Historic Slingsby-built replica airborne at Sywell

Slingsby-built Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a scale film replica G-AVOU made its first flight from British soil for 56 years at Sywell on St George’s Day 23 April, following an eight-year rebuild by Matthew Boddington. Matt says, “She flew very well and we just have a couple of tweaks to do to adjust the tailplane incidence, and the air speed indicator readings were not consistent with what it was doing, but other than that it was a very successful first flight.”

The machine was the second of six aircraft built by Slingsby at Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire in 1967 for the film Darling Lili starring Julie Andrews, Rock Hudson and Jeremy Kemp, the second unit flying sequences being filmed in Ireland. It went on to star in several other feature films, the last being Von Richthofen and Brown, directed by Roger Corman and starring nobody of note, in 1970. The flying sequences were filmed from Weston Airport, just west of Dublin. Its last screen appearance was for a memorably hair-raising TV commercial for Solvite all-purpose wallpaper adhesive during the early ’70s.

G-AVOU was exported to the USA in the early 1980s, making its last flight during 1995. It was imported back into the UK in 2015, and has now been finished as C8846, a No 1 Squadron aircraft. Matt Boddington adds, “G-AVOU will now embark on an air test programme and hopefully the full permit will be issued in time for it to join the Great War Display Team this coming season.”