The Tettenhall Transport Heritage Centre are starting a year of celebrations of 100 years of Boulton (&) Paul, by having an open day on 1st January, 10am to 4pm, and unveiling a small exhibition of the Company’s history featuring those artefacts we currently have on display, the Type D gun turret currently under restoration, the ‘Walk-in’ Balliol cockpit, WN534, The Defiant cockpit project, a small collection of power control units and other items.
It was on 4th October 1915 that the first aircraft built by the Company, an FE.2B, serial 5201, took to the air for the first time from Mousehold airfield ,Norwich. It was supposed to fly 2 days earlier, and a marquee was erected for all the dignatories who attended from London, but after ages trying to start the engine, Howard Pixton, the pilot, gave up and went home, as did the VIPs who did not even get a glass of champagne, because that had all been discovered and all drunk by the workers who had been given the day off to watch. The problem was just a wrongly wired magneto switch.
By: Wulfie - 27th February 2015 at 17:37
On 1st March we will be Bringing Steam back to Tettenhall, 50 years after the last train ran through the station we will have scale traction engines running. The Heritage Centre will be open for free, and the 100 Years of Boulton Paul Aircraft Exhibition has been enlarged. Despite offering to give a home in Wolverhampton for much of the Boulton Paul Association’s collection all we were given were the old display boards, 22 years old and having suffered under a leaky roof at Cosford,, but they did yield some useful items.
By: Keefy041 - 23rd December 2014 at 23:24
Hurrah for Mousehold Heath aerodrome !
( yes I live in Norwich ).
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December 23, 2014 at 9:29 pm