De Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen FAW Mk.1 - XJ476

The Sea Vixen was originally designed to meet an RAF specification for an all weather fighter to replace the Meteor, and Venom night-fighters. The crew of two, pilot and observer, were housed in an unusual asymmetric cabin, the pilot sat on the left under a conventional, sliding, jettisonable canopy while the observer was totally enclosed in his "coal hole", considered necessary because of the low contrast available from the AI.18 radar displays, both crew members were provided with Martin Baker Type 4 ejection seats. The Sea Vixen was remarkable in several ways, it was the first British fighter aircraft to dispense with gun armament, relying on retractable rocket packs and Firestreak air-to-air missiles as armament in its primary role and various combinations of bombs, rockets and Bullpup air-to-surface missiles in the secondary strike and attack roles.

The cockpit section on display in the Museum is from XJ476, the third aircraft of the pre-production batch. It first flew at Christchurch in 1957 and was allocated to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down for radar and gunsight trials. In 1960 it was shipped out to Australia for missile trials at the Long Range Weapons Establishment at Woomera where it remained until 1963 when it was returned to the UK and allocated to the manufacturers who used it for missile development at Hatfield. In 1970 it returned to Boscombe Down where it was used on Martel trials until 1970. By 1972 it was on the dump at Boscombe Down and the forward fuselage was recovered by 424 (Southampton) Squadron, Air Training Corps and moved to their headquarters for instructional purposes. In 1984 it was moved to the new museum building and put on display to the public.

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