Following a two-year restoration in Cosford's Michael Beetham Conservation Centre, Britain's only surviving Hawker Siddeley Kestrel was unveiled in the Research and Development Hangar at the RAF Museum Cosford on January 24, just short of 50 years after the first flight of the type. The historic machine, XS695, is the only Kestrel ever to go on display in the country of its birth. Not only is XS695 an important addition to the RAF Museum collection, but it now provides Britain with the only major "link" in the Hawker Harrier V/STOL story not previously represented in the UK-wide museum system, completing the story of what is arguably the most innovative combat aircraft ever developed in Britain, three years after the last Harriers were retired from RAF service. Britain's last remaining Kestrel was the eighth of nine Kestrel FGA.l development aircraft, making its first flight from Dunsfold on February 19, 1965, with Hawker test-pilot Duncan Simpson at the controls. After almost 6hr of test flights, on March 30, 1965, XS695 was delivered to the Tripartite (Anglo-American-German) Kestrel Evaluation Sqn, at West Raynham. The unit had been set up to evaluate vertical take-off aircraft in simulated sen-ice conditions.
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