Valiant nose section

[Deleted]

Hi again Forumites
Back in the late 60's I worked at the RAE and was in EP Dept, specifically in the Atmospheric Hazards Section. Amongst the various pieces of hardware we either shot chickens or pigeons at, or sprayed water over via the Blower Tunnel, was the nose section of a Valiant. It was an ex tanker aircraft, from 214 sqn. Does anyone know or remember the Serial Number of that aircraft??
Tia

Andy Wis

[Deleted]

Morning,
Not sure on reg yet but may do some more digging later, theres a pic of a Valiant nose at Farnborough about halfway down this page forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?p=1701765 is this the one your looking for ? or is/was there another one!

[Deleted]

The only one I can find that may have been at Farnborough on the Forgotten Jets Website www.millionmonkeytheater.com/Valiant.html is this, and theres a question mark against that !!


Valiant Type 758 B.(K).1 XD860
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*1/30/1957: First flight.
*2/20/1957: Delivered to the RAF.
*2/1957: 214 Squadron, at RAF Marham.
*8/1957: 138 Squadron, at RAF Gaydon.
*11/1957: 214 Squadron, at RAF Marham.
*2/18/1965: Withdrawn from use.
*Ever assigned as a ground trainer to RAE Farnborough?
*1/1/1967: Sold as scrap to Bradbury’s of Bournemouth.

[Deleted]

Thanks fo that, Jeff. The picture of the nose certainly seems likely, going by the yellow supporting frame, as being the one we had - I remember it being on such a structure. I joined the Atmospheric Hazards Section during early 1968 and the Valiant nose was already in the Section.
XD860 seems to ring a bell - It was quite possible that Farnborough had got the nose from the scrap man as I had to go to one to get a windscreen panel for a Hunter from the Staravia scrap yard in Ascot. That cost £150 then...
As a further aside, myself and two colleagues went to Foulness to pick up some windscreen wiper units for the Valiant- a fascinating place! In "our" particular area of the Site were piles of Valiant wings, fuselage sections and tail units. Lurking amongst the debris was the Bristol 188 and a TSR2. Oh for a camera!!! (strictly forbidden....)
AndyWis

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Back in the seventies (and probably for several years before)by the wind tunnels in the NW corner of Farnborough there were numerous Valiant pieces laying around outside. There were a large number of Valiant wings amongst which only WP210, WP219, WZ377, WZ395, XD817, XD819 & XD858 were identified at the time. A number of Valiant cockpit sections were also there but none were seemingly identified. In January 1980 a single cockpit section which had previously been placed on the dump was moved to the fire area at the Laffans Plain end (which might explain why its sitting on a support frame) and this is no doubt the one photographed later that year in the link above provided by Jeff. At the time it was indeed reported as being from XD860. However, whether this was one of the cockpits previously laying outside with the others or the one from inside as noted by Andy I have no idea.

As an aside, XD817 was actually soc at Farnborough in 1965 and I photographed its cockpit section at Foulness in 1990 (cameras permitted on that trip)which had been very neatly severed somewhere sometime. The cockpit section was eventually saved and is now preserved at Flixton. XD 817 was however, as far as I know, never with 214Sq.

In those days the Farnborough dump was forever changing and throwing up different items for our delictation. Those were the days.

[Deleted]

Should have mentioned that XD860 was actually broken up at the MU at St Athan where, as Jeff notes, it was soc in January 1967. If the reports of the cockpit of 860 being at least on the dump at Farnborough are correct then at some stage it must have been removed either from St Athan (which must have therefore been between early 1965 and January 1967)or the Bournemouth Steptoe but that would have been after January 1967. Any ideas when the Farnborough indoor cockpit arrived there?

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Sorry, noted that I suffered from finger trouble in my earlier post. The Valiant cockpit I referred to above as XD817 should read XD857.

[Deleted]

From the same web page as above

Valiant Type 758 B.(K).1 XD857
*1/5/1957: First flight.
*2/1/1957: Delivered to the RAF.
*2/1957: 49 Squadron, at RAF Wittering.
*3/5/1965: Struck off charge at RAE Farnborough.
*Remains sent to the Foulness Island Ranges?
*Was preserved at the Cockpit Collection in Rayleigh, Essex.
*Was preserved at the Manston History Museum, from 6/2000.
*Currently preserved at the Norfolk and Suffolk Air Museum at Flixton, since 10/2005.

[Deleted]

Having dug out my photo of the cockpit of XD857 at Foulness I see that while it is white on the port side (as would be normal) the starboard side had a crude application of camouflage. Judging by the state of the paintwork this must have been done some years before. Looking at the photos on the web of it now at Flixton this camouflage is evident but also evident is that sometime after I photographed it at Foulness a horizontal cut has been made such that the lower part is now missing.

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The nose section we had was on a trolley and I'm pretty sure, bearing in mind that it is over 40 years ago, that that was the type of trolley our nose section rested on shown in the photo.
Therefore, I am convinced more than ever the nose section we had was XD860 - perhaps it came to Farnborough direct from St Athan - I seem to remember that St Athan came into conversations at the time.
The Blower Tunnel, along with a Canberra, and Hunter, and Jaguar and TSR2 "mock-ups" nose sections was, if I remember correctly, sited between the main factory site and Ball Hill, which was where we also had the "Chicken Gun"
I was in the Section between early 1968 to November 1970, (when I left to go into the RAF and OCTU) and I don't recall any comment being made of any other Valiant cockpit or wing sections being on the airfield, nor of an "inside" example of the nose section.
Whilst there, I managed to "liberate" a small desk lamp from rear of the cockpit. Found it in my parents loft today!!