RAF Henlow clear-out, what caused it?

Agent K

I have spoken with the Curator and he told me that sadly most of the cockpit on WX905 was already gutted before it was purchased by Newark from RAF Henlow via the M.O.D.

It is only slowly being replaced as and when items become available for re-fitting, although they may have some appropriate scopes etc in their exhibition building.

The relics like the Stirling parts from Mickle Fell were at the workshops at Cardington in the nineties,when i went to view my dad’s Tempest V NV778 which he flew at Pembrey.

Thanks all for your posts.

Any idea what caused this disposal (storage space?) and why disposing of bits of Stirling, Spitfire etc. Or was this a lack of historic knowledge?
IIRC there was an article in flypast in the nineties where sections of Anson were disposed off by a major NZ museum where at the last minute bits were saved but the majority was scrapped.

Cheers

Cees

I remember both the Pickle Factory and the T2 very well. I lived there and we looked around the place in 1984/85 when I was a teenager. I remember being amazed at seeing a fully assembled Comet in the T2. The Belvedere or was it the civvy variant? was there at the time too.

In 1989 I was there as an airman when the place was being cleared, it wasn’t just airframes, there were all sorts of artifacts. Shortly afterwards it was demolished, as was the T2 and many other historic buildings in the following years (including the 6 Bellman Hangars where the aircraft for the film Battle of Britain were stored)

Also slightly later the remenants of the railway that used to run through the camp were demolished, in the form of the supply building that had a platform.

Somewhere I will have a list of the aircraft that were resident at the time, I will try to find it although they were published in W&R at the time!

AFAIK RAF Henlow was used as storage for the RAF Museum. At some point a large clear out was effected that saw bits of Stirling, Tomahawk, Albemarle etc scrapped.

What caused it, and was anything save at all?

Questions, questions, yes I know:rolleyes:

Cheers

Cees

Cees,

There was an upside.:)

I found some wonderful parts in the Baldock scrapyard, including a lovely pair of Spitfire tail planes still attached at the spar. By today’s standard they would recover or yield masses of parts for a reconstruction.

From memory they were from an SM*** mk IX or XVI.

Mark

I did my end of course radar exam on that very Venom at Yatesbury in 1960.

John

Interesting, I don’t know how complete the radar and avionics fit is on the aircraft, next time I’m over at the museum I’ll try and check with the Curator.

I think it was just that, the closure of the “pickle factory”, some was put into storage in Cardington, just up the road, the rest was scrapped. Chack out the RAF web site and look at a great .pdf book available to download on the bases section on Henlow. I have a great interest in this place given where I live!

I did my end of course radar exam on that very Venom at Yatesbury in 1960.

John

All of the T2 hangars and the old “pickle” factory hangar No 194 were demolished around 1994 due to repair costs and health and safety concerns. I remember the work party from Lyneham coming to dismantle the Comet C.2. The flight deck and seating was as it was left on it’s arrival day in 1967 ?

Not sure about the cause but one exhibit that certainly survived and came out of the RAFM Reserve Store at RAF Henlow was de Havilland Venom NF3 WX905 [7458M], which went to Newark Air Museum.

According to my Virtual Museum CD ROM the airframe moved up to Winthorpe in April 1989 and is now listed as a National Benchmark on the National Aviation Heritage Register.

http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/aircraftlist.htm