Spitfire at Great Easton?

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19 years 4 months

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While Duxford was in full swing yesterday afternoon my mate phoned me from Great Easton near Dunmow, home of Taylors Rolls Royce garage. Apparently they were having a bit of a party yesterday, and while he was taking his dog for a walk, was subjected to what he described as some awesome low level aerobatics by a spitfire, though he admitted he couldn't tell the difference between that and a hurricane, but I could hear the sound of a merlin over the phone, even though this is near the end of Stansted runway.This was followed by what I think was a Pitts special, yellow Extra and a JET powered microlight.
Does anyone know anything about this?

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19 years 11 months

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I think it's P & A Wood Ltd at Great easton nr Dunmow -

well known Merlin restorers and IIRC the Sopwith Dove repro at Shuttleworth is also owned by them.

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21 years

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There is no Sopwith Dove repro at Shuttleworth.

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20 years 1 month

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At one time the Woods had Spitfire TD248 in there Showroom!

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24 years 2 months

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AR614 was there for a time as well.

Member for

19 years

Posts: 2,106

There is no Sopwith Dove repro at Shuttleworth.

There cerainly use to be!

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20 years 7 months

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The occasion at Great Easton was a unique 'one-off' event to mark the 50th anniversary of the Rolls-Royce Slver Cloud and the Bentley S Type motor cars. A large number of guests (many being R-R or Bentley owners and therefore customers of P&A Wood) were specially invited to attend and my wife and I were lucky enough to be included.

Among the attractions specially laid on were ground-running demos by a R-R Merlin 35 (owned by David Corbett) and an 80hp Le Rhone rotary (owned by Andrew Wood) plus Brooklands Museum's Napier-Railton's Napier Lion aero engine.

This was followed by an impressive air display featuring Charlie Brown flying a Spitfire Vb from Duxford, Stewart Luck flying Andrew Wood's ex-Bentley Motors DH60G Gipsy Moth G-ABAG, Dennis Neville doing aerobatics in his own Chipmunk, Denny Dobson with his yellow Extra 300 and last but not least the incredible Microjet 'Jetbug'! The latter is actually a gas turbine-powered hang glider (not a microlight) and has to be seen and heard to be believed. See http://www.microjeteng.com/ and look at the 'jetbug' links for more.

The Sopwith Dove is definitely owned by Andrew Wood but is not currently airworthy (I'm not sure where it is kept) - he does have a business to run too!

Altogether this was a really excellent day and I must congratulate Paul and Andrew Wood and their staff for all their hard work in organising it.

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20 years 7 months

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At one time the Woods had Spitfire TD248 in there Showroom!
Can't do TD248. Will AR614 do?
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20 years 1 month

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Nice piccie Janie. My work used to take me into there premises on a regular basis years ago when TD248 was there. Not long after they acquired a Hunter. I've always hoped that would appear in there showroom one day but unless I've just missed it it never has.

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24 years 2 months

Posts: 201

Sopwith Dove

I think it's P & A Wood Ltd at Great easton nr Dunmow -

well known Merlin restorers and IIRC the Sopwith Dove repro at Shuttleworth is also owned by them.


Do you mean this Sopwith Dove?

http://www.vintagefabrics.co.uk/images/dove_02.jpg

Glenn