Not Quite Extinct

The collection of the RAF Museum aircraft has many regrettable gaps, reflected in the ranks of preserved aircraft as a whole. Many famous aircraft types, of all vintages, nationalities and types, right up to the 1940s and 50s, are now extinct, either through scrapping at the end of their service lives or the later destruction of one-time ‘preserved’ examples.

However, the RAF Museum collection includes some surprising relics of otherwise lost types; not perhaps enough to attempt a reconstruction, but at least something to remind us of them. Here are a few examples, featuring various members of the RAF’s former interwar ‘cloth bomber’ fleet. These components are either held in store or, in the case of engines in particular, out on loan to other institutions. This is of course just a very small selection of the material not currently on public view.

We would be interested to hear of other institutions or individuals with relics of these aircraft, please write to us.