The end result would have been the same. Everyone would have sat on their collective ass until the last possible moment without doing a damn thing, even if they had 5 years to come up with a plan.

Well I’m not suggesting that everything could have been saved, certainly the largest aircraft like the 707 and VC-10 would have been very difficult to do anything with no matter what. But in the case of something like the Trident, I really feel more time ought to have been given. Someone correct me if my memory is playing tricks, but iirc it was something like three weeks between the disposal announcement and scrapping. Even three months would have been short notice.

A somewhat manky Trident 1 has since been moved from Durham up to NEAM with alot of hard work over a period of months. Yes, Cosford to NEAM would have been a longer trip, but the Cosford example was in much better nick. A Trident 3 was moved from Heathrow to Manchester by road a few years back (some of the same guys doing the recent NEAM move). A few years down the line and NEAM are having to restore an example that’s very rough to begin with.

It goes to show what can be achieved with a relatively large airframe given enough forewarning.