Which planes should have been preserved?

[AE220]

Many questions have been asked about which historic proposals should have flown, however this topic asks which projects (mock-up or prototypes) should have been preserved.

Personally I think the East German Baade 152 would be an awesome aircraft to see in a museum.

 

[martinbayer]

Simple rule - ideally at least each and every one that successfully completed a first flight and non destructive landing. Everything else is gravy.

 

[riggerrob]

Blohm & Voss 141 asymmetric airplane. Too bad the 40-ish production run were captured and scrapped by Soviets in 1945.
On that note, one each of every Nazi Wunderwaffen should have been preserved.
Canadian Army officer Farley Mowat tried to preserve some war trophies, but they were unceremoniously scrapped a year or two after the war.

 

[uk 75]

Preserving aircraft is very difficult and expensive.. Even the best maintained grounded birds look a bit forlorn.
I was fortunate to see the V bombers at 60s Battle of Britain days in their prime. I recall being sad looking at the captive examples at Hendon.
Airliners are even less impressive. Having seen rows of Tridents and VC10s at Heathrow, the solitary museum birds weathetring badly on an English day dont really convey the excitement.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

The first Comet G-5-1 / G-ALVG.

 

[AE220]

The first Comet G-5-1 / G-ALVG.

Always loved the comet, there was one on display near my area in the Museum of flight but it's been under restoration since 1995.

 

[Sabrejet]

The Miles M.52 mock-up!!! Two reasons: its historical importance and the fact that it was beautifully-built.

 

[perttime]

Supermarine Spiteful/Seafang.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Too many for reality and financial constraints but, it should be possible to recreate at least some of these lost aircraft legends with the added role of training future engineers and designers. We should be able to recreate the highlioghts relatively easily. The actual will to do so is not there.

 

[Elan Vital]

Too many for reality and financial constraints but, it should be possible to recreate at least some of these lost aircraft legends with the added role of training future engineers and designers. We should be able to recreate the highlioghts relatively easily. The actual will to do so is not there.

There is a small company recreating a Dewoitine 551 1940 fighter prototype in France.

 

[Foo Fighter]

There was a Fokker D-21 a few years ago too but these are rare successes.

View: https://youtu.be/IajpDCAtuhw?t=2

 

[Archibald]

Mirage ACF, 1975. Not finished and scrapped.

 

[FighterJock]

Harrier GR.7/9, it is sad that none of the advanced harriers are on display in the UK.

 

[Sabrejet]

Harrier GR.7/9, it is sad that none of the advanced harriers are on display in the UK.

A joke surely? Do none of these survive (most on display):

ZD318 GR7 Wittering
ZD433 GR9A FAAM Yeovilton
ZD461 GR9A IWM Lambeth
ZD462 GR7 9302M, Malmesbury (Dyson?)
ZD465 GR9 ground instructional Gosport
ZD469 GR7A Wittering main gate
ZG477 GR9 RAFM Hendon
ZG509 GR7 Petersfield area, Hants

Must be more too...

 

[FighterJock]

Thanks Sabrejet, I had thought that all the Harriers had been got rid off after the RAF/RN stopped using them back in 2010.

 

[Archibald]

Amiot 354, french bomber of 1940. The builder - Felix Amiot - kept one, dismantled, literally in his home basement. When he died in the 1970's, the plane went to Le Bourget aerospace museum... more exactly in the reserves, at Dugny. Fast forward to May 1990: Dugny went up in smoke, and that last bomber, too. (facepalm)

 

[F-2]

I know the F-16 CCV and AFTI are technically preserved but I wish one of them still had its canards.

 

[Sabrejet]

Thanks Sabrejet, I had thought that all the Harriers had been got rid off after the RAF/RN stopped using them back in 2010.

Those at Yeovilton and Wittering look particularly nice from what I can see of photos: it's inspired me to go take a look!

 

[Rhinocrates]

Nimrod MRA4, the Saro Princess

 

[FighterJock]

Highly agreed Rhinocrates, about the Nimrod MRA4.

 

[Nick]

Heinkel 178 and 280 as examples of the first flying jet aircraft.

Miles Master as a fairly important WW2 trainer used by several countries.

 

[Justo Miranda]

In my opinion, what should be kept is all the project documentation along with as many technical data, photographs, drawings and history of the prototypes as possible. Think about how inappropriate it is to see stuffed animals in museums instead of videos of the animal in motion, infographics about its anatomy, and scientific data about its capabilities and evolution. The museums of the future will be completely virtual with three-dimensional scans of each object and attached text files on everything that is known about it, including X-rays and CT scans of the interior. An airplane covered in dust and with erroneous camouflage paint is of no use in today's world, except to prove that the machine existed, something it can do much more cheaply by displaying videos and photographs and devoting resources to expanding the museum's databases.

 

[riggerrob]

Dear Justo,
A long- term problem with digital archives is that storage media have very short service lives.
For example, how easily can you access a machine that will allow you tolisten to Edison’s first sound recordings on waxed cylinders?
For digital archives to survive - over the centuries - you need many different types of storage media preserved in many different vaults and multiple copies of the various machines needed to read them.

 

[sferrin]

Dear Justo,
A long- term problem with digital archives is that storage media have very short service lives.
For example, how easily can you access a machine that will allow you tolisten to Edison’s first sound recordings on waxed cylinders?
For digital archives to survive - over the centuries - you need many different types of storage media preserved in many different vaults and multiple copies of the various machines needed to read them.

Floppy disks, tape drive, Zip drive, burned CD, DVDs, Bluray. And that's just my personal computer. I can't imagine trying to keep an archive up and running. And with modern NAS systems the incentive to make "hard" copies on discs just isn't there. Does anybody have the time or desire to back up a 50 TB NAS on DVD?