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Postwar Disposal of RAF Aircraft
Posted: Sun May 28, 2023 11:25 am
by MikeKozlowski
...I know that, like the USAAF and USN, the RAF probably left distant overseas aircraft to be scrapped or otherwise disposed of in place, But what was done for aircraft that were in continental Europe or the UK proper? Was there a central disposal facility analogous to our Kingman AAF, or were the aircraft also disposed of in place?
Just a curiosity question.
Mike
Re: Postwar Disposal of RAF Aircraft
Posted: Sun May 28, 2023 1:43 pm
by Craiglxviii
MikeKozlowski wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:25 am
...I know that, like the USAAF and USN, the RAF probably left distant overseas aircraft to be scrapped or otherwise disposed of in place, But what was done for aircraft that were in continental Europe or the UK proper? Was there a central disposal facility analogous to our Kingman AAF, or were the aircraft also disposed of in place?
Just a curiosity question.
Mike
I believe that they were mainly sold off by the job lot for scrapping. Local merchants to some airbases, certainly, but I have it in mind that there were three large National firms who did fairly well out of the War Office contracts.
That’s for mainland U.K., but I can’t imagine that any aircraft would’ve been just left abandoned in Europe. There was an RAF presence there for another 50 years so they’d have been known about, well and truly counted, and then handled according to instructions.
RAF Tengah for example was closed down with the stores (including airframes) in place. Certainly I was buying Spitfire spares from there 20 years ago and they were still in War Office broad-arrow-marked crates.