A unique Harrier test rig, saved from scrapping by The Helicopter
Museum at Weston-super-Mare eight years ago, is going on-loan to the
Hucknall Flight Test Museum (HUFTM) under the jurisdiction of the
Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust.
The rig was built in the early 1980s to
test a Rolls-Royce (R-R) Pegasus turbofan engine modified with plenum
chamber burning (PCB) to represent the BS 100 engine for the supersonic
Hawker P1154 project. The work, largely carried out at Dunsfold,
required two Harrier airframes: the wing of T2 XW264 married to the
fuselage of GR.1 XV798, with a steel cage centre section and
attachments to enable the aircraft to be suspended at various angles in
a gantry at the MoD Proof and Experimental Establishment at
Shoeburyness, Essex. Its designation was APCB 2.
Testing in the gantry began in 1983 and continued
through 1986 but
the P1154 was cancelled by Labour’s Dennis Healey and although PCB
research continued for application to newer VSTOL projects, the rig was
abandoned.
In 1994 it was salvaged by volunteers and placed in storage with the Bristol Aero Collection but the closure of their Kemble base in 2012 saw the rig threatened with scrapping. However, the Helicopter Museum stepped in and it was transported to Weston-super-Mare for continued storage, pending plans to build a new hangar and construct a gantry to properly display the unique exhibit
Unfortunately funding had to be suspended due to other priorities but last year saw volunteers at the HUFTM offer to take on the restoration project and, importantly, place the ‘aircraft’ under cover. An agreement was subsequently reached to transfer the rig, initially on a three-year loan, and it was transported on 30th January 2020 to its new home at the R-R Hucknall site in Nottinghamshire.