

Members of the Stirling Project in St Neots, which relies entirely on donations in its aim to create the world's only Stirling bomber aircraft, have spent more than 15 years engineering parts of the plane in their town centre workshop.

But the aircraft - currently not assembled - is said to dwarf a Lancaster Bomber and needs moving somewhere large enough to house its 24ft x 8ft x 12ft frame.





"The aircraft is referred to as the 'forgotten bomber' because there's no tangible remains," project secretary John Lathwell told The Hunts Post. "There are no drawings in existence because the manufacturer, Shorts of Belfast (now Bombardier), destroyed most of them post-war, so we have to make our drawings based on photographs."


Drawings are then created using computer-aided design (CAD) which transforms the images into three-dimensional parts for manufacture - work that is also carried out by the volunteers.

Mr Lathwell, of Eaton Ford, added: "At the moment we're focusing on the cockpit which is the hardest part, but we'll eventually build the fuselage which means we'll need a new workshop. In terms of size, the Stirling dwarfs the Lancaster bomber - it's the size of a railway carriage so we need to move soon.

"In addition to the cockpit, which is particularly complex, we've built a gun turret which is on display at the Pathfinder Museum at RAF Wyton. The work is gradually taking up more space so we're looking for somewhere bigger within about 20 miles of St Neots."
