Originally Posted by
chevvron
There was a complete Comet 1 fuselage at Farnborough up until the early '80s. Part of the mothballing had peeled away revealing Air France markings. Can't remember if it had square or round windows. I'm not sure what happened to it but last time I saw it was near the airfield fire service practice ground.(not the present one, this one was on the north side in what is now Qinetiq), previously it had been in 'the dump' on the north side and prior to that near the test tank on the south side.
This was the third of the Air France fleet of the 1950s, as described above two were rebuilt and flew again but one, F-BGNX, was left derelict at Farnborough. It was eventually given to the De Havilland museum at London Colney. Here it is there about 15 years ago
Photos: De Havilland DH-106 Comet 1A Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net
Both Air France and the independent French carrier UAT had three Comet 1s. AF used them from Paris to the Middle East, while UT ran them to the French colonies in West Africa. The UAT ones were stored at le Bourget when the type was withdrawn and lay there for years, finally being scrapped in the 1960s.
I don't know to what extent these purchasers were given their money back when the type was withdrawn.
An interesting assembly of all the timetables of the Comet 1 users at point of withdrawl in 1954 is here :
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/comet1.htm