Reserve collection day at Fleet Air Arm Museum

THIS year’s public opening of the Fleet Air Arm Museum’s Reserve Collection at RNAS Yeovilton will see a new aircraft on public display.

It is a rare example of a Harrier T8 training aircraft - adding to the museum’s collection of VSTOL (vertical, short take-off and landing) aircraft – and will be going on show to the public in the reserve collection day on Thursday, October 24, 2013, at the museum's Cobham Hall facility.

The museum now owns what is probably the world’s largest collection of VSTOL aircraft and associated exhibits including the prototype Hawker P.1127, two Sea Harriers which took part in the Falklands War the FRS1 and FA2 and a Harrier GR9 which saw action in Afghanistan.

In addition to the five Harrier variants, the museum displays two engines, the Pegasus and a rare Bristol Siddeley 100 ‘Super Harrier’ engine which was not put into service.

The Reserve Collection Open Day is also a good opportunity to see the progress being made on the restoration of what will become the world’s only Fairey Barracuda torpedo bomber.

The Barracuda project is an ambitious restoration collaboration between the FleetAirArmMuseum in Somerset and Newcastle based KVPL’s (Kiltech Vehicle Protection Ltd) to raise £60,000 in order to rebuild a WW2 Fairey Barracuda.

PHOTO - TOP: The Harrier T8 training aircraft.

The Fairey Barracuda was a British carrier-borne, three seat torpedo dive bomber and reconnaissance aircraft.

Over 2,500 Fairey Barracuda aircraft were built making it the Royal Navy’s most prolific aircraft during the Second World War yet unlike other more iconic aircraft of its era, none were retained for posterity.

The Fleet Air Arm Museum have been collecting sections of Barracuda since the early 1970s however only now, through the revolutionary restoration methods developed by KVPL, involving softening, straightening, stretching and reforming of each crumpled piece, has the process of identification and restoration of the aircraft become feasible delivering some truly remarkable results.

Details of the appeal together with photographs of this remarkable restoration can be found through the FleetAirArmMuseum’s website at www.fleetairarm.com/barracudaproject or by visiting KVLP’s Barracuda Project Site at www.barracudaproject.co.uk .

The reserve collection is situated across the road from the museum in Cobham Hall. Doors open at 10am and entry price is £4.

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Leisure.