Thirty years ago, the Shuttleworth Collection’s DH88 Comet Grosvenor House returned to flight for the first time – and made a memorable public debut.The man at the controls, George Ellis, recalls his formative experiences of the scarlet racer WORDS: BEN DUNNELL
DH88 COMET
It was somehow meant to be. For its first public post-restoration appearance, de Havilland DH88 Comet G-ACSS Grosvenor House found itself back at RAF Mildenhall, the airfield from which it had flown into history. The original occasion, of course, was the start of the MacRobertson Air Race to Melbourne, Australia, in October 1934. The return was in May 1987, for the Suffolk air base’s then annual Air Fete. Just as it had all those years before, the red racer made for a magnificent spectacle.
Air Fete ’87 not only witnessed the Comet’s post-restoration debut but presented it within a de Havilland gathering staged in its honour. That was down to event director Roger Hoefling, who at the time was the main Shuttleworth Collection display commentator, and often featured aircraft from Old Warden in Mildenhall shows. For 1987 came the pièce de résistance, one long in the planning.
The Comet’s restoration had started during 1974. Roger began o…
