Eric Vormezeele’s son Frederic running up the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in Hispano Buchón C.4K-131 at Brasschaat. Note the recently-fitted Messerschmitt 109K tail unit. Via Frederic Vormezeele

At Brasschaat Airport, just north of Antwerp, Eric Vormezeele’s Hispano HA-1112-M1L Buchón had its Rolls-Royce Merlin run up for the first time in many years during January, in preparation for a proposed return to the air. The Spanish-built Messerschmitt Bf 109, C.4K-131/OO-MAF, hasn’t flown for more than a decade, and was recently fitted with a genuine Messerschmitt Bf 109K vertical tail unit.

An artist’s impression of the proposed developments at the Brooklands Museum. The camouflaged building is the relocated Wellington Hangar, with to its right the new build, two-storey Flight Shed. Brooklands Museum

The Brooklands Museum’s Aircraft Factory and Race Track Revival Project received a first-round pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund on February 1, with an initial grant of £286,500 being allocated. The museum will now add further cash and volunteer input for development work as it progresses towards an application for the remainder of the full £4.85m HLF grant in 2015.

The project will see the restoration and relocation of the museum’s Grade 2-listed Wellington Hangar, which was built in 1940 on the finishing straight of the Brooklands motor racing circuit. During the war it was a Wellington bomber assembly shed, and currently houses a wide range of aircraft, including the only surviving Vickers Wellington with a combat record, Mk Ia N2980, Hawker Hurricane IIa Z2389, Vickers Vimy replica NX71MY and Hawker-Siddeley Harrier T.52 G-VTOL. Following restoration, the hangar will be rebuilt on an adjacent site, allowing the finishing straight of the race track to be brought back into use for both motoring and aviation activities. 

Hawker Hurricane Mk I P3351 being flown by Keith Skilling on March 29, 2002, near the Alpine Fighter Collection base at Wanaka, New Zealand. Phil Makanna

Battle of France veteran Hawker Hurricane Mk I P3351/ZK-TPL left New Zealand by sea on February 10 headed for an as yet undisclosed new owner in Europe. The machine has been sold by Platinum Fighter Sales on behalf of the previous owner, the Alpine Fighter Collection (AFC) at Wanaka.

Recovered from a crash site near Murmansk in 1992 by Jim Pearce, the fighter was restored for Tim Wallis’s AFC by Hawker Restorations in the UK, being shipped to New Zealand in October 1995 where the systems fit, painting and finishing were completed by Air New Zealand Engineering Services. It flew again with Keith Skilling at the controls on January 12, 2000, at Christchurch Airport, and was a star item at the Warbirds Over Wanaka shows. Sadly, it had not flown for several years prior to the recent sale.

Stunning Albatros D.Va replica ‘D5397’/ G-BFXL, at the MAM in Virginia Beach in February. It is scheduled to make its flying debut at the MAM’s Biplanes and Triplanes air show at Virginia Beach on October 12-13. MAM

After spending nearly 30 years at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton, Albatros D.Va replica G-BFXL has been acquired by Jerry Yagen’s Military Aviation Museum, and was assembled at Virginia Beach during January. Originally built in the mid-1970s by master craftsman Art Williams and his team at Williams Flugzeugbau at  Guenzburg, 35 miles east of Augsburg in southern Germany, the Ranger-engined machine was registered to the Surrey-based Leisure Sport company in August 1978, and operated alongside several other First World War replicas. In the mid-1980s it went to the FAAM.