Rumour about scrapping of Manchester RJX?

Just a quick trawl of the net to find pictures of a Sea Eagle, Scimitar and Vulcan, all proper jetless versions.

Geez Toby, I’m not as old as the Vickers Vulcan. 😀 Many names have been reused over the years. Strange that the Swordfish was a development of the TSR.2. 😮

Best wishes
Steve P

Thanks Steve and I stand corrected 😀 1920s and 30s is not only before my time but also before my era of main interest. Interesting to see the names reused… I believe there was a Vickers Vulcan once upon a time too?

Interesting site. Nice to see that G-LUXE will be flying for a good while yet!

Bruce

Toby,

The Supermarine Sea Eagle was a 1920s amphibian. The fuselage was preserved for some years after it disappeared from service, but was ultimately burnt.

Lee Holmes made a nice model of one for Microsoft Flight Simulator 9.

The Armstrong Whitworth Scimitar was another 1920-1930s aircraft that could/should have been saved.

Best wishes
Steve P

Bruce, enjoy these:

http://www.faam.ac.uk/public/photos.html

Toby

The fuse left at Woodford would be pretty typical of 146 design also as the structural changes were minimal.

My passion for this particular subject is the fact I worked on the production line to the very end. Indeed, I worked on set number 400 albeit a half assembled nose section.

Bruce, if you want contact details I can PM you in the right direction.

J man

This thread shows that there is a good deal of interest in preserving even relatively modern airliners.

David is right; the last de Havilland design in production (parent company) is the Hawker 1000. It traces it lineage right back to G-ARYA, which we recently preserved, with Davids help. It is now built largely in the USA however.

The RJX was the ultimate development of the last airliner to leave the drawing board at Hatfield. Its funny; de Havilland was by far the biggest organisation to be taken under the umbrella of Hawker Siddeley, yet the marketing men saw fit to change the names to the Hawker 1000, and the AVRO RJX. I digress.

The RJX parts at Woodford would be as relevant at Salisbury Hall as most other de Havilland products. I would love to get hold of G-LUXE, and we were offered her at one point, but whilst she continues to be useful, then let her be so. Does anyone have any recent pictures?

If anyone knows of any available 146 parts, particularly from Hatfield built aircraft, I would be interested to hear.

Cheers

Bruce

AW Scimitar…Supermarine Sea Eagle…

One of us is a little confused here (might be me?) but I would think that you mean AW (Hawker) Sea Hawk and Supermarine Scimitar (of which I am aware of one of the former and three of the latter). The Sea Eagle was a Hawker Siddeley Dynamics anti-shipping missile. Unless these naems were already used elsewhere?

The RJX is safe btw. Of three completed airframes, one is on display at Manchester and is not going to be scrapped, another is still on hte ground at Woodford and the third one sadly did get canned after 8 hours flying 🙁

TobyV–

That idea sounds rather Bombardier-like (and BTW, one could regard the still-in-production Bombardier Q400, one of which prettily appeared at the Toronto waterfront show just last weekend, as another “last deHavilland”)…

There are still a good few HS748s over here in Canada, too. The type was quite popular on low-density northern routes and/or for cargo. Saw three 748s ex-First Air at Carp, Ontario, during the airshow there a couple weeks ago, parked nose-to-tail in the grass beside one of the hangars. One looked almost flyable; the one behind it was minus props and a few other bits; the next one back was missing outer wings and parts of the tail…At least there wasn’t a fourth one behind that composed of shredded aluminum! IIRC I heard at the show that the intact one was going to a college as a training airframe. Despite the significant amount of use made of HS748s here, I don’t think any Canadian collection harbours one. Hmmm!

Hope the RJX, a type I hadn’t even heard of, avoids the chop. Far, far too many such airframes have been lost because their significance was realized years, or decades, too late. AW Scimitar…Supermarine Sea Eagle…Canadair Argonaut “Arcturus”…Halifax PN323…Martin-Baker MB5…the only flown BAC TSR2…OK, it’s on a different level, but even the Lancaster that led the Dams raid survived the war intact, only to be photographed in dereliction…then scrapped soon afterward. Even an icon like the prototype Mosquito exists only because a certain DH employee was magnificently disobedient to corporate orders to have the grounded W4050 burnt…

S.

E1001 was rebuilt as E3001 by the addition of two fuselage plugs and some strengthening. It now flies as G-LUXe (read further back up this thread 😉 )

I think there had been a feeling within BAe brewing up for a while to get out of civil aircraft manufacture. Personally, I would have sent the 125 down to Hatfield and kept the 146 production there, keeping Chester for Airbus and Woodford for sundry stuff like Nimrod upgrades – ultimately I dont know what will happen to Woodford?

With my “plan” there, you would have had two successful products in the 125 and the 146 and their design teams all on one site, it would have required some investment to upgrade the production facilities at Hatfield though, but you could have had a nice little civil aircraft business to spin-off as a going concern, if thats what they wanted to do.

Buts thats all conjecture with the benefit of hindsight and a good helping of sentiment 😀

I’ll have it – if anyone knows anything concrete, then let me know – this really is the last of the de Havilland line, and I suspect the design work for even this was done at Hatfield.

No better place for it than Salisbury Hall.

Bruce

Bruce what happened to 1001 airframe sureley she would be better for salisbury hall???

Our Corporate Jet is a Hawker 800, every time I am lucky enough to use it, I scratch my head as to why we gave the design away…same with the Jetstream

The last true D.H product is really the Hawker 1000. A clear continuation from the 800 series BAe 125 and before that the D.H 125. The RJ-X and BAE 146 before it were based on a D.H design study which lasted for about twenty years. Intially the 146 was
going to fly mid 1970’s but the oil crisis meant that it was put on hold and only emerged in 1979. With a wing box made in the U.S – American engines and flying surfaces made by SAAB I can’t help but think that the last true British airliners might well be the last Hurn deliveries of BAC 1-11’s circa 1984.

The manufacture of the wings was initially sub-contracted to Avco-Lycoming in the USA, but was taken back in house by BAE at Prestwick many years ago.

The last true D.H product is really the Hawker 1000. A clear continuation from the 800 series BAe 125 and before that the D.H 125. The RJ-X and BAE 146 before it were based on a D.H design study which lasted for about twenty years. Intially the 146 was
going to fly mid 1970’s but the oil crisis meant that it was put on hold and only emerged in 1979. With a wing box made in the U.S – American engines and flying surfaces made by SAAB I can’t help but think that the last true British airliners might well be the last Hurn deliveries of BAC 1-11’s circa 1984.

I think I am right in saying that every aircraft built on that production line from the Comet onwardshad to be titled under the troughs of the pitched rooves as it progressed towards the paintshop end. Even the “146 Assembly hall” built in 1987 was only really for fitting out and most of the process still took place in the original 1934 factory block.

I
Slightly off topic, but I can also confirm that the fuselage of Trident 3B G-AWZK safely arrived at the viewing park today. We are now waiting for the starboard wing and tail before reassembly commences.

Toby
Webmaster for the Trident Preservation Society

One of my earliest Aircraft memories is a tour of the Trident Line at Hatfield in the early seventies (some destined for CAAC), My Grandfather had a couple on the Channel Airways fleet, along with a 748, Dove, Comets and 111s

I’ve started other threads on the topic of 748/atp preservation.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=43504&highlight=748

For those interested in RJX ‘bits’ there is a fuse off the production line left at woodford.No tail or wings, not fitted out inside.

Thanks very much for clearing up about the Manchester example.

J man

There is a significance – in the right collection. Last British airliner – yes, last of the de Havilland line – also yes.

I dont know what other RJX parts survive, but I would be interested in a nose if one survived, even if it is not fitted out in any way. Perhaps those in the know would enlighten me!

Bruce

HS-748 in preservation at the RAAF Museum, Point Cook.

It arrived, IIRC, last year. Details from the RAAF Museum website where there are also a bunch of pics. If wanted, I could do a n external walkaround of it.

“Last of the HS 748s finds a home at Museum

The HS748 recently flew out of RAAF service, with one aircraft making its final touchdown at the RAAF Museum. A10-601 was the first HS748 navigational trainer to arrive in Australia and is now in RAAF Museum ownership. A total of eight aircraft operated with the School of Air Navigation at East Sale for the training of navigators, air electronics officers and RAN observers. A10-601 is currently on outdoor display, but will be moved off display shortly.”