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Twenty-five years after initial restoration work began, the world’s only surviving Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri, Fl 282 V-10 Werknummer 28368, is nearing completion at the Midland Air Museum on the edge of Coventry’s Baginton Airport. Work has sped up rapidly over the past four years, with 94-year-old No 605 Squadron veteran Gordon Talbot and Mark Lilly focused on the project. Barry James, curator at the museum says, “We originally got the Flettner from the Cranfield Institute of Technology in the early 1970s, but it then spent several years in storage at the National Agricultural Centre at Stoneleigh. It didn’t come with an engine, but we managed to source one from the USA. The instruments had also disappeared, but we have had them 3D-printed and the instrument panel is now in place.”