To me, the relative lengths of military/civil service aren’t so important as the quite different stories the two airframes tell. The Lyneham machine perfectly represents the military role of the Comet as the RAF’s first jet transport, and has an interesting story to tell about the slow decline of the British Empire, and the legacy of having to fly UK armed forces rapidly out to trouble spots.

G-APAS, on the other hand, is the last surviving complete Comet I and therefore I believe the oldest jet airliner surviving. To me its story is more about the astonishing technological leap Britain made in the immediate post-war period; the brief, world-leading career of the Comets in the early 1950s, and the terrible cost Britain paid for leading the way into unknown technological territory.
Doesn’t South Kensington have remnant sections of G-ALYP from the Mediterranean crash? I can’t help thinking that if they could display G-APAS somewhere, fully re-painted up and polished like the early BOAC aircraft, it would be a much more appropriate home than Cosford.

Oh well, we can dream…