R.E.8 Restoration

Flight Journal, Oct 2004 by Gosling, Peter

THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM at Duxford's R.E.8, F3556, was originally paid for by the people of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), built by the Daimler Motor Co., and it is powered by an RAF 4a engine. After a 30-minute air test piloted by Lt. Halstead, it was crated and sent to France; it arrived on November 11, 1918. It remained there until it was returned to England and moved to the new British War Museum in London.

The plane eventually found its way to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford in Cambridgeshire, where its initial restoration took place between 1974 and 1978. The latest restoration (finished in June 2004 for static display) was to the condition it would have been in on its initial delivery. F3556 is the only complete "original" example of its type in existence and will eventually hang from the ceiling of the new Air Space exhibition hangar that is being built at the museum. One other is preserved in Brussels, but it has been much modified.

The restoration was carried out under the guidance of the museum's conservation officer, Dave Upton. Its upper surfaces are finished in the standard RFC color PC10 Khaki, which is similar to the Flanders mud that covered the area of the Western Front. The only deviation from the original is that the fuel tank was originally made of gutta percha, a substance once used to make golf balls and similar to the rubber that provided an elementary form of sealsealing. A protective aluminum cover has been made to protect the tank while the R.E.8 is displayed.

-Peter Gosling