The Comet Fuselage used for the Iron Bird rig at Warton came from Woodford where it was used as a fire evacuation trainer for a few years, prior to this it had been in the water tank at Farnborough.

The Nose section of XV263 wasn’t needed for the fatigue rig work the fuselage was used for so it was removed from the “tube” at FRA Aviation (Hurn) and road hauled to Warton where it was joined on to the Comet fuselage to produce the “Iron Bird”.

The remaining section of XV263’s fuselage then had the cabin presure floor modified to MRA4 design at FR Aviation before road hauling to Woodford prior to its eventual road move to the Brough site for static wing fatigue testing in support of the MRA4 project.

The fuselage used in the fatigue rig at Woodford in support of Nimrod MR2 was infact XV148 one of the original Nimrod prototypes, only the cockpit section remains to this day being cared for and restored by its owner the author of the Air Britain Comet book, it even has electrical power applied to it these days with fully illuminated gauges and EL Pannels, most impressive from the photographs I have seen, even more so when you consider the state it was in when it left Woodford circa 1997 – Mike

This was XV247 dismantled for the AN124 transportation as part of the MRA4 build (she eventually became Nimrod MRA4 ZJ516 PA1)

Now for day the after the above picture was taken, and probably the only viable way to move a Nimrod from Kinloss:

Hire one of these at significant cost:

Winch the Nimrod in to the Antonov on the wheel frames:

Fly it from Kinloss to Birmingham International Airport then road haul it to RAF Cosford, but don’t cut the back end off like we did with XV263:

At Cosford put the Nimrod back on its flight stillage wheels and tow it under the low height train bridge, around the corner and straight in to the museum.

Doing the above is certainly achievable at a cost, moving the wings would be a far more difficult challenge.

2. IIRC some of the warton nimrod fuselarge were flow in AN124’s (could that land at Cosford?)

We used the AN124 on nine occasions to move Nimrod fuselages around starting in 1997, the last move was late December 2007 from Waddington to Woodford. If you managed to land the An124 at Cosford you would end up with the An124 on static display as it wouldn’t take off again.

As I said above, fly the Nimrod in the An124 from Kinloss to another more local to Cosford airport capable of handling the An124 (Birmingham Int or EMA are good possibles), road haul the fuselage to Cosford then tow it under the train bridge. The alternate way in to the museum which goes over the train line rather than under it would not be suitable for the road haulage kit used for this sort of operation, for a start it would never get around the 90 degree bend immediately after the bridge, and that assumes the trailer could even get over the bridge! – Mike

Have to put it back into production first. Though that does seem a possibility . . .

Perhaps that is the reason VDA and AA joined forces to get the build line going again – the revised AN124 new build will have a higher payload and total cargo capacity, they are also looking at reducing the flight deck crew from the current 6/7 – MJA

Why mess around with small freighters, go for the really big boys toys – sure the Il-76 is a great jet but you cannot beat the true work horse of the skies AN124, OK I appreciate the picture is poor quality but I had to compress it somewhat to stay within normal forum rules

The is will be repeated on the 18/12/07 at RAF Wad in Lincolnshire, so a few of you heavy aircraft watchers might want to take a look, don’t be late though 08:00 (local) for the arrival – outbound as soon as poss but probably nearer 11:30 😀
Oh and anyone thinking this is a wind up will miss the event, I can assure you the dates/ times/ carrier and aircraft are all genuine – MJA