Monday 12th August 2019 at RAF Coningsby.
R had done some research and found that we could get to RAF Coningsby, the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, by bus from Lincoln bus station. Unlike Redhill's tiny bus "stop" (you can hardly call it a bus station), Lincoln's bus station is large and well organised with dozens of bus bays, accurate electronic displays and it is clearly very well used with crowds of people getting on and off buses.
The one hour bus ride was most enjoyable through picture postcard villages and flat agricultural land so typical of this part of England.
The bus dropped us outside the BBMF Visitors' Centre.
Initially, we encountered a problem as visitors are not allowed to take any bags into the hangar with them and there is no facility to leave bags in the Visitors' Centre. The solution was for M to do the 1.5 hour tour first while R looked after M's backpack and then R did the tour while M looked after her bag (over a cuppa in the cafe!).
On each tour, the guides were very knowledgeable and charming. Both were retired RAF pilots and full of stories about each type of aircraft as well as the specific histories of each individual aircraft in the flight.
The flight has two Hurricanes; there are now only fifteen airworthy Hurricanes in the world, so they are much rarer than their more famous contemporary, the Spitfire. This, despite the fact that Hurricanes shot down more aircraft in the Battle of Britain - however, the Germans always insisted that they had been shot down by a Spitfire, never a Hurricane.
The Spitfire is iconic and the BBMF has six of them including this one which is the only airworthy Spitfire that actually took part in the Battle of Britain. Keeping these wonderful aircraft in airworthy condition is a constant labour of love - and hugely expensive.
The flight has a Chipmunk for basic training. Most of the RAF pilots who fly the flight's aircraft are part-timers whose day job is flying front line fighters like the Eurofighter or F-35, so they have to spend 35 hours learning to fly an aircraft with a tail wheel followed by another 35 hours on Harvards (borrowed from the Netherland's Air Force) before they are let loose on the flight's Spitfires and Hurricanes. Those training to fly the Lancaster spend their time on the flight's Dakota; it was doing circuits at the time of our visit, although they kindly parked it up while they had lunch.
Finally, we got to see the Lancaster that we had seen over Lincoln yesterday. It is only close-up that you realise what a very large aircraft it is. So large, that it was difficult to get a good photograph of all of it.
After a quick cuppa in the BBMF Vistors' Centre's tea room, we took the bus back into Lincoln where we treated ourselves to proper afternoon tea in the Bridge Tea Room. The Tea Room is in the only surviving mediaeval building built on a bridge in England, it straddles the River Witham.
The bridge creates a small tunnel that is known as the "Glory Hole" under the building. The tea was excellent and very welcome.
We fell into conversation with two delightful ladies at the next table; it turned out that they came from Israel and were visiting Lincoln for a local antiques fair. They were fascinated by the thought of a narrow canal boat, so we invited them to join us on MM tomorrow.
Wandering round Lincoln later, we came across a "beach" in the lower part of town. A great place for kids - Lincoln-by-the-Sea!
In the evening, we had tickets for a performance of "Oliver", the musical, in the Cathedral. The performance, by a local amateur group, was on for a week and we managed to buy the last two tickets together - and even then we were one in front of the other and not side by side. It was absolutely staggering - the sheer vitality, energy and huge cast left us breathless. Easily up to the standard of the West End.
This little fellow, a visitor from the Netherlands, was thrilled to see his name on the poster!
Back on MM, we watched the moon rise over, and reflected in, the water of Brayford Pool.
A lovely end to a great day.
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