Gloucestershire Jet Age Museum buys Gloster Javelin

The FAW 4 Gloster Javelin was built in Hucclecote in 1956

A museum in Gloucestershire has won a tender process to buy a rare aircraft, built in the county in 1956.

The Jet Age Museum said the aircraft, which has no engine and is not airworthy, was the "world's only surviving" FAW 4 Gloster Javelin.

It is expected to be transported to the Staverton base in the new year.

The Ministry of Defence is selling the aircraft which has spent more than two decades at the gates of RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire.

For more than 20 years the aircraft has been at the gates at RAF Leeming

Once at the museum the jet, bought for an undisclosed sum, will be assessed before a fundraising campaign is launched to pay for its restoration.

"We are delighted to have secured the future of this rare example of the famous Gloster fighter," said museum chairman, Darren Lewington.

"Built at Hucclecote in 1956, this is the world's only surviving FAW 4 Javelin and spent much of its operational life as a test and trials aircraft at GAC (Gloster Aircraft Company)."

The company built planes using jet engines which had been designed by British engineer Sir Frank Whittle, who died in 1996, aged 89.

Its first jet plane, the Gloster E28/39, was developed at the Gloster factory-airfield between Gloucester and Cheltenham. Its official first flight was at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire on 15 May 1941.

Sir Frank's son, Ian, is a patron of the Jet Age Museum which has had 25,000 visitors since it reopened in August 2013.