if it can still be made to work, it's here...

Remember the Hillman Minx? No? Probably not. Here (above) with "blackout" covers fitted to the headlamps. How the hell could the driver navigate around the airfield at night with those?

...a wartime BSA dispatch motorbike with a host of other much older goodies...

...and going back into the realms of Horseless Carriages, here's the starter for this machine: it's the mechanic. He has to spin the flywheel by hand and hope it fires up before too many spins flood the carb...
I think it's an early Peugeot. Here's a better look a what makes it tick...
Reminiscent of a steam engine in the sum of its parts?...but no, this is an internal combustion engine, and it still works.

Back to aviation: the sound of the wind in the wires...lots of wires...

The Bristol Boxkite.

Shuttleworth is amazing. It's not a museum. It's touchy-feely. You can smell the partially burned low-octane avgas. You can hear it working, see it flying.

Thanks again Tim Brymer and Clyde and Co for making this annual pilgrimage to Old Warden such a delight.