Last time the Nimrod to Cosford by road idea was mentioned on here, the little matter of access was also mentioned.....notably a hump back bridge at one end of the airfield and a low railway bridge at the other...the former, for a low loader would be nigh on impossible I would suggest...the rail bridge, well there's the little matter of the two fin spars.....a major job to remove...so it occured to me that, a little polite note to BAe may provide an answer.....lift the fuse off the load loader on the main site and plonk it on a borrowed transportation trolley..... as in the one we used to shift XV 246 in the Antonov....and which will be lower than a low loader and may just, only just I reckon, get under the bridge.
Strange thing about reading the above is that only yesterday I drove under the bridge twice on the way in and out of Cosford!
The Nimrod when sat on the AN124 transport sleds is inclined nose up at 1,6 degrees, this is to lower the height of the all important fin spars, the heighest point on the Nimrod in the stillage is the third yellow ratchet strap when looking at the front stillage 3,6 meters from what I recall, with a bridge height of 12' 9" (3,88M in Euro speak) the Nimrod would fit, in fact it could be transferred from the lorry to the flight stillage in the visitor carpark then towed all the way in to the museum from there! Which would be a shorter distance than the ground move we undertook with 246 at Waddington (remember the VC10 in circuit at the time we wanted to cross the active).
It is also possible to lower the stillage by a further 25MM by removal of the packers installed between the wheels and the framework, these packers were only needed for the AN124 loading preventing a tail strike when translating from the ground to the extension ramp.
The same Nimrod stillage was designed to work with the AN124 and Heanor Haulage 80 wheel road transport equipment, additionally the option to load the Nimrod on to a boat was also given consideration. One option back in 1996 was to road haul the Nimrod from Kinloss to Ardersier and then use a boat to the South coast with only the final part of the trip in to Bournemouth being performed by road. This was the backup plan in case something negated using the Russian AN124, the route we proposed to take on the road had been checked out and catered for avoiding the rail bridge you would encounter if you turn right out of the main gate at Kinloss, similar attention to detail was also in place for the Bournmouth road network.
Getting the fuselage moved is an easy task, the wing would be a rather more complicated challenge - Mike