Duxford Bolingbrokes past and present

Hello everyone,

I’ve been doing a little research for my notes on the various Bolingbrokes (and Blenheim) that have called Duxford home over the years and just wondered if anyone would be so kind as to help me clarify a few things I’m not so certain of.

As I understand it G-MKIV was primarily restored from 10038 but used the rear fuselage of 9893 and since the crash in 1987 parts from both these aircraft have ended up in various restorations. I am aware the centre fuselage and wings from 10038 and the rear fuselage of 9893 now form the Kent Battle of Britain Museum’s Blenheim restoration while more parts from 10038 went into the aircraft on static display in Brussels (not sure what exactly).

Now at Duxford, while peeking through windows I noticed this rear fuselage section marked as 9893. Presumably considering that 9893’s actual rear fuselage is in Kent, would I be correct in assuming that this would instead be 10038’s original rear fuselage that was swapped during restoration to flight all those years ago?

Also, in the same building, besides this Auster, just visible is the rear of a cockpit section, which I have seen to be claimed as the cockpit of 9893 captioned on photos I’ve seen on Flickr, is this correct? From this Forum I have seen several references over the years to 9893 being under restoration for static display at Duxford, I assume these are to be part of that restoration, assuming it is still ongoing.

More easily seen is the Bolingbroke cockpit found in Hangar 3 at Duxford. I assume this is from 10201 as swapped for the Mk I Blenheim nose of L6739.

As an aside, assuming that I am correct in assuming the above is of 10201 and the 9893’s is the one in the building behind the hangars, what did end up happening to the cockpit of 10038, I’d guess it was stripped of anything useful and scrapped but if anyone has a concrete answer that would be greatly appreciated.

Finally, I will leave you with a photo of the lovely G-BPIV, I’d very much been hoping to catch it flying this year, but given the unfortunate engine trouble I will settle to finally seeing the aircraft in the skies next year. Thank you for any help any of you can provide, I feel like I’ve got my assumptions vaguely right but I’m just hoping my suspcisions can be confirmed or corrected as appropriate.

(All the photos from this post are my own, taken from a handful of trips this year to Duxford)