This aircraft is the de Havilland DH.88 Comet, registered as G-ACSS and named Grosvenor House. Designed specifically by de Havilland Aircraft Company in 1934 as a two-seat racing monoplane, it has a wingspan of 44 feet, an overall length of 29 feet, and a weight of 2,840 pounds. It is powered by two 205-horsepower de Havilland Gipsy Queen II inline six-cylinder engines and has a maximum speed of 220 miles per hour. It was the very first aircraft of its class to win the MacRobertson Air Race between Mildenhall, England, and Melbourne, Australia, in October 1934, covering the route in 70 hours and 54 minutes with C.W.A. Scott and Tom Campbell Black, after being hired by A.O. Edwards.

Following this historic success, the aircraft was evaluated by the Royal Air Force and assigned the serial number K5084. Having suffered several accidents while in RAF service, it was sold as a surplus aircraft before being rescued by F. Tasker and restored by Essex Aero Ltd. It was then renamed “The Orphan” and took fourth place in the England-Damascus air race in 1937, and was later renamed “The Burberry” to set new records for round-trip flights to Cape Town as well as between England and New Zealand in ten days, twenty-one hours, and twenty-two minutes. Moved into storage during World War II, it was subsequently restored as a static display to be exhibited suspended from the ceiling at the Festival of Britain in 1951. Donated to the Shuttleworth Collection in 1965, it underwent an extensive restoration project to return it to airworthy condition, supported by some fifty organizations. The work was first carried out at the RAE in Farnborough and then at the British Aerospace workshops in Hatfield, enabling it to make its first flight in May 1987 after a 49-year hiatus. Transferred to Old Warden after Hatfield closed, it experienced a landing gear incident in 2002 that required investigations and approved structural modifications before it flew again in August 2014.

Currently owned by the Shuttleworth Collection, the aircraft is the subject of plans by the Shuttleworth Trust to restore it to airworthy condition following an incident that occurred during the Flying Proms air show on August 15, 2026.