August breakfast meet.

[Mr Gazza]

Thanks again to DaveR for suggesting this meet, saves me a lot of head scratching.

We're heading for a new Café this time. The Broken Egg at Harleston.
This is on the Redenhill road on the East side of Harleston, so you can go through the town heading East, or come off the roundabout on the A143 from Bungay way.

Sunday August 11th, 10am, The Broken Egg. Hill Farm, Redenhall Road, Harleston, Norfolk IP20 9QN.

We're going to visit the Norfolk Suffolk Aviation Museum after breakfast, just down the road a Flixton.

[Bitza]

Now then look out for a unique item at the Flixton museum. It's a seaplane (wings removed I think) named Son of Colditz. It was designed and built by Flight Lieutenant Bill Goldfinch, but never flown. Bill had been a driving force behind the building of the famous Colditz Cock glider.
I've never seen it myself, but I did know Bill when I was a child, at the Old Sarum flying club. Flying a Tiger Moth mostly. Lovely man and a real craftsman too. Let me know how it goes.

[Mr Gazza]

I'll keep an eye out for it. I'm pretty sure they have a Colditz glider there, or at least a replica. Maybe that was the work of Bill Goldfinch too?

[Bitza]

Most likely the replica made for the itv series, which I believe actually got to fly, well a bit anyway.

[walkingpictures]

A guy at Cambridge University called Hugh Hunt was part of the team that built not only a replica of the Colditz glider but also a replica of the Barnes bouncing bomb.Think his father was at Colditz during the war.

For sure there was a documentary on television a few years back,Hugh bought his laptop into the pub one evening and did us our own film show of the project,nice guy

[Grumpy]

Last September, I headed to Germany, near Leipzig, to watch one of the iirc rounds.
A couple of towns over from where I stayed was Colditz, so being in the area I visited the castle, and joined a tour, which included the area of the Castle used during WW2 as a low camp.
At the end of the tour, the guide handed me the keys to a non descript door, saying, go look in the attic!? Where I found a replica of the famous glider along with a series of information boards explaining the story behind the glider plus footage of when Channel 4 launched the gilder to see if it would fly, which it did.
A day to remember.

[Mr Gazza]

Amazing!
I managed to find a short bit of footage on YouTube, hopefully the one you saw?
https://youtu.be/nSHugyLm8u4?si=Dcq_9tAyyoZVAdEO

And also a full documentary which I will watch later, hopefully the one the short film is extracted from?
https://youtu.be/LmaIuH94Vwg?si=ASW483ZcQZtQBzn8

I just searched "C4 Colditz glider" and several came up, including some with a picture of the same fella, presumably Bill Goldfinch?

[Mr Gazza]

What a great meeting it turned out to be after getting messages from a mate in Bungay saying he was going elsewhere today and from DaveR telling me he would be otherwise detained.
I caught up (rather rapidly) with and old British bike down the lanes and passed it realising that it was a mate of mine who sometimes attends our meetings. I stopped to let him catch up but he didn't recognise me!
So I realised he was going to meet my Bungay mate and followed him to their rendezvous which I had correctly predicted. So I managed to have a quick chat with both of them, which was nice.
Arriving at the Broken Egg I was pleasantly surprised to see Roger and Dacs already there.
DaveR had managed to escape his Sunday work call and was already on his way, so we had a a table of 4 in the end which was an unexpected bonus.

The view from our outside table was splendid.



Food and coffee was very nice, but the poor staff were clearly overwhelmed, probably something to do with the searing heat!
All very pleasant though and another venue to go on the repeat list for sure.

DaveR and I went on to Flixton to have a look at the museum and found the Cock Glider.



There's a smaller model of it hanging above the full size replica




There was no sign of a Colditz Seaplane. I was told it had been moved some time ago to a London IWM, but he didn't specify.

More photos to come when I get the film back from the chemist.

Smashing day on great roads. I covered 100 miles, but I went quite a convoluted route home to avoid freshly chipped roads.

[Bitza]

Well they've certainly packed the space with..... Well lots of interesting stuff.

[Mr Gazza]

Yes it's crammed in alright. That's why I keep going, as there's always something I missed.
Plenty of whole airframes and cockpits outside too. You can see them on google Earth.

More pictures.



Inexplicably one of my favourites? And almost hidden round the back.
An important section from a TSR2. It has the pivots for the all moving tail planes and the rudder. How long did it take to make just that one part?