English Electric Canberra - Survivor WH657
B.2 WH657 - Booker Air, Brenzett Aeronautical Museum, Brenzett, Kent
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Canberra B.2 WH657 at Brenzett, 10th September 2022; Richard E Flagg
Built as a B.2 in 1952, WH657 first joined 231 OCU before being transferred to the charge of the National Gas Turbine Establishment at Farnborough in 1953 for nine years of high altitude fuel systems development and engine research. Whilst with them, she also spent some time on a very unpleasant project with Porton Down's biological warfare unit, spraying bacterial suspensions over the Porton range as part of research into the effectiveness of aerial delivery of bacteriological warfare agents. In 1962, WH657 was moved onto a joint UK/US project to track British satellites in northern latitudes.
After carrying out the satellite tracking for four years, WH657 was transferred to the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield, for slush trials. After that her useful career came to an end she was disposed to RFD Ltd at Godalming, who used her for trials of their inflatable lifting bags (for use in recovering crashed aircraft). In 1986, just before she was due to be scrapped, she was bought by Booker Air who loaned her to Brenzett Museum in Kent.
Sadly her years in Kent haven't been kind to her. After lying near-derelict for a number of years, with her wings lying on the ground alongside, work finally got underway in 2002 to refurbish this Canberra to a better cosmetic static display state, including a general tidy-up and (a pretty rough) repaint to something approximating her NGTE trials scheme, and refitting of the wings.
Unfortunately, WH657 soon became too big a job for the museum to look after, so the decision was made that she would be mostly scrapped and that just the cockpit would be kept. The cockpit was treated to a repaint by 2013 and was looking in good shape. Sadly the canopy has now turned completely white due to many years of direct sunlight, and the paintwork is now looking rough. The cockpit, which is often open to visitors, is sadly missing a fair amount of instruments.
The nose of WH657 can be seen on display at the end of one of the museum buildings as pictured above.
After carrying out the satellite tracking for four years, WH657 was transferred to the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield, for slush trials. After that her useful career came to an end she was disposed to RFD Ltd at Godalming, who used her for trials of their inflatable lifting bags (for use in recovering crashed aircraft). In 1986, just before she was due to be scrapped, she was bought by Booker Air who loaned her to Brenzett Museum in Kent.
Sadly her years in Kent haven't been kind to her. After lying near-derelict for a number of years, with her wings lying on the ground alongside, work finally got underway in 2002 to refurbish this Canberra to a better cosmetic static display state, including a general tidy-up and (a pretty rough) repaint to something approximating her NGTE trials scheme, and refitting of the wings.
Unfortunately, WH657 soon became too big a job for the museum to look after, so the decision was made that she would be mostly scrapped and that just the cockpit would be kept. The cockpit was treated to a repaint by 2013 and was looking in good shape. Sadly the canopy has now turned completely white due to many years of direct sunlight, and the paintwork is now looking rough. The cockpit, which is often open to visitors, is sadly missing a fair amount of instruments.
The nose of WH657 can be seen on display at the end of one of the museum buildings as pictured above.
Information on this page current as of 11/09/2022, last updated by Jake |
Find other photos of WH657 on the following sites:
Air-Britain - Airliners.net - Airplane-Pictures.net - flickr.com - WorldAirPics.com - JetPhotos.net - PlanePictures.net