Biggles's Bloater

 

I had the very pleasant opportunity today to look closely at Matthew Boddington's BE2c replica and to chat with Matthew and several other of the excellent Great War Display Team. An added bonus was to find my old mate Trevor Bailey there; Trevor was doing a display practice with a view to joining them to fly one of the SE5as.

Matthew's BE2 was built in the seventies for a Biggles film and has been fully restored to flight. It uses a Gipsy Queen engine that, when viewed from the side, does a pretty convincing impersonation of the RAF 1a V8. What I particularly like is that it looks like a working aeroplane, not a museum piece. Matthew has even painted some weathering into the dope and the effect is tremendous - I was convinced I was looking at Irish linen rather than Ceconite.

Copious photos were added to my reference library!