Missile Museum, RAF Newton

It won’t fly like that….

Hat coat….. door

Tim S

In Tim O’Brien’s book there are several photographs of the missiles being towed round the station, a brief description from the book reads:

“At RAF Newton, when an Officer or senior NCO retired, there was a tradition to parade them around the station whilst sitting on top a ‘borrowed’ missile from the museum and see them off the premises by towing them out of the main gates.”

See the pics here – http://www.bloodhoundmkii.org.uk/newton.htm#MTF_1

I remember seeing some of this and The Provost XF690 in about 1985 when our ATC unit had a Sqn camp there.

I took a camera with me but not the day I walked round the peri track and found the Hunter on the dump, and from memory its condition wasn’t that bad 🙁

Tim S

As a Cadet I spent a lot of time at Newton, shooting the old .303 and 7.62’s on the range and Air-Ex in the Chipmunks. Later I did my gliding scholarship RAF Syerston but was barracked at Newton, Friday to Sunday. One Saturday evening (1984’sh) Instead of going down the Naafi and playing the Battle Zone arcade machine, me and a mate went walking round the base and stumbled upon the missile museum and the Lightning. I’ll have a look through my slides later and see if I can find any shots.

In Tim O’Brien’s book there are several photographs of the missiles being towed round the station, a brief description from the book reads:

“At RAF Newton, when an Officer or senior NCO retired, there was a tradition to parade them around the station whilst sitting on top a ‘borrowed’ missile from the museum and see them off the premises by towing them out of the main gates.”

I believe Sqd leader John rivers was in charge of the missile collection.My dad used to deliver goods to newton and took me to see the lightening once.

The scan of Les Hunt’s book provided a gentle nudge for a Friday morning – during my RAF Newton visit I also went into one of the Shackletons and the B(I)8; those were the days! Where could you do that now? 😉

I’m also reminded that the missile museum and the aircraft collection are both referenced in Tim O’Brien’s excellent book – “Last Post RAF Newton – The life of Royal Air Force Newton”.

A scan from Leslie Hunts “Veteran and Vintage Aircraft” 1978 4th Edition[ATTACH=CONFIG]236284[/ATTACH]

RAF Newton was once home to No.9 SoTT (School of Technical Training), which was a ‘Guided Weapons College’, teaching personnel the skills they needed to be RAF technicians in the missile age. The base built up a Missile Museum, which opened in 1963 and displayed an impressive array of weapons from across the history of missile technology. The collection was dispersed during the late 1980s, which is when the replica Thor missile is believed to have been transferred to RAF Cosford.

http://www.aviationmuseumguide.co.uk/news-sep-dec-2012/news-newark-thor.php

A bit more…

http://www.bloodhoundmkii.org.uk/newton.htm#MTF_1

As a school boy in Newark I managed to blag a visit there circa 1973/4; at that time Vulcan XA908 (noted for its grass landing at RAF Newton) was also in the hangar and that was the first time I went in a Vulcan cockpit. I travelled to the station on the Gash’s bus from Newark and we entered the camp from the entrance adjacent to the A46 bus stop!

As for the collection – the Blue Steel missile at Newark came from there, as I believe did the Fireflash missile set that arrived via the RAFM Store at Stafford.

There may be photographs in the NAM Archive – a Vulcan picture certainly exists and was tweeted recently.

I almost forgot – the 2/3rd scale replica of the Thor missile that is now in the Scampton Museum, which came from the RAF Museum Cosford repository, was also originally at Newton.

Seem to remember Terry P telling me about this, I’m sure he was posted there at some point during his RAF days.

Bill T.

There is a pretty good missile collection at RAF Cosford; maybe much of the collection ended-up there.