As you will soon see, only the nose and cockpit of WV838 remains. With only
239 flying hours under her wings, '838 suffered a high speed crash during a
formation takeoff at Lossiemouth after the starboard tyre blew out. The
damage sustained was substantial and given that Sea Hawks were being phased
out in favour of the new Sea Vixen, she was written off.
Sold for scrap to the now infamous Flowers scrapyard in Chippenham, she
spent the next forty odd years in a ditch slowly rotting away. Although many
tried to rescue her, the scrapyard owner wouldn't sell. Parts were stolen,
she was vandalised and burned. By the time the scrapyard owner passed away
and '838 was once again offered up for sale there wasn't much left. (See the
'wilderness years' page).
Bought by Phoenix aviation, the remains of the wings and fuselage were
scrapped. The nosewheel was removed for sale to another sea hawk
owner, and the cockpit offered for sale.
Again, there was a queue of people waiting to buy her but the extremely poor
condition forced them to turn away. It was at this point that I got wind of
the situation and (some say foolishly) stepped in with the cash.
I don't have an aviation background, nor am I an engineer. My experiences
with working on cars and motorcycles as a hobby was all I had to fall back
on. Some damage to '838 is to the internal structures and repairing or
replacing these is currently outside my comfort zone. I don't have a fully
equipped workshop either - all work has been done in a regular sized garage
alongside my house.
WV838 isn't being restored in the true sense of the word. She is being made
pretty. Her original paint scheme and markings from her initial deployment
with 802 sqdn on HMS Eagle will be applied. It has taken over three years
and a lot of hunting to find all the parts from the cockpit. At the time of
writing there are still a few items missing - but they will turn up sooner
or later.