Shackleton WL798

Indeed the title of the programme concerned was Perpetual Motion, I’ve a digital copy of this, but it was converted from VCR and not all of it made the conversion.

WL798 was still substantially complete whilst I was at Lossie for a week long visit to 8 Sqn in Jan 1990. However, 3 months later I do believe WL738 (the gate guard) and WL798 got the chop, moving to Williamsons scrapyard in Elgin.

The programme IIRC does not focus on WL756, all filming of the Shack in the programme was at Lossie, no sign of St. Mawgan I think.

I have seen reports of WL798’s nose surviving, but to be honest, if you see the way it is getting hacked to death by a JCB in Perpetual Motion, I don’t think there was any attempt at salvage at all.

Hope this helps,
Scotty

Could well be, all in the mists of time now!

There was an article in Flypast magazine about the same time, written by the producer, detailing the making of the programme.

Andrew Johnston I think?

Yes, strangely I kind of knew the producer via a college friend, I helped by collating some Shackleton noises from somewhere!

I’ve got that episode somewhere on VHS (sadly no vcr to play it on) remember that that it focused somewhat on WL756, the prouducer came to St Mawgan to visit the remains of 756 on the fire dump to complete the story from his perspective.

That’s it, thanks, istr it was bout 20-30 mins long?

I think the TV docu you’re referring to was called ‘Perpetual Motion’, it was part of a series on mechanical things that had stayed in service far longer than expected. I remember watching the Shackleton episode as I kid, I think they did another about the DC-3 aswell.

I remember in 1989 thinking that this was the Shack that should be rescued and preserved, it was in timewarp condition from when it left service as an MR.2.

There’s pictures in one edition of “Wrecks and Relics” that show large, recognisible chunks of WL798 in a scrapyard. It is possible parts of it survives, and it has been mentioned by several people that it does. I’ve never seen photo proof though.

I surveyed this Shack when it was a complete MR.2 (with nose cannon, long bomb doors, radome, full interior – most of which found its way on to AEW.2 WL795 at Mawgan) being stored in the Jaguar stores hangar at Lossiemouth in ’89.
There was a short BBC documentary made on the Shackleton in the mid ’90s, and I’m sure it showed a digger gouging into the side of the fwd fuselage of this aircraft (by then gutted) and moving it around, so unsure how much of it would have survived.
Not terribly helpful I’m afraid.