I hold the British preservation movement, the museums and the countless volunteers in very high regard however the scrapping of historic aircraft in the UK is shocking. Looking through a few photos from my trip from Australia in 1999 many airframes I photographed have been scrapped including
the Phantom at Waddington, Buccaneer at Marham and Sea Vixen at North Weald.
Sad to see Canberra TT18 WK128 scrapped, surely worth saving? (Les B may disagree!)
Now these two at Cosford (Consigment Of Scrap For Our Rainy Days?)
I realise not everything can be saved but surely the hardest part is getting them to a museum, once they are there it would be reasonable to presume they will be preserved. I won’t even mention the other Cosford scrappings over the years. The demise of Lincoln G-APRJ was probably not a matter of grave concern back in the late eighties but look how much the owners want for the pile of junk that remains. Don’t we ever learn? Duxford’s Comet and Convair might not have seemed significant back when the powers that be scrapped them but what about future considerations. We all lament over the post-war scrapping fields but isn’t history repeating itself? I can’t believe the number of airframes that enter the preservation movement and then seem unworthy of preservation and end up scrapped or burnt on a fire dump (Hasting, Valletta, Canberra, Lightning, Viscount etc).
At least Meteor VZ467 and Canberra WJ680 are now safe in Aussie hands!
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