many years ago we took delivery of a Venom FB4 at Cosford from Kai Tak that was in very poor shape after three months as deck cargo, the cockpit was badly corroded and wood rotting after the canvas covering was damaged.
I started hunting for spares and eventually we swapped a new mothballed Bristol Herc radial engine for a flying example of the Venom from Switzerland, it was flown into Greenham Common for some reason before being roaded up to Cosford.
This is how Cosford ended up with a Swiss venom and because I had done most of the arranging ended up with a £4000 bill for flying it in, 4 grand was a hell of a lot of money in the early 80’s but the RAF agreed to pick up the bill.
If you can find something greece may want for one of its own museums they may be interested in bartering but get a decent internationally recognised museum on your side, the A7 i suppose would fit in just nice with the other cold war exhibits at Cosford so have a chat to them, it would look good alongside that MIG 21,

regards, Terry

What was the Whirlwind built from? cant see it being anything but a standard aluminium airframe and having seen a almost complete P-38 Lightning that has been sitting in pure salt water since 1944 along the Welsh coast plus a complete Fw 190 recently salvaged from the North Sea the Whirlwind which was quite a solid airframe may still stand a chance.
A mate of mine is a technician working on anything with wings in the restoration centre at Cosford which is only ten miles away from my house, right now he is working on the Battle wings,

regards, caliph

Heres a new one related to me by an ex-ground crew member who served in Malaya in the late 40’s/early 50’s, he was stationed at RAF Butterworth and there was a auxiliary airstrip on Penang island used in emergencies.
When the squadron converted to jet aircraft the DH Hornets were all taken over to the auxiliary airstrip and disassembled, a long trench was dug and then filled with Hornet airframes and engines then backfilled and the dozer run over the top.
He actually worked on the disassembly of at least fourteen maybe more as he stopped counting after a week of it, at the time it would have cost more to ship them back than they were worth as scrap so they just buried them.
On the subject of Castle Bromwich my older brothers used to take me up to the field behind the factory and we played in fuselage sections of a lot of big aircraft, some I remember may have been Lanc or Stirling and they were just laying around, they were probablt scrapped or buried when the main part of the factory was demolished and Castle Vale housing estate was built,

regards, caliph

I know this thread is antique but a little info on Hornet remains, chatting to the owner of a junk shop in Birmingham England some years ago it turned out he had been stationed at RAF Butterworth, Malaya in the early 50’s as ground crew on DH Hornets.
Across the bay was an Island with an emergency airstrip which I take is now Penang, when the Hornets were replaced by either Venims or Vampires the Hornets were taken over to the emergancy strip and dissassembled.
A large long trench was bulldozed along the side of the strip and all the fuselage and wings, engines and everything else was dumped in and run over with the dozer, the trench was then filled in.
My friend in the junk shop described Butterworth perfectly and the Penang airstrip is just across the bay, he drew me a little map of how the airstrip looked and where the original flight control box was and where it was moved to then where he recalls the aircraft were buried,.
Everything he told me fits, there could be anything upwards of twelve to fifteen Hornets in that grave if they are still there,

regards. Terry