I can kind of see your frustrations here Rich, but also I can see where BAe were coming from.

The aircraft had been kept going and going several times in service by implementing some dramatic airframe rebuilds and mods, by rights the type would have been retired in 1972. Apparently HS/BAe were embarrassed about their longevity at the time, with that considered you can see why they were covering their hides a bit when a came to any sniff of civil sale and possible flight.
However they are out of the equation now.

The old dog lived on, and thankfully we have people like you and the group that have fought to restore an example to great ground running condition. When times are better you can at least look at further options, the key is to do everything properly and orderly as you progress, and then get the CAA onside early – which you seem to be doing.

It created jobs for British workers making it.

As much as I agree with that, and hand on heart glad that is the way it worked out, I don’t think that’s how the cold minded business works or looks at things.

It is a genuine question, what could the Viking offer to the airlines that the DC-3 (in developed forms even) wouldn’t have been able to?
Even the national BEA was using them in standard form and for first turboprop passenger runs.

Personally speaking I would say the Hunter looks like wreckage rather than a fire training or dumped example, you can see how the fuselage has torn (not far from the rear transport joint) and also squashed from the effect of impact.

Also those Bessonneau hangars were all over the place, even Farnborough, Odiham, and St Mawgan had them into the ’50/’60s, whether they were all used for gliders or not is another matter!

Well done to all the contributors, this has been an excellent debate and stayed civil throughout!

Agreed, eating my pie as we speak, but in this case just glad I was wrong!

Just thinking on the Comet nose, could it be removed from G-ALZK?
The aircraft was dismantled at Hatfield, and ended up at Farnborough with a different nose section offered up to it.

Also I’m pretty convinced the wreckage is Hunter, it appears to be the torn off rear fuselage and you can see the airbrake at the bottom of it, details of that match pics of airbrakes. I can’t quite match up the vents on the upper fuse, but these varied on different marks, wonder if could be an F.2/5?

Thank you for that Harvardfreund, I gather the journey wasn’t without its problems, but it arrived safe and sound anyway!

Boscombe BAC 1-11 ZH763 (Gauntlet 50) doing circuits at Cardiff yesterday, very nice it looked too!

It looked better when it was at Flambards, looked good (cosmetically at least) at Fairford almost ten years ago, http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/6/9/4/0530496.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK—Navy/Supermarine-Scimitar-F1/0530496/L/&usg=__VkBD2PB_qMqFVAwtEKp3UjAPHvw=&h=655&w=1024&sz=263&hl=en&start=5&zoom=1&tbnid=zuiHNzTQzMewyM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=150&ei=RuiST5aTFsbi8QORw9jZCQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dscimitar%2Bxd332%2Bfairford%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1G1ACAW_ENUK473%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1
Until we get our house in order I don’t think we can really shout about getting one of ‘our’ jets back, Supermarine jets seem to get a bad deal really.