UK Trip Part 2 - Cotswold Airport

 

I like to fly into Birmingham Airport as there are very few queues, and the car hire offices are only 5 minutes walk from the terminal.  True to form I was in the hire car and on my way only 30 minutes after landing.

En-route from Birmingham to Plymouth is Cotswold Airport.  As I parked up, I heard the unmistakable roar of a merlin engine, and disappointedly watched on watched as a Spitfire and Hurricane disappeared into the distance.   When I got to the area in front of the café, there was a P-51D (G-MRIL) parked up, and as I took photos, there was that merlin roar again, and the Spitfire did a circuit and landed. Sadly, the Hurricane didn't return while I was there.  It was a Spitfire T.9 (G-AWGB) doing joy flights.  Also performing joy flights was Jet Ranger G-HANY

Cotswold Airport is where many old airliners come to be parted out and scrapped once they finish their working life.  In the work area were Boeing 727-200 M-STAR, Airbus A318 VP-CKS, Boeing 737s EI-STI and OO-TNN(both ex ASL Airlines) and A321 OY-VKD (ex Sunclass Airlines)

Over the far side were what's left of Airbus A320's LY-SPC (ex GetJet Airlines), N542FT (ex China Eastern Airlines) and Boeing 737 N29106 (ex China Airlines).

In long term Storage were Airbus A321 LZ-FSH of Sunclass Airlines and Boeing 737s N340WS and N799WS both of World Star Aviation. Also stored were Boeing 747 TF-AMI of  Air Atlanta and Boeing 787 VP-BDA of Kalair.

Looking quite forlorn was F-4K Phantom XT597 that used to be at RAF Boscombe Down.