Survivors
There are currently no Blenheim or Bolingbroke aircraft that are airworthy. The first airworthy Blenheim had been rebuilt from a scrapped Bolingbroke over a 12-year period, only to crash at an airshow at Denham within a month of completion. A replacement Bolingbroke Mk IVT was rebuilt to flying status in just five years and painted to represent a Blenheim Mk IV in RAF wartime service. It began appearing at air shows and exhibitions in the UK, flying since May 1993 and was used in the 1995 film version of Shakespeare's Richard III. This aircraft crashed on landing at Duxford on 19 August 2003; the crash was feared to have made it a write-off, but it is presently undergoing an extensive repair and conversion to Mark 1 status ("Short nose" version) in conjunction with The Aircraft Restoration Company (ARC or ARCo), most of the work being done by volunteers. Funds are raised through donations and also by The Blenheim Society who run a Grand Flying Draw among many other activities. The aircraft is currently in Hangar 3 at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford and is the property of Blenheim (Duxford) Ltd.
In Canada, a number of other Bolingbrokes survived the war but were summarily consigned to the scrap heap. Postwar, enterprising farmers often bought surplus aircraft such as these for the scrap metal content, tires for farm implements, and even for the fuel remaining in the tanks. Some surviving examples in Canada of the Bolingbroke can be traced back to this period. The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario is rebuilding a Bolingbroke to airworthy status. The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum in Brandon, Manitoba has restored the exterior of one Bolingbroke, painting it in the Air Training Plan yellow color. This particular aircraft is on display at a location on the Trans-Canada Highway in Brandon. A restored Bolingbroke is on static display at the British Columbia Aviation Museum in Victoria, British Columbia. The Canadian Museum of Flight at Langley Airport, Langley, British Columbia has on display the restored nose and cockpit section of a Bolingbroke, and holds the rest of an entire airframe in storage pending future restoration and display.
In Finland, the sole surviving original Blenheim in the world, a Mk IV registered as BL-200 of the Finnish Air Force, has been completely restored and is now on show at the Aviation Museum of Central Finland at Tikkakoski.
In the summer of 1996, a Bristol Blenheim Mk IVF was recovered from the sea, a few kms off Rethymnon, Crete. The aircraft belonged to the 203 Squadron RAF and was downed by friendly fire on 28 April 1941. The Blenheim was restored and moved to the Hellenic Air Force Museum.
In Arizona, the Pima Air Museum has a Bristol Blenheim Mk IV on static display.
Read more about this topic: Bristol Blenheim
Famous quotes containing the word survivors:
“I believe that all the survivors are mad. One time or another their madness will explode. You cannot absorb that much madness and not be influenced by it. That is why the children of survivors are so tragic. I see them in school. They don’t know how to handle their parents. They see that their parents are traumatized: they scream and don’t react normally.”
—Elie Wiesel (b. 1928)
“I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another.”
—Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)