Elvington's Javelin

Manston’s Javelin FAW.9,XH764.Also the gate guard Canberra PR.3 WE168 .Both pics taken in 1975.Both aircraft were chopped up in March 1990

I was a member of City of Norwich Aviation Museum either when she arrived or shortly after and she was in one hell of a state 🙁

John C

From the City of Norwich Aviation Museum, Horsham St Faith

Javelin XH767 was here between 1994 and 2001

We collected it from a farm in Somerset and accepted it on loan from its owner. The aircraft was dismantled and in very poor condition. We were told that it had to be moved as people had been living in the fuselage! Certainly I can remember picking hyperdemic needles from the fuselage.

Previous to its time at the farm, the Javelin was at Monk Farleigh, Bath where I had seen it (dismantled) in the mid 1980’s. Prior to this it had been with an ATC Squadron in Worcestershire.

One at Horsham St Faith, we re-assembled the aircraft, finding that many parts were missing. We had to have wing fixing bolts manafactured and hire lifting equipment etc.
At this point we found out that at some time at tree had fallen on top of the Javelin and had caused considerable damage to the fuselage, this had no been apparent in its dismantled state. As the aircraft was not ours, we were obviously reluctant to spend vast sums of money on top of the £2000.00 plus we had already paid for transport etc. Nevertheless we spent a lot of our time and some of our visitors money on a ‘budget’ paint job to improve the general appearance of the aircraft.

In 2000, the owner of the Javelin sadly died and his family decided to sell the aircraft to the highest bidder. We made an offer, but understand that the Javelin was sold for as many thousands of pounds as we thought that it was worth in hundreds. Our costs in time and money from limited funds were not considered. Some months after its sale ‘crash and smash’ from the RAF dismantled the Javelin and moved it to its new home.

Please do not think that damage to this Javelin was caused here (you should have seen it when we got it). We have learnt a very hard and finacialy painfull lesson in respect of accepting aircraft on loan from private owners and we urge every other smaller museum to take heed.

City of Norwich Aviation Museum
Horsham St Faith

javelin inside?

Will this aircraft eventually go into the hangar there??

Hi All

I think one of the reasons that the javelin hasnt gone inside yet is that the wheels are seized and she hasnt moved from that spot at the back of the hangar since she arrived. I was working at elvington when the javelin arrived and i know that one of the museum members was working on the nose striping off the paint and that is all that seems to have been done in the last 2 years.

Scott C

Gets the Wrecks and Relics out again…

W&R12 – Both gate guardians at RAF Manston fell foul of the one guardian policy with Canberra PR3 WE168 and Javelin FAW9 XH764 being broken up 3/90, before going to Hanningfield Metals at Stock, Essex.

Flood.

I think I read somewhere that it was scrapped sometime in the late eighties, but I can’t be entirley certain of that.

what happened to the Javelin that was outside Manston spitfire Museum?

Hi Mike,
She was moved to YAM a couple of years ago from the museum at Norwich airport where she’d been on outdoor display for quite a while.I’d suggest that the majority of the wear and tear you can see in the picture is from her days at Norwich.She’s now been classed as a ‘Benchmark Airframe’ by BAPC and the plan as of about 18 months ago was to find her a permenant home indoors.
Sorry I don’t have anything more up to date than that…