It’s dispiriting to hear so much negativity about Hawkinge particularly from some who have never even been there.

Luckily there is a big majority who do appreciate it and patronise it frequently or occasionally.

Hear, hear!

They accomodated a recent research visit of mine with unparallelled access. I met two of the chaps there, and they were excellent hosts. I do think their museum comes in for unnecessary criticism from a few souls on the internet, with maybe a personal axe to grind?

Hawkinge is so much more than some full size replica Hurricanes and Messerschmitts – Good as they are, dare I say these are merely some set-dressing to show some colour schemes on. The bulk of the museum is is an exceptional collection of Battle of Britain relics from hundreds of recovered aircraft. The sheer volume of the displays, all thoroughly researched and carefully presented warrants several return visits to read through them all.

These are a pair of unused original Vampire Data Plates:

New diary, including a little sun for our Barra tail…

http://barracudaproject.co.uk/index.php?id=34

Congratulations to all who are making this re-build possible. Truly inspirational stuff!

A quick web search has yielded this Mosquito Data plate, recovered from an aircraft crash site in Bavaria.

This is a sub-component label, but following a similar format to the Hornet one:

SERIAL NO.
DRG NUMBER
MODS.

Can anyone enlighten me as to which area of the airframe the part number refers too: J981018

thanks,

With that in mind, any idea what this number might be? It was found under the fabric on the fuselage of NZ2328/TE758, immediately aft of the trailing edge on the port side, and appears to have been stenciled on.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]231634[/ATTACH]

TE758 was originally made in the UK – Standard Motors at Coventry.

Any numbers sprayed onto the wooden airframe under the doped fabric, are likely to be the construction number of the airframe on the line, before it is allocated a service serial.

Using Vampires an example (from the http://www.airhistory.org.uk website):

Vampire F3, VT833 was manufactured at English Electric Preston, with a construction number of – EP42408.
Vampire FB5, VV217 was manufactured at English Electric Preston, with a construction number of – EP42461.
Vampire FB5, VZ252 was manufactured at ???, with a construction number of – PS870.
Vampire FB5/J28B, FV28114 was manufactured at Chester, with a construction number of – V0053.
Vampire F30, A79-153 was manufactured in Australia, with a construction number of – 4019.

As you can see, the airframe construction number does not have any numerical tie-in to the serial number. Also, the airframe construction number follows a different format depending on which factory it was made in. Maybe the “36” visible under the fabric is part of the construction number?

What jets have the Fleet Air Arm got then?

A few Hawk trainers currently.

Thank you, good to see the Hornet sample. I have not seen anything like it (yet) for Mosquito.
Where are these plates located on Hornet and Vampire?

Hi,

The Hornet data plates are located on the right hand inner wall of the cockpit.

Thank you David, I would love to see the later dataplates.

As a starter, here is the one for the Hornet. All the post DH.100 data plates I have seen have the same format.