At Garmendale, we have created train rides since the 1980s. Our range of electric cars have been delivering fun and excitement for kids at both Legoland Windsor and Sundown Adventureland for many years.

But finally we have some planes to add to our collection. The planes from Oakwood Theme Park are part of their Aerodrome ride.

The Aerodrome has always been a popular ride at Oakwood Theme Park, having first been installed in 1992 as part of ‘Toy Town’ development, it now forms part of the London section of the Neverland area. The ride is themed around Croydon Aerodrome which became the focus of the worldwide media when, in 1930, Amy Johnson became the first woman pilot to fly solo from Croydon Aerodrome to Australia. She left England on 5 May and landed at Darwin, Northern Territory on 24 May having covered a distance of 11,000 miles.

Consisting of eight individually decorated aeroplanes, representing Great Britain, France, Spain, Wales, England, Scotland or Ireland the planes allow kids to fly high over the park. After all these years of service outside, facing the elements, it was time for a major overhaul. You can see from these images that the paintwork looks a little tired.

The Garmendale theme park ride refurbishment team removed the planes, brought them back to our workshop and are now well underway with a full bodywork recondition. This consists of removing all of the brightwork, the propellers and the paint.

In its raw form, they can then ensure the structure of the body itself is completely sound, before a multi-coat respray and reseal. When this is all completed to our usual high standards, a full rebuild will take place to ensure the planes are finished to a better than new standard.

We’ll show you the completed planes reinstalled in a future blog post, but in the meantime, you can enjoy a short video of them in action here.

Oakwood have a history of reinvesting in their park and ensuring that their rides are kept both mechanically pristine and great fun for kids and adults alike. You saw in our recent post about their investment in the Megafobia ride refurbishment.