“My ambition was always to make these cockpits 100% correct so that former crews would find them as accurate as when they flew them. The buyer won’t have to endure the pain, time and trouble I have been through to find instruments and panels, ejection seats and the countless parts required to assemble the cockpits,” Towler said. “This is an opportunity to go to a one-stop-shop – me – to buy a ready-made museum. The cockpit would deserve to rest in a museum or to join another public or private collection. That would be a shame, considered the work that he’s done in the last four decades to preserve such pieces of history. If Towler can’t find a buyer for the whole collection, he will have to sell off hundreds of parts individually and then scrap the rest. As well as the cockpits, numerous spares and parts are available to buy.”īoth strategic bomber types played a role in aviation history, flying for the first time 70 years ago (the Valiant, in 1951), then operating in the Cold War and during the Falklands War when, especially the Victor supported the Vulcan, in one of the RAF’s greatest missions of all time. “Equally important is XH670, the last surviving section of a Victor B2 Bomber variant still in existence, and Vulcan K2 XH560, one of six B2s converted into tankers during the Falklands conflict. It was retired by No 55 Squadron in 1990.” It was due to be the last aircraft to pass fuel to Vulcan XM607 but famously XH669’s fueling probe broke. It was later converted to become a tanker and was involved in the Black Buck raid during the 1982 Falklands War. “Then there’s Victor cockpit XH669, the second B2 model built. It served with Nos 7, 90, 138 and 543 squadrons and the 232 Operational Conversion Unit, according to the information made available by Hansons Auctioneers. Towler’s colossal collection includes some extremely rare pieces as it includes a Valiant (XD826) that originally flew as a bomber, from Honington in Suffolk and the nose survived as a ground-trainer at Feltwell, Norfolk, when the airframe was scrapped in 1965.
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