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Old 24th August 2018, 10:08
FG86 United Kingdom FG86 is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Falmouth, Cornwall.
Posts: 37
I think the origins of Concorde at Yeovilton were a combination of; opportunity of a suitable location to save the second prototype from the cutting axe, the Somerset county link between Filton and Yeovilton and as 002 was a prototype for flight dynamics & research it would form the centre piece of the whole test programme which utilised a fair number of RN pilots. It was envisaged that a full production run of Concordes was in the offing, 64 were ordered by various airlines (all cancelled around 1973) The 001/002 prototypes and two further preproduction aircraft were so different they could not be used for commercial flight, so when the development programme finished (there was much touting of the aircraft for other trials work which came to nothing) the manufacturer was keen to discard them. Thankfully some far sighted individuals saw their significance and 002 went to Yeovilton. (001 went to France). Of the preproduction aircraft the second 001 went to Duxford. this aircraft is often wrongly believed to be the prototype sister to Yeovilton's 002 when it is actually the a preproduction aircraft not prototype.
Regarding Swordfish aircraft. the Royal Navy historic flight own three Swordfish aircraft, two are in flying condition the third in long term storage/spares. This is based at RNAS Yeovilton, access to the flight via the Navy wings heritage trust is open to the public, access the website for details. The Fleet Air Arm Museum is a non MOD operation and believe it or not there is not a particularly effective communication between the museum and the Navy (despite the RN gifting all its aircraft).
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