Sywell Aviation Museum acquires Canberra….

Heidi the Hunter meets Cindy the Canberra!

Canberra WH887 comes to Sywell Aviation Museum

Canberra B.2 WH887 was built by Short Brothers in Belfast being delivered to THE RAF on the 29th January 1954 at RAF Wyton. Initially she served with 1323 Ft, then 542, and 21 Squadron as well as part of RAF Upwood’s Station Flight.

She was converted to a TT.18 and taken by the Royal Navy on the 27th November 1969. She was also used for Fleet Requirements Unit (FRU) and later the Fleet Requirements Air Direction Unit (FRADU) as well as on loan to Flight Refuelling at Hurn. She retired for a short period and was stored at RAF St Athan in November 1986. A few years later she was put back into service and flew until 1992. Her last trip was from Yeovilton with two others bound for St Athan, from St Athan to RAF Llanbedr where she flew trial sorties for a time. She was then placed in storage and moved to a fire dump in the late 1990s before being sold for scrap in 2004. In 2008 her cockpit was saved (from a skip!) by Matt Buddle and Sean Edwards and based again at RAF Upwood. Restored by them both initially and latterly by Matt she is now back in ‘as new’ condition.

Sywell Aviation Museum had been looking for a cockpit section for its younger visitors to ‘explore’ for some time and is proud to announce her acquisition by museum members from Matt Buddle on the 25th October 2014. The Museum is working to incorporate Cindy (as she is known!) into its displays during its closed season and will unveil the cockpit to the public at its Grand Opening on Easter Saturday, April 4th 2015. For more information please visit http://www.sywellaerodrome.co.uk call 07968061708 or email [email]sywellaviationmuseum@gmail.com[/email].

Whilst now closed for the 2014 season the Museum begins its popular series of Winter talks with the tale of recovering the world’s only extant Dornier 17 from the seabed by RAF Museum curator Darren Priday on the 3rd November 2014 for more information please see http://www.sywellaerodrome.co.uk/museum-talks.php

For more on WH887 –

http://www.fradu-canberras.co.uk/fraducan/847wh887.html

http://www.rafupwood.co.uk/wh887.html

Museum chairman and co-owner with TT – Andy Shemans accepts Cindy from Forumite Matt Buddle – AKA Pure Lightning!

Wrapped up for Winter !
😀