Last Monday while attending Cosford i took the opportunity to visit the Conservation Centre which is used by the Raf Museums to look after and restore Aircraft within the whole collection(Hendon and Cosford) it also stores certain pieces that are currently not on display at ether Museum. The Centre is rarely open to the public(only twice a year) so i took the chance to have a good look around and here are my pics.
First stop for everyone was Vickers Wellington X MF628. This machine is owned by Hendon and is currently being fully restored at the centre which will take around 5 years to complete.
In this picture you can get a small idea of other items stored here top left you can see the tail plane of a Boulton Paul Defiant only one complete Defiant exists and that can be seen at Hendon.
Next is the Handley Page Hampden P1344.This Machine was being ferried to Russia in 1942 when after straying off cousre the Aircraft flew to close to the German occupied Airfield of Petsamo and was shot down with the loss of 3 crew but 2 did survive.The aircraft was then located again in 1989 and the Raf accquired the wreckage in 1991.
This is the Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin this i could find less info about i was told that parts of this were from a machine that was never completed back at the end of the First World War and other bits have been remade to complete the whole airframe.
While there i also had a look at the Museums latest delivery HS Dominie T.MK.1 XS709 which flew into Cosford on 11.02.2011. I think that this was the first Dominie to enter service and when she touched down on Cosfords runway she was the last ever to fly in Raf hands the end of yet another type
.
Thought this might be nice to add on to the end here is some film of that historic last flight into Cosford. Not filmed by myself
Thanks for looking
Lee
Great stuff mate 
