Hi, Respect to those who flew these... The legendary, Fairy Swordfish.. This being the one I have not seen, the Flight has two, 'City Of Liverpool', and this 'City of Leeds'.. This is a Swordfish Mk I, the oldest flying aircraft.. This aircraft, a 'Blackfish' built by Blackburn Aircraft at Sherburn-in-Elmet, first flew on Trafalgar Day (21 October) 1941. She served with the Mediterranean Fleet for a year and was returned to Fairey's Stockport factory for refurbishment. Used for advanced flying training and trials, the aircraft was sent to Canada where it was again used in a training role and stored in reserve after the war's end. Passing through the hands of at least two civilian operators after disposal, she was purchased by Sir William Roberts and brought to Scotland to join his Strathallan Collection. Bought by British Aerospace for presentation to the Swordfish Heritage Trust, the partly-restored airframe went to BAe Brough for complete restoration to flying condition, the work being completed in 1993. W5856 is painted in the pre-war colours of 810 Squadron embarked in HMS Ark Royal (Pre-War). The horizontal stripes on the fin denote the Commanding Officer's aircraft, and the blue and red fuselage stripes are the colours for Ark Royal with the letter code 'A' being for the ship, '2' for the second squadron and 'A' for the first aircraft of that squadron. The long yellow fuselage strip identified 810 as Yellow Squadron in the summer air exercises held in 1939. In September 1996 W5856 was adopted by the City of Leeds and now proudly wears the City's coat of arms and name on her port side just forward of the pilot's cockpit. Stories of Swordfish actions are many and too long to list, Bismark, Toranto (Pearl Harbour was based on this attack), and the VC winning doomed attack during the Channel Dash by 6 'Fish' all lost when their fighter cover mostly failed to appear.. The Swordfish attacked anyway, all were lost (including the pilot who found Bismark). But, it is also known the crews preferred them to the replacements, the Albacore.. In fact the Swordfish was in service at the end of the war and the 'Core' was just about gone! It was not all doom and gloom when attacked by fighters either, they were extremely agile, and very slow.. Cruise was 90 knots, and they could go slower.. Fighters of course found this very difficult to line-up a shot.. U-boats disliked them as despite their look, they had a 4 hour plus endurance.. This aircraft fklew with a Gladiator and a Harvard (U.S markings) at the show.. Rob