There was a truly excellent museum at Newquay Airport called the Cornwall Aviation Heritage Centre. It had a number of rare British aircraft - just to name a few:
- a Vickers Super VC10 airliner in flying condition[1], one of only 22 built and one of the even fewer number that underwent a successful conversion to military in-flight refuelling service
- a BAC 1-11 airliner, the last in flying condition, I believe
- a English Electric Lightning supersonic interceptor
In 2022, the museum's lease was terminated by the Cornwall County Council with eight months' notice. When the museum found a private donor and proposed to move all the aircraft to a nearby site (which belonged to a local businessman who wanted to support the effort), that same Council cancelled one of their meetings. The meeting was supposed to have been to arrange temporary storage for the exhibits during construction of the new museum site. This gave the museum one week to move or destroy the aircraft. Some of the airframes were returned to the armed forces (who have historic collections of their own, for instance at Yeovilton).
The Super VC10 was disassembled; a few metres of the plane's front section were moved to the RAF base at St. Athan. The BAC 1-11 had a similar end, with the forward fuselage moved to one day be turned into a café in Southampton to support a local aviation museum.
[1]: When I visited the museum, I was asked not to touch any of the VC10's engine controls, because, as the volunteer explained at the time, it still had some fuel in the tanks!
