Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome
Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome and Proving Ground is a privately owned airport in Leicestershire near the village of Bruntingthorpe. It was opened as RAF Bruntingthorpe in 1942.HistoryThe aerodrome was formerly RAF Bruntingthorpe which hosted both the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force during its life.Current usesThe site became privately owned by the Chrysler Motor Corporation in 1973, and was then used for high-performance car testing, the testing of other vehicles, and vehicle storage. These activities still take place under the ownership of the Walton family company, the former airfield having been bought from Peugeot-Talbot (Chrysler's successor), in August,1983. Various circuits are available, from 4.2 miles (6.8 km) to 0.9 miles (1.4 km) loop; or the former runway, just under 2Â miles (3Â km) long. Bruntingthorpe also includes storage, security, and a covered hangar.Bruntingthorpe houses a Cold War jet-aircraft museum with about twenty aircraft from that era. It is open on Sundays from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm, and the aircraft, including the Lightning Preservation Group's pair of English Electric Lightning F.6s, XR728 and XS904, are brought out to demonstrate fast taxi and takeoff runs on the two open days held each year, usually the end of May Bank Holiday Sunday and the end of August Bank Holiday Sunday. Aircraft currently in a taxiable state, besides the two Lightnings are: Handley Page Victor, XM715De Havilland Comet, XS235BAe Nimrod, XV226Hawker Hunter T.7, XL565Hunting Percival Jet Provosts, XN542,XN584,XM365, and XP672Blackburn Buccaneers XW544, XX894,and XX900English Electric Canberra WT333PZL TS-11 Iskra, 1018 (ex Polish AF)Aero L.29 Delphin, 395189 (Romanian AF)
