A very special Tiger Moth

More than 3,400 Tiger Moths were turned out by the Morris Motors factory at Cowley in Oxford during wartime. Many still survive. But few, if any, can quite boast the background of David Cyster’s example... 

 
David Cyster’s freshly restored Tiger Moth, G-ANRF, on one of its first outings.

More than 3,400 Tiger Moths were turned out by the Morris Motors factory at Cowley in Oxford during wartime. Many still survive. But few, if any, can quite boast the background of David Cyster’s example. It rolled off the line in 1941, going to the RAF as serial T5850. Sold into civilian hands as G-ANRF, from 1954-62 it was owned by Gp Capt Allen Wheeler, and thereafter for 12 years by the Little Snoring-based McAully Flying Group. The airframe was in pieces when David, already a long-time Tiger enthusiast, and his wife Cherry acquired it from The Hon Robin Neville in 1974.By the time its rebuild was complete, he was serving at RAF Valley as a Gnat instructor with No 4 Flying Training School — and had hatched an audacious plan.

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