It’s interesting Ren, but probably only to a few of us.

It seems there is probably an element of blame to be laid at the respective doors of both BA and the RAF Museum. I suspect the larger portion lies with BA though.

When BA decided to start retaining airframes for display, they were only too happy for them to be displayed at Cosford. I believe that for many years BA sent a maintenance team to Cosford annually to keep the airliners in good condition. This maintenance support was apparently withdrawn on or after September 11th, 2001. Does the date sound familiar to anyone?

Times have changed and what was the Aerospace Museum at Cosford became the RAF Museum at Cosford. With Cosford’s emphasis changing to concentrate mainly on the preservation of airframes and artefacts of relevance to the history of the RAF, it was plainly obvious that they no longer fitted in at Cosford. The new exhibition hall at Cosford also meant the stay of the airliners at Cosford would soon be coming to an end. The timing is perhaps propitious for the RAF Museum.

However, at the root of all this lies the fact that BA abandoned five examples of the heritage they had intended to keep. None of us know so cannot comment on how active BA were in finding new homes, or even indeed whether or not the abandonment of the airliners by BA in 2001 was a fait accompli.

What is known is that the 707, Trident and VC-10 are being reduced to short display sections.

As the National Airline of Great Britain were British Airways right to let these fine examples of their own heritage be reduced to nose sections and scrap?

Regards,

kev35