Twenty years ago tomorrow

…I received horrendous news by phone from one of the curatorial staff at CWH. My own mention on the Russell Group thread about the plastic Hurricane replica in the museum jogged my memory…in the early morning hours of 15 February 1993, the south bay of CWH’s Hangar #3 at Mt.Hope burned to the ground, taking with it Hurricane C-GCWH, Spitfire N9BL, Avenger C-GCWG, Auster C-FLXT, Stinson C-FBSU and Rockwell 680V C-FFEO. The Lancaster, Finch, Bolingbroke parts, et cetera, in the north bay of the hangar survived by virtue of a cinderblock wall erected down the middle of the building decades earlier to make a paint bay. Twenty years have passed since that awful morning, and the museum is doing quite well now, but enthusiasts here sure do miss the “sharp end” single-seaters that used to provide air cover over Hamilton! Only now is another Avenger being restored to fly with the collection, and flying Spit and/or Hurricane remain a distant dream.

S.