Our final day in Lincolnshire – definitely an aviation enthusiast’s dream!  We had several hours to fill between checking out and checking in, so we detoured to East Kirkby, to pay a visit to the excellent Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre.  LAHC is the proud owner of two very special heritage planes.  The star attraction, “Just Jane”, is one of only four remaining Lancaster Bombers which can move under its own power. To raise funds for full restoration to flight worthiness, they fire up the four Merlin engines, and she taxies around a field, to the delight of the crowds.  If you pay a shedload of money, you can sit in the cockpit or one of the other crew positions.  The pilot puts her through her paces, revving the engines to the max.  It’s quite something to stand right next to those four rapidly spinning propellers at full throttle.  You can only imagine what it was like at night, as the Lancasters headed off into the darkness for their missions over Europe.

The second aircraft is a Mosquito, the only remaining example of its type.  It also completes a taxy run, but is somewhat overshadowed by the much bigger and more powerful Lancaster.

Afterward, we spent a couple of hours looking at the other displays.  These include a V2 rocket, and a “bouncing bomb” that was used during practice for the famous Dambusters raids, along with many other artefacts and exhibits.  They had even marked out the section of the Greenwich Meridian, which passes through the property. 

We continued making our way north, and are now in another small village called Old Denaby, a little north east of Sheffield.