The process is painstaking, fraught with difficulties and highly sensitive, but after a half-century wait, a labour of love to rebuild a “missing link” in the UK’s military aviation history is coming to fruition.
Laid out on the floor of a cavernous hangar at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Somerset, the ghostly silhouette of a Fairey Barracuda torpedo and dive bomber fuselage is taking shape and over the next 10 years visitors will be able to watch as the plane is completely rebuilt.