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Following the early success of the Hawker Hurricane in RAF service during the Battle of Britain, the Royal Navy decided to introduce the Sea Hurricane as protection for the Atlantic convoys. Hurricane Z7015 was built by Canadian Car & Foundry at its Ontario plant during 1940 as a Mk.I. and after flight testing was shipped to the UK. In June 1941 it was converted to Sea Hurricane 1b standard and had a patchy wartime flying career until 1943, when it was delivered to Loughborough College as an instructional airframe. It remained there until it was transferred to the Shuttleworth Collection in 1961. In the early 1970s, the first of several restoration attempts started but it wasn’t until February 1986 that a Shuttleworth team began work in earnest and this led eventually to the first flight of the Worlds ONLY airworthy Sea Hurricane Ib, in the hands of pilot Andy Sephton, in September 1995. The aircraft flies today in the colours of No.880 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, on HMS Indomitable. It is allocated the civilian registration letters G-BKTH, but does not wear them.
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