Bristol museum's boxkite replica gets spring clean

One of the most well-known exhibits in the City Museum & Art Gallery in Bristol will be having a spring clean next week.

The boxkite hanging from the ceiling of the museum's front hall will be lowered to the ground for a thorough MOT, in preparation for the centenary of Bristol's aircraft industry next year.

The aircraft was one of three built for the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.

During Banksy's hijack of the museum earlier this year, the boxkite was piloted by an orange jumpsuited Guantanamo Bay inmate.

The museum's boxkite is a replica of a Bristol Boxkite, a pioneering aircraft first built in 1910. They were the first aircraft ordered by the British War Ministry for its armed forces, the first being delivered in early 1911.

The Bristol Boxkite was used as a single-seat observation and two-seat training aircraft. It was crewed by a pilot and observer, with a length of 39ft (12m), wingspan of 46ft (14m), height of 11ft (4m) and empty weight of 900lb (408kg).

In Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, the museum's replica boxkite featured as the Phoenix Flyer.

After filming, 20th Century Fox sold the aircraft to the British Aircraft Corporation at Filton, which presented the plane to the museum in 1965 where it has hung in the front hall ever since.

The boxkite will be lowered to the floor next week and museum staff will spend several days cleaning it.

It will then be turned around to face the front hall staircase, before being raised up to the roof space once again.

Museum curator Andy King will also be using the opportunity to study the boxkite in more detail, seven years after it was last taken down for cleaning. He said: "Because the aircraft is a replica made for a film, it is not correct in every detail. What we would like to do is correct it how we can, especially the engine, so it is as historically accurate as it can possibly be."

Mr King will see if the engine can be modified to look like the original or look into finding an original replacement, in time for the centenary celebrations next year. It will be the centenary of the birth of aircraft production in Filton in 2010.