A Visit to East Midlands AeroPark – 19/5/24…

At the start of a short holiday break, I enjoyed a visit to the “East Midlands AeroPark” at Castle Donington, located right next to East Midlands Airport. They have a small but good collection of (often later-mark) Cold War era jets, mostly in reasonably good condition despite being kept outdoors.

I had not previously seen many examples of the DH Vampire, so the 2 T11 variants on display were interesting to see (XD447 and XD534). A curator explained to me that the yellow-painted aerials on the wings were part of a navigation system, based on timing differences of signals being received across the airframe. At other displays, I also had not previously noticed the large number of aerials mounted on the Nimrod’s upper fuselage. They were probably more noticeable here because a raised mound surrounding the displays gives you an elevated viewpoint.

The tandem-seat Hunter trainer, XL569, was interesting to see and in good condition, as was the FR10 mark XJ714. However, the GA11 variant WV382 was obviously in need of a coat of paint and not shown in its best light. Jaguar XZ369 was very-well displayed, with open avionics bays. Lightning ZF588 was also very-well displayed, and this was the first time that I had properly noticed just how large the Lightning airframe is.

For me though, the overall star of the show was Vulcan B2 XM575. The curator was on hand to talk about this airframe, explaining that the engines are still in place and all the electrics are working. Unfortunately the clutch plate for the bomb-bay doors was needing to be replaced, so they could not demonstrate that mechanism. That was more than compensated for by a view above and along the wing’s leading edge, showing that its shape is much more complex than the simple delta that you see from below. It was also interesting to see the Ram Air Turbine (“RAT”) deployed – this would have provided electric to the aircraft if all other systems had failed, ie a power source of last resort (“deploy and pray”, as the curator said).

Here are some photos from my visit – all copyright Lee Russell, 2024.

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