You guys are completely correct of course and to be fair there is a great big display in front of her with a time line showing the various additions and mods made to her.
Comet 1A
I have lived in and around Farnborough most of my life and myself and other ‘orrible kids would often go sneaking about where sneaking about wasn’t really allowed. The Pressure tank was still there in the late 60’s early 70’s as were 4 maybe 5 fuselages in moth balls that were almost in touching distance from the fence. I learnt during my visit that the very airframe I was wandering through is one of those mothballed fuselage … well it meant something to me anyway
For details sake she is a Comet 1a built at Hatfield for Air France and did fly commercially before being sent to Farnborough. Believed to be the only “square windowed” example on display anywhere. Apparently she was scheduled to go into the tank but conclusive evidence was found for the catastrophic failures before she was needed and so she was stuck in mothballs until, the mid 80’s or there abouts.
I made a complete balls of the camera setup for the conditions and the visitors were piling up behind me but I still include the flight deck pix as they are interesting … I hope.
