If you go down to the woods today...

...you're sure of a big surprise. Kevin Strickson checks out what's in his neck of the woods

It's surprising what you can find tucked away in the wilds of the country, especially Lincolnshire, at places that used to be home to squadrons of Lancasters. Other Second World War aircraft now occupy the same field, including a couple of rare types that will hopefully be revealed to the world shortly...

From a total of 452 Hawker Tempest IIs built, India bought 109 and was handed 124, bringing its total to 223. Of today's survivors, nearly all are ex-Indian Air Force machines, and two are under restoration in East Midlands. Both of these Tempest IIs were originally RAF machines transferred to India and found in Poona, having been dumped there by the Indian Air Force in 1979, having been used between 1959 and 1979 as advanced trainers.

When I spoke to one of the engineers from Wickenby-based 'Tempest Two' Ltd., he said that they had four Tempests in total and they were building two flyers and one static (if possible) out of the bits. As you can see from the photograph, Tempest Two Ltd. has done an excellent job in restoring this particular bird (believed to be MW763/HA-586/G-TEMT) from its original state. It awaits the return of the engine that has been sat with California-based Nixon engines for the past two years being serviced - once this is done it should be a relatively straight forward job of assembly and then it has to have its CAA airworthiness checks.

Tempest fuselages and wings at a workshop near Hemswell in 2003 - various serials could be found, indicating a mixed bag of aircraft, some serials relating to aircraft currently in the USA

Tempest Two's other main rebuild, MW401/HA-604/G-PEST, sits in the Cooper's Aerial Survey hangar along with a Illyushin IL-2 and what looks like a Schlepp target tug. It is believed that this Tempest will go to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester as a static exhibit.

Together with MW401 and MW763, MW404 and MW758 were also recovered along with sundry spares and brought back to the UK by Warbirds UK of Blackbushe, who kept them there as an future project. I remember them appearing in Military aircraft markings in 1979 and thinking "Wow, they are rare!".

In 1980 they were sold to Tangmere Flt UK, which was based at Brooklands, near Weybridge. They stayed there untouched and as far as I know they moved through various companies. The identities of these two is varied, because some of the bits noted at Hemswell belong to some US based Tempest projects. Both Tempests disappeared from Hemswell in 2004 and it is thought that MW404 has been sold to a new owner in France. Many of the bits are thought to reside at Gamston and Wickenby.

There are two Illyushin IL-2 Sturmoviks at Wickenby (G-BZVX (c/n 1878576) and G-BZVW (c/n 1870710)), of which one is going to be a flyer and one will be preserved at the RAF Museum. Because the Cooper hangar is normally out of bounds, I am not sure if the one there is the one on re-build to fly. It can be seen through the hangar door gaps and I am sure the rebuild work standard is far better than it was when it rolled off the Illyushin line back in 1942. The second airframe lies between the hangars and is in need of some serious work, but you can identify what it is by the steel bucket that the crew sat in to protect them from small arms fire, much like the A-10A today. As you can see they also have the self-sealing rubber fuel bladders the same as the A-10A has today. There are selections of engines that can be cleaned up and either used as patterns to get new engine blocks and parts manufactured or cleaned up for static use only.

Also on the airfield is a ex-Yugoslavian Soko P-2 30149 (G-SOKO) and also a Tiger Moth T7997/G-AOBH.

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