THE East Yorkshire home of Britain’s transatlantic airship will host the 75th celebrations of one of the world’s most successful aircraft.
Both the R100, which flew to Toronto, in Canada, and back again, and the Vickers Wellington, which was used by several RAF bomber squadrons in the Second World War, used geodetic construction designed by Barnes Wallis, inventor of the “bouncing bomb”, used in the Dambusters raid carried out by 617 Squadron.
The Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust has arranged a public meeting at Howden School, near Goole, today from 7pm to 10pm, which will be attended by the inventor’s eldest daughter, Dr Mary Stopes-Roe, who is a trustee of the trust, Tim Wallis, manager of the Sir Michael Beetham Conservation Centre, which is overseeing restoration of the RAF Museum’s Wellington, and Robert Owen, official historian of the 617 Squadron Aircrew Association. Both men will give talks. The Wellington first flew in June 1936 and nearly 11,500 were built.
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