RAF Bone Yard
- Thread starter Hairog
- Start date
Edgar Brooks
Senior Airman
It varied.
There were scrap metal merchants, who bought the redundant airframes, then ripped them apart, and sold the parts to smelters, etc.
One pilot told me how some were paid £100 to fly out over the sea, and take to their parachute, letting the aircraft go.
When aircraft carriers returned through the Mediterranean, aircraft were simply rolled off the round-down.
Many were sold (or donated) to the previously-occupied countries of Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, plus Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, India, Hongkong, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, (and the USSR never gave any back.)
There was no hanging about, with redundant airframes, for instance finished Typhoons were wheeled out of the factory, across the airfield, and scrapped.
Others were buried in Burma, or redundant Australian mine shafts.
There were scrap metal merchants, who bought the redundant airframes, then ripped them apart, and sold the parts to smelters, etc.
One pilot told me how some were paid £100 to fly out over the sea, and take to their parachute, letting the aircraft go.
When aircraft carriers returned through the Mediterranean, aircraft were simply rolled off the round-down.
Many were sold (or donated) to the previously-occupied countries of Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, plus Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, India, Hongkong, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, (and the USSR never gave any back.)
There was no hanging about, with redundant airframes, for instance finished Typhoons were wheeled out of the factory, across the airfield, and scrapped.
Others were buried in Burma, or redundant Australian mine shafts.
pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
What aircraft were donated to Canada ...thought it was the other way around as a matter of can't think of any .It varied.
There were scrap metal merchants, who bought the redundant airframes, then ripped them apart, and sold the parts to smelters, etc.
One pilot told me how some were paid £100 to fly out over the sea, and take to their parachute, letting the aircraft go.
When aircraft carriers returned through the Mediterranean, aircraft were simply rolled off the round-down.
Many were sold (or donated) to the previously-occupied countries of Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, plus Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, India, Hongkong, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, (and the USSR never gave any back.)
There was no hanging about, with redundant airframes, for instance finished Typhoons were wheeled out of the factory, across the airfield, and scrapped.
Others were buried in Burma, or redundant Australian mine shafts.
- Thread starter
- #4
Vic Balshaw
Major General
As a child in 1952/3 I used to play under the mothballed Vickers Wellingtons that were scattered and tethered all over the airfield and maintenance area in the open wherever there was space or in the old earth covered hangers at RAF Hullavington in Wiltshire. We left there in a few months after the coronation of QE II for Egypt so I don't know what happened to them but one would think they were eventually scrapped.
