I have a great deal of sympathy with all you say, Opssys, and I'm certainly not going to defend BA's record on the conservation of its heritage. But at the end of the day BA is an airline, and one that is currently fighting for survival and short of cash for anything that is not part of the core operation. The RAF Museum on the other hand exists only for the purpose of preserving and displaying historic aircraft. To say, as John Francis has, that the MOD can't continue to support the BA collection at Cosford until all other ways to preserve these aircraft complete have been exhausted flies in the face of everything the Museum was created for. RAF aircraft were saved for the RAF Museum by non-RAF personnel but the RAF Museum won't delay the destruction of a unique collection of non-RAF aircraft until private funding becomes available again, as it surely will, to preserve them. What kind of a museum policy and attitude is that? What kind of barbarian Directorate? Given that BA has abandoned its Collection why does Cosford necessarily have to connive in its destruction?
Both BA and Cosford have stated that the aircraft are to be "moved to other museums", "disassembled and re-assembled", "found new homes", "deconstructed and reconstructed" etc etc. These are downright untruths and both organisations (and that means the Directors who made these misleading statements) should be held to account for their dishonesty.