I found out a few days ago that the Cornwall Aviation Heritage Centre by RAF St Mawgan has been ordered to be closed by Cornwall county council.
I don’t know all the ins and outs , but they had notice to close and move 12 months ago, and in that time they raised a million pounds and fought hard to save and move all the aircraft but it looks like they just could not find a suitable place to move them all.
A few days ago the council, ( in my view a very narrow minded and obstinate council) ordered the Museum to close and move all property and aircraft off sight immediately… A herculean and also impossible task ( you could say idiots here !!! )
The owners of the museum must have got in contact with the RAF as there is a JARTs team here dismantling 2 Tornadoes the museum had on loan and were used as exercise aircraft for that team to use along with a Hawk trainer.
Not really sure what will happen to the rest of the aircraft, but it’s a crying shame as it was a decent little private charity based museum, just preserving historic aircraft.
I took a few images to show here after I walked the dog early at our site next to where the museum is ( it was actually on land that was ex RAF St Mawgan but then sold to council and became Cornwall airport property) and they actually stored the aircraft and used 2 or 3 old HAS’s.
Here are the images in no real order.
An old Harrier … I will try and put them all together by type …
A Canberra…
The Hunters.
The Hawk
The Shackleton… This was at one time the gate guardian at RAF St Mawgan. The museum staff were in the process of refurbing it, and getting the 2 inboard engines working…not to be now sadly
A Seahawk
The Lightning
A Jet Provost ?
And the 2 Tornadoes. ( Just the tailplane of one). The JARTs team are in the process of dismantling them for transport and all wings are off etc.
There are a few other Aircraft I didn’t look around, VC10, BA 111 … Sad loss, will update if I find anything else out.