Jet Age Museum begins appeal to restore aircraft cockpit

Gloucestershire's Jet Age Museum is trying to raise £15,000 to restore a Hawker Typhoon aeroplane cockpit.

The fighter aircraft, which played a crucial role in World War Two, were built at the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company (GAC) in nearby Brockworth.

Volunteers are hoping to restore the cockpit, which was found at a scrap yard at Chippenham, in Wiltshire and the front of the fuselage, by 2016.

Only one complete aeroplane survives and is on show at a museum in Canada.

Hawker Typhoons were built for the RAF at the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company in Brockworth

Museum chairman Darren Lewington said: "At the height of production, GAC employed more than 10,000 local people, bussed into the factory from around the county, on Typhoon production.

"We owe it to the generation that gave so much, to record their contribution to the war effort.

"Money will enable us to procure materials and the rare parts we need, but access to engineering facilities and services would also be very helpful."

A handful of items to be used in the restoration were dug up at a quarry near the former RAF Red Arrows base at Kemble, where aircraft had been dumped after the war.

Other items, including landing gear legs, tyres, wheels and parts for the windscreen, have also been acquired by the volunteers who are restoring part of the aircraft.

Gloucestershire's Jet Age Museum was officially opened earlier this year, 14 years after the old museum closed.

It houses aircraft such as a 1925 Gloucester Gamecock, a Gloster E28 and a Gloster Javelin, and contains archive photos and documents.

The Jet Age Museum houses several vintage aircraft at its new premises in Gloucestershire