Rare WWI bomber found in stable restored to former glory
A First World War bomber found in a maharajah’s elephant stable in India finally returned to its Cambridgeshire base yesterday.
The rare DH9 was originally based at the airfield, now part of the Imperial War Museum, and widely used over the Western Front.
A total of 2,000 were built by Warings of Hammersmith, West London, a furniture manufacturer, but only six are known to survive worldwide and the aircraft is the only one in a British national collection. It was sent to India as part of the Imperial Gift Scheme, designed to give countries within the Empire a chance to start or develop their own air forces in the 1920s.
In 2000 the estate of the late Maharajah of Bikaner agreed to dispose of it but the woodwork was substantially damaged by long-term storage. A two-year programme of restoration has been carried out and the aircraft will go on display at the museum’s new £25 million exhibition hangar.
Read entire article at Times (of London)
The rare DH9 was originally based at the airfield, now part of the Imperial War Museum, and widely used over the Western Front.
A total of 2,000 were built by Warings of Hammersmith, West London, a furniture manufacturer, but only six are known to survive worldwide and the aircraft is the only one in a British national collection. It was sent to India as part of the Imperial Gift Scheme, designed to give countries within the Empire a chance to start or develop their own air forces in the 1920s.
In 2000 the estate of the late Maharajah of Bikaner agreed to dispose of it but the woodwork was substantially damaged by long-term storage. A two-year programme of restoration has been carried out and the aircraft will go on display at the museum’s new £25 million exhibition hangar.