Canon Bob
Loves the Enemy
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Speed was everything in 1953 and the world speed record was broken by five different aircraft in a sixteen week spell. The 25th September saw the prototype Supermarine Swift F4 (serial WK198) at the hands of Mike Lithgow wrestle the record from Neville Duke's Hawker Hunter. Born only a few months earlier, WK198 carried Mike Lithgow across the Libyan dessert at 737mph and earned it's place in the Aviation Hall of Fame.
By the end of the decade our national hero had been transferred to the RAF School of Technical Training at Kirkham in Lancashire and was the plaything of airframe fitters and riggers. The advancement of aircraft technology soon made WK198 surplus to their requirements as it was no longer seen as representative of current inservice aircraft.
So, where next for a prize winning example of our National Heritage?
I caught up with WK198 in Unimetal's scrapyard near Failsworth in Greater Manchester where it was to languish for the next 15 to 20 years. Its grafitti adorned fuselage and wings somehow managed to survive the inclement northern weather and it was eventually rescued by some enthusiastic members of the nascent UK aircraft preservation movement.
After the custodianship of several well intentioned preservation societies, our hero is now at Weybridge being restored to its former glory by the craftsmen of the Brooklands Museum
Here's my mid-70's shot (a scanned Ektachrome) from one of my several clandestine visits to the yard
By the end of the decade our national hero had been transferred to the RAF School of Technical Training at Kirkham in Lancashire and was the plaything of airframe fitters and riggers. The advancement of aircraft technology soon made WK198 surplus to their requirements as it was no longer seen as representative of current inservice aircraft.
So, where next for a prize winning example of our National Heritage?
I caught up with WK198 in Unimetal's scrapyard near Failsworth in Greater Manchester where it was to languish for the next 15 to 20 years. Its grafitti adorned fuselage and wings somehow managed to survive the inclement northern weather and it was eventually rescued by some enthusiastic members of the nascent UK aircraft preservation movement.
After the custodianship of several well intentioned preservation societies, our hero is now at Weybridge being restored to its former glory by the craftsmen of the Brooklands Museum
Here's my mid-70's shot (a scanned Ektachrome) from one of my several clandestine visits to the yard
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