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Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre is an aviation museum in East Kirkby, Lincolnshire. It was opened to the public in 1988 by Lincolnshire farmers Fred and Harold Panton, as a memorial to their older brother, Christopher Witton Panton, who died during the Second World War.
The centre's main exhibit is Avro Lancaster Mk VII, NX611, named 'Just Jane'. The Lancaster makes regular taxi runs which raises some of the money needed to maintain and restore it. There have been major works carried out on 'Just Jane' to restore her to airworthy condition. A De Havilland Mosquito NF11 also makes regular taxi runs.
History
The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre is a privately owned and run Museum and was set up by two farming brothers, Fred and Harold Panton. It has been built up as a memorial to Bomber Command and primarily as a tribute to their eldest brother Christopher Whitton Panton; who was shot down and killed on a bombing raid over Nuremberg in March 1944.
On the night of 30/31 March 1944, Christopher Whitton Panton was flying in Handley Page Halifax HX272, one of 782 heavy bombers taking part in a raid on the German city of Nuremberg. This attack, known as RAF Bomber Command's "Black Friday", would become notorious for the high losses incurred - 108 British aircraft were lost, 665 aircrew were killed and 159 taken prisoner.
By the early 1970s, Christopher's younger brothers - Fred and Harold Panton - were successful poultry farmers. They became interested in acquiring a Second World War aircraft as a tribute to him and managed to obtain an option to purchase Avro Lancaster Mk VII, NX611, then serving as a gate guardian at RAF Scampton. The aircraft's purchase had the condition that it remain at Scampton until 1983. In 1981, they bought a part of the former Royal Air Force airfield, RAF East Kirkby, to be a site for the aircraft when it became available. The Lancaster was moved there in 1987 and has been there ever since.
The airfield was originally built in 1943 as a Bomber Command Station and was used by both No. 57 Squadron RAF and No. 630 Squadron RAF from 1943 until the end of the war. It had four years of post-war use by United States Air Force for Air Rescue squadrons before military use ceased in 1958. The airfield was sold in 1964. Much of the runway is still intact today and it is used by local farmers as hard standing.
'Just Jane' makes regular taxi runs which raises some of the money needed to maintain and restore it. It is hoped that the Lancaster can be restored to airworthy condition.
The centre also houses the cockpit of an English Electric Canberra WH957, the wreckage of Supermarine Spitfire BL655 which crashed in July 1943, killing its Canadian pilot, Flying Officer Norman Alexander Watt, and there are two aircraft undergoing restoration to flying condition, a Percival Proctor and a Handley Page Hampden. There is also a Barnes Wallis Bouncing Bomb as well as twelve Second World War-era, RAF ground vehicles.
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