Greetings Folks, You can see here all the worlds population of airworthy Gladiators.. One is Mk1 the other a MkII.. Where could you start with the history and indeed the legend that surrounds this aircraft.. It flew in every major area of the world, by almost every allied air force and a few Axis! It fought against aircraft that should have been so much better that it, but held its own and some cases fought far better. The Legend of Malta starts and is strongly surrounded by these aircraft.. Faith, Hope and Charity.. There were in fact 5 Gladiators but only three flew at one time, thus the Legend grew.. Somehow in a few months these tatty old aircraft defeated the Italian Air Forces Efforts, and caused them to ask the Luftwaffe for help.. Even then, the Gladiators fought well, only one was shot down.. During the Phoney War Gladiators took off and shot down a Dornier Do18 Flying Boat in the North Sea.. On 10 April 1941, 804 NAS took off from Hatston, in Orkney, to intercept a group of approaching German aircraft. Lt Cdr J. C. Cockburn was credited with one destroyed and Blue Section with a 'damaged', these were Sea Gladiators.. The Gloster Gladiator was in operational service with 247 Squadron, stationed at RAF Roborough, Devon during the Battle of Britain.. They were used extensively in North Africa.. The South African ace Marmaduke 'Pat' Pattle (who served with the RAF), claimed 15 kills in Gladiators during the North African and Greek Campaigns, making him the highest-scoring RAF biplane ace of the war. The 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War was unique in that the RAF and Royal Iraqi Air Force, used the Gladiator as their main fighter. And Britain last ever war with France against the Vichy forces also used the Gladiator, in Syria and Madagascar! I suppose the last grand hurrah of the 'old school' Fighters and Bi-planes came at the siege of RAF Habbaniya.. Now this is an event too long to relate here in detail but just to say when the Axis prompted Iraq to attack the Allied (British) forces in the Country mainly RAF training units, this base with no offensive aircraft of any type and only bi-plane and trainers with no bomb racks fitted somehow managed to hold off the whole of the Iraq army using trainers! They flew from the Polo field as the airfield was under artillery shelling.. It is highly recommended you read this epic and not from Wiki.. (RECOMMEND READ : Hidden Victory - The Battle OF Habbaniya, May 1941 by Air Vice Marshall Dudgeon, CBE, DFC.. He commanded the battle..) So, there you go, also used by Finish, Chinese, Belgium, and many other air forces.. Enjoy Rob P.S. The aircraft are from Duxford and Shuttleworth..