IWM Duxford

In the Battle of Britain hangar is another Hawker Hurricane, this is a mkIIb variant for use in North Africa.

Although this airframe carries the registration Z2315 it is a composite of two wrecks recovered from the former USSR. One piece has BE146 stamped on it so parts may come from that particular airframe. BE146 was one of around 3000 built by Hawker afterr 1941 under a lend-lease with the USSR.

This is a genuine WW2 Messerschmitt Bf109E-3 built at Leipzig in 1939. The aircraft was being flown by Unteroffizier Horst Perez on September 30, 1940 when it was attacked by Hurricanes over Beachy Head, later belly-landing in a field at East Dean, Sussex with only superficial damage. It was taken to the Royal Aircraft Establishment and was later dispatched to the United States and Canada where it was used for exhibition purposes in connection with the 'Bundles for Britain' campaign. At the end of the hostilities it was delivered to the Arnprior Research Establishment in Ontario. The aircraft was subsequently acquired by Peter Foote, an employee of the British Aircraft Corporation, in 1966. By the November of that year, it had been transferred to Hurn airfield, near Bournemouth. Mr Foote painstakingly began the task of conserving the aircraft.