Key.Aero heads to the Heritage Hangar at Biggin Hill, one of the world’s great Spitfire collections.
Biggin Hill was a crucial RAF base in World War II. Now a private airport, just the Heritage Hangar stands to commemorate the hundreds of aeroplanes that would take off and land on this Kent-based runway throughout the conflict. Pilots would scramble at a moment’s notice, revving up their engines and taking off to defend their country while the London skyline grew smaller in the distance.
The Heritage Hangar that stands on the far end of the airfield is owned by Peter Monk. A self-confessed Spitfire fanatic, Peter gave up his job as a commercial airline pilot to restore Spitfires full time. Now, his hangar is home to the world’s largest collection of restored Supermarine Spitfires. Not only this, but they also have a couple of Hurricanes and even a Bf-109 in their museum hangar. The Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar is also one of the few locations in Britain – well, in the world – that offers paying customers the chance to fly in one of their beautiful machines.
Key.Aero recently visited the Heritage Hangar to take a look and understand the amount of effort and hard work that goes into these machines behind the scenes. While we were there we met Peter’s son, Alex, an engineer employed by his father to work on the aeroplanes and restore them. Watch our little chat with him in the video above…
