Behind the Scenes: Shuttleworth Collection of Historic Aircraft
It's dangerous to let me loose with a camera around historic aircraft - I absolutely love to photograph these flying machines! I could spend hours capturing every little detail, especially when the aircraft carry real historic value.
Every year, the Shuttleworth Collection, which is a private collection of historic aircraft maintained by volunteers, opens the doors to their workshops for visitors to see behind the scenes of what it takes to maintain and keep 100+ year old aircraft airworthy! The collection, which aims to preserve the airworthy nature of these aircraft, many of which are the only remaining flyable ones left in the world, spent almost a half million British pounds ($750,000) to achieve this goal in 2015.
With my Leica SL in hand, I spent several hours photographing the inside of the workshops, which are normally closed to visitors. This provided me with a rare opportunity to see inside these aircraft while they are in maintenance - and it was truly spectacular.
1941 Supermarine Spitfire Inside Struts
Engine and wooden propeller
Aircraft engineer hands
Bristol Scout C cockpit
Inside the wing of a 1941 Spitfire
Parts hanging in the workshop
Britsol Boxkite tail
Shuttleworth Engineer
Clamps
1938 Westland Lysander engine
Fabrication
Bristol strut
Workshop
Parts
Safety belt
Tools and parts
Machine gun replica on 1917 Bristol F2B
Wooden Propeller
Tail from 1942 North American Harvard
Avro 19 Series 2 in the hangar