Short Tour Around the Cockpit of
HAWKER SEA HAWK FGA.6 – WV838
Video Tour of WV838
A few weeks ago, the museum received a request from a visitor to visit our YouTube channel. They had seen the video of the refurbishment of our Valetta aircraft and asked if we could produce a short video of the Hawker Sea Hawk cockpit that we had in our main hangar. It seems that the person’s grandfather used to walk past this aircraft near Chippenham in the 1970s, and they wanted him to be able to see it again.
Although we initially could not find any record of the aircraft being at Chippenham, we decided that it was an opportunity to try a short video for publication on our blog and on our YouTube channel. If this works out okay, then we may well produce other short informative videos in the future.
Graham, one of our archivists, therefore, set about doing a series of short video takes in the main hangar and in and around the cockpit. And, as part of his research, it came to light that the aircraft had suffered a catastrophic failure of a tyre on take-off, causing the aircraft to crash through a boundary fence and, therefore, suffer major damage. A short time thereafter, the aircraft was broken up, and the parts of the airframe sold off for scrap.
In his investigation, Graham came across a number of photos of the airframe languishing in a scrap yard near Chippenham, which explains why the airframe was seen in the 1970s and why there appears to be no history of the aircraft over a 40-year period. History solved !!
Graham also found that this cockpit is probably only one of three or four FGA.6 types still available to see. A rare cockpit in our Museum.
As well as the videos Graham took, he obtained a few photos of the airframe in the scrap yard from the photographer Alan Allen, who kindly gave permission for us to use them in this short excursion into the main hangar at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum, where the cockpit forms one of our 60+ collection of aircraft and cockpits.
Some of the history of the aircraft can be seen below, along with the short video.
Pete S
(Photos) History of WV838 Cockpit
Click on the photo to enlarge
(Video) Tour of WV838
NASAM YouTube Channel
You can find more YouTube videos on the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum YouTube channel. To go to the channel, please click on the button below:
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