For many years, five British jet aircraft have been stood against all weather elements, under very sporadic, minimal care due to difficult access restrictions on what is a busy, working farm, thwarting keen volunteers from keeping the aircraft in any form of maintained condition. As a result, the airframes have deteriorated somewhat, but now, after recent negotiations with their owner, Mr Revill, there is an opportunity to purchase and remove two of these aircraft to safe-keeping for much-needed refurbishment and restoration works.
The aircraft in the collection are:
DH Vampire T.11
Hawker Hunter F.6
Hunting Jet Provost T.3
Hawker Sea Hawk FB.5
Gloster Meteor T.7
Currently, The Sea Hawk and the Hunter have been sold and removed from site under separate purchase negotiations by keenly interested parties, and the Vampire is now reserved for removal, pending the outcome of this appeal, therefore a collective action is required to acquire and move the Provost and Meteor, which is the primary aim of this Crowdfunding appeal.
The original proposal was to buy, dismantle and move the Provost and Meteor to a new home locally at Wellesbourne airfield under the care of the Wartime Museum, adding to their existing airframe collection; however, due to a substantial shortfall of pledges, there is insufficient funding in this appeal's "pot" to carry out that intention. Therefore, unless other funding assistance can be offered in support by other local supporting parties, neither aircraft can be bought by this fund for purchase and movement to Wellesbourne, so we have been forced to consider and negotiate the relocation of both aircraft to other sites. However, there may still be time for any late bids to acquire the Provost for Wellesbourne Wartime Museum (their preferred aircraft), if desired; if this cannot be achieved, there is a corporate buyer interested in acquiring the Provost, to go into storage for later restoration.
The Meteor is now under serious consideration for acquisition by an aviation museum in Kent, therefore any Gift Aid raised with this appeal will pass to that HMRC-registered charitable organisation.
The target figure for this appeal was set at £12,000, but it is set to close at just £3265 on Monday 13th January, a long way short of target, necessitating changes of proposed outcome to that of dividing the remaining total raised into purchase subsidising, dismantling costs and relocation assistance funding for both airframes, with interested parties to pay the fund-discounted purchase prices.
This project (and these proposed amendments) carries the full approval and support of Aviation Heritage UK, but this appeal is in no way financially linked to the organisation - this Crowdfunder appeal will remain a separate entity, raised by myself and now amended for the benefit of assisting with costs relating to the dismantling and movement of these aircraft - your continued support to that end would be most appreciated!
Time To Act!
These aircraft have been waiting a very long time for some serious ‘TLC’ - it’s time to act, before the scrap merchants arrive!