The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Chipmunk Aerobatics
RAF Chipmunk Formation Flyers are in the air over Exeter.
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Overview
Chipmunk aircraft are in formation above the Exeter and the River Exe. The aircraft was used for training RAF pilots from 1947 to 1956. They were made by de Havilland in Hatfield and Broughton near Chester. The Royal Air Force received 735 Chipmunk T10s and some remained in service until 1996. Chipmunk aircraft or their cockpits survive to this day and are used in to train pilots in the different technique of tailwheel flying. It took over from the de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane of the 1930s.
RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight based at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire since 1976 keeps and flies heritage planes including a Lancaster bomber, Spitfires and the last two Chipmunks in military service. It was from Lincolnshire bases that RAF 617 Squadron under Guy Gibson carried out Operation Chastise using Barnes Wallis' bouncing bomb to destroy the Ruhr dams in Germany at the end of the Second World War.
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