Scrapyard Photos; Any More?

Vega that does make sense, so the G-ANLO cockpit at Mawgan wasnt part of this rig, but the fuselage was. This does answer some nagging questions in my mind.

The fuselage of G-ANLO/XP915 has always been listed as being used as a ‘Nimrod test rig’ at Woodford following it’s withdrawal from use in runway arrestor tests. I’ve never seen anything as to what sort of ‘test rig’.

It’s the Nimrod MRA4 General Systems integration “Iron Bird”. Comet (G-ANLO) mid fuse, Nimrod AEW Nose, Nimrod MR2 Landing Gears, steel wings and tail……. all set up with MRA4 control actuators, hydraulic systems, monitoring electronics, flying controls etc (No clever weapons system bits, that was on another rig). Spent many a happy hour on this rig.

Dave F, I dont think they are the same Comets, the one shown at Woodford has major mods to the nose, where as the one at Mawgan was completely standard with no signs of being worked on.
One interesting thing though, I have space modules removed from G-ANLO and I cant think why the BLEU would’ve of had them fitted, whereas an AEW mock up would!

The major mods on the Woodford example are a mock-up – if you look at the side view, and see where the radome starts (& the ‘major’ modifications), then it is all forward of where the nose on the St Mawgan example stops (and Remember G-ANLO/XP915 would have had it’s long nose probe removed at this point).

The Nimrod ‘double bubble’ on the lower fuselage only goes a few feet back from the radome (check the photo taken from the rear of the fuselage and you see where it stops) – I think it’s just a mock up that would be easily removed. In fact, I think you can just see the ‘marks’ from it on the nose section.

The other thing is that Nimrods (All Nimrods) retain the full Comet nose/ pressure hull structure under the revised lower radome/forward fuselage.

The fuselage of G-ANLO/XP915 has always been listed as being used as a ‘Nimrod test rig’ at Woodford following it’s withdrawal from use in runway arrestor tests. I’ve never seen anything as to what sort of ‘test rig’.

Dave F, I dont think they are the same Comets, the one shown at Woodford has major mods to the nose, where as the one at Mawgan was completely standard with no signs of being worked on.
One interesting thing though, I have space modules removed from G-ANLO and I cant think why the BLEU would’ve of had them fitted, whereas an AEW mock up would!

Heres a picture of the 1-11 graveyard taken at Southend in the mid 1990s. I cant be shure exactly when as all my records were lost in a house fire. I think the two dan air 1-11s are 500 series. Im not too sure about the third, maybe British Eagle? I have plenty more of the scrapyard if you would like too see them, as security wasnt too tight at Southend then.

Steve

The furthest away one looks like it’s in Florida West colours. British Eagle was gone a long time before the 1990s….

Acording to my many W&R it was a Comet 4 which ended up at warton for Nimrod 2000 development.

I think it’s W&R14 which had a picture of the remains of G-ANLO on the BDR dump at Kinloss .

I wonder if it’s worth a delve through Wrecks & Relics for the i.d’s of the Nimrod/Comet’s at Woodford ? I’ve just found a load of slides and negs i took of the AEW Nimrods when the were parked up ready for pending “service” !

Heres a pic of the nose section, and a pic of Canberra T.4 WJ870 (Comet rear fuselage behind the nose) both taken in 1989. I have better pics but will have to dig em out.

Thanks for that. Interesting picture. Actually, the pic makes me think that the Woodford pic IS XP915 – compare the black taped (?) windows in the shot with the mock radome with the black squares round the window frames of the shot at St Mawgan.

She left RAE Bedford for Woodford in 1973. Wonder when she went to St Mawgan?

Anyone know for sure?

Heres a pic of the nose section, and a pic of Canberra T.4 WJ870 (Comet rear fuselage behind the nose) both taken in 1989. I have better pics but will have to dig em out.

I have photos and indeed parts from the one and only mark 3 Comet, G-ANLO/XP915, that ended its days on the fire dump at St Mawgan. The fuselage came via the BLEU and De haviland and not the AEW programme. The cockpit was removed late ’80s and apparently was fairly complete, I dont know where it went, the remains of the fusalage was taken away in about 2001.
Someone told me (and would love to know if it is true?), that it was SoC at Hatfield when a Trident had a ground collision with it, removing the tailfin and rudder in the process.
An AEW Nimrod also met its end at St Mawgan,the fuselage stored next to 404 hgr for along time, that was taken to a scrappies near St Austell, along with the one off Short SC.9, the cockpit of which is now in Italy!
One of the prototype Shackletons died at Mawgan aswel, bit before my time though!

I think it’s one of the Nimrod prototype fuselage’s . The MK.3 ended up at St Mawgan and was scrapped in the late 1990’s.

Ended up at St Mawgan (anyone any photos?) but the fuselage was at Woodford from 1973.

On the picture, the nose looks more Comet than Nimrod (No ‘eyebrow’ windows) and the only two Nimrods without those were XV147 & XV148, the prototypes.

It’s not XV147 nor XV148, which both survived much longer than mid 80s with their original nose structure intact

XV147 was used as the systems mock up for the MRA4, not scrapped until 2003.

http://www.geocities.com/cometmp/

http://www.geocities.com/cometmp/nimrod_prototype.html

Martin (XV148) has posted here from time to time.

I think this is the fuselage of XP915, which was used for ‘Nimrod development’

I think it’s one of the Nimrod prototype fuselage’s . The MK.3 ended up at St Mawgan and was scrapped in the late 1990’s.

Not a Vulcan but at least it was where they were born.These shots were taken at the 1985 airshow and were just dumped behind the car park.As you can see they were obviously mock up’s for a certain AEW aircraft !

V. Interesting – I suppose this must be the Comet Fuselage that went ‘missing (mk 3 IIRC) – but I’ll need to look it up!

I BELIEVE that was the very last Lancaster to fly in RAF service, RF325 H D.
This aircraft was based with the SMR at RAF St Mawgan and made its last flight from there to Wroughton for breaking on the 15 October 1956.
A ceremony was held to mark that very important occasion, and the Lancaster looked immaculate.
They should have preserved it I reckon, but typical airforce (witness the Brigand pics in same post), instead we relied on civil operators and the French navy for some of our preserved stars.
Im really pleased to see these photos as I have never seen pics of ‘325 post scrapping. Sorry if this info has been posted before!

Compared to the Lancasters and Lincolns at International Alloys, Aylesbury, that lone Lancaster at Coley’s yard, Hounslow, was very clean looking when I photographed it, from memory, in 1958.

I am delighted to now put a serial and a code to the images.

Mark

I BELIEVE that was the very last Lancaster to fly in RAF service, RF325 H D.
This aircraft was based with the SMR at RAF St Mawgan and made its last flight from there to Wroughton for breaking on the 15 October 1956.
A ceremony was held to mark that very important occasion, and the Lancaster looked immaculate.
They should have preserved it I reckon, but typical airforce (witness the Brigand pics in same post), instead we relied on civil operators and the French navy for some of our preserved stars.
Im really pleased to see these photos as I have never seen pics of ‘325 post scrapping. Sorry if this info has been posted before!

Yes, that’s a shame same as scrapping the last airworthy Halifax in the late fifties which could have been with the BBMF by now. But that’s all happened, thanks to the Civil operators and French Navy, these surviving airframes have survived because the RAF were shortsighted (or did other thing on their mind). The only thing to do now is make sure hole in collections are plugged and there are a lot of projects going on at the moment.
Still, these scrapyard pics have a strange fascination don’t you think?

Cheers

Cees

Re first set of photos on page 2

I BELIEVE that was the very last Lancaster to fly in RAF service, RF325 H D.
This aircraft was based with the SMR at RAF St Mawgan and made its last flight from there to Wroughton for breaking on the 15 October 1956.
A ceremony was held to mark that very important occasion, and the Lancaster looked immaculate.
They should have preserved it I reckon, but typical airforce (witness the Brigand pics in same post), instead we relied on civil operators and the French navy for some of our preserved stars.
Im really pleased to see these photos as I have never seen pics of ‘325 post scrapping. Sorry if this info has been posted before!

Anybody have any information or photos of the Staravia scrap at Keevil in the 70’s / 80’s?

I flew gliders from there in 1977. Unfortunately I have photos only of the Auster 6 glider tugs. However my memory is that there were only drop tanks -loads of them – there at that time.

Oh how I wish I was born earlier than 1992. 🙁

I would have loved too have seen all these classics in a time where you could go almost wherever you wanted, nowadays everybody is too obsessed with safety.

Some pics from the infamous “Rukuhia scrapyard” at Hamilton, New Zealand. Some 470 ex-RNZAF aircraft were stored here in the 1940s, and the last few were melted down circa 1964.
These shots were taken in March 1963.

A very young me (with hat) in P40N NZ3239

View in the opposite direction, P40N NZ3128 in centre frame

Looking back through the scrapyard, pick the P40 that you want (they’re all frying pans by now!):