Good Morning!
I took this shot at Farnborough around 35 years ago – and I was never really sure of the identity of this fuselage, nor its purpose for that matter!
It is obviously one of the ex-BOAC Comet 1 fuselages but it seems to have had its cockpit & tail sections replaced with ex-RAF (Mk 2?) components.
Can somebody put me out of my misery please and give me a positive ID – and final fate?
Cheers!
By: DGH - 5th October 2005 at 18:00
‘ZK was indeed dismantled at Hatfield in March 57 but the fuselage was then transported to Farnbourgh.
By: Spey111 - 5th October 2005 at 15:27
Wrecks and Relics is published every two years and the next one should be due about next April.
By: J31/32 - 5th October 2005 at 13:18
The RAF nimrod mock up based on a Comet fuse is pictured in the last W&R. When is the next W&R due by the way?
J man
By: zoot horn rollo - 5th October 2005 at 12:52
The Lasham fuselage section (G-ALYX) was still in existence up until a few years ago, having been mounted on a rotatable mounting and was used for trials on external aerials. It was cleared away when the RAE stopped using the Lasham site for radio trials work.
By: G-ORDY - 4th October 2005 at 07:13
G-ALZK or G-ALYU?
See posts 15 and 16 here.
Flood
Thanks DGH & Flood
I note that Post 15 states that the Comet is “probably” G-ALYU. AJJ’s “British Civil Aircraft” states ‘ZK was dismantled at Hatfield, March 1957?
Can anybody positively identify the other Farnborough Comet 1s that were there in 1970 and confirm their fates? I know that G-ALYW was converted into the travelling “Nimrod” display unit (is it still around?), G-AOJT/F-BGBX went to Redifon Flight Simulators at Crawley – presumably to be converted into a Nimrod simulator (?) and of courseMAM got the other Air France one. I think another may have gone to Lasham for aerial trials??? :confused:
By: DGH - 3rd October 2005 at 20:11
Hello G-ORDY
The Comet in question is the second prototype c/n 06002 : G-ALZK.
This aircrafts fueslage was used to test equipment installation for the Nimrod. The nose is from Mk2 XK669 and the tail is from XM829. This fuselage was later moved to Woodford and scrapped in the mid 70’s.
If your interested the Provost is WV587.
By: zoot horn rollo - 3rd October 2005 at 14:06
There were still a clutch of Comet fuselages there during the 1970 Farnborough show (along with the AW Apollo) – I’ll try and dig out my junior spotter logbook from that time.
By: Cking - 3rd October 2005 at 13:57
Good grief another question about Farnborough, that makes three in the past week!.
I tried to contact a friend of mine who WILL know about this aircraft, but as of last week he was away on holiday!.I will leave him a message and get back to you on this!.
All I know is that I worked there for seven years, twenty seven years ago and it wasn’t there then!
The only comets that were there in my time were the Ex Air france fuselage that is at the mosquito museum and two MK4’s, both now scrapped.
Certainly an interesting photo.
Rgds Cking
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October 3, 2005 at 6:38 am