MN235

Gloster built MN235 at Hucclecote under subcontract to Hawker, with a Napier Sabre IIA. Sqn Ldr Allan Smith, resting from operations with No. 486 Squadron, flew it for 40 minutes on 8 February 1944 and passed it without faults.

It never joined a squadron. After storage at Lichfield it was shipped to New York in March 1944 for USAAF evaluation as a fighter-bomber. It reached Wright Field that May. Requirements changed, and after a minor accident and only nine hours' flying it went into store. Small American additions, including a P-38 data case, are still inside.

In 1949 it passed to the National Air Museum and sat dismantled at Park Ridge, Chicago, then at Silver Hill, Maryland. The RAF Museum asked for it in 1967 and the Smithsonian handed it over that July. The RAF later gave a Hurricane IIc in exchange. It landed at Liverpool in January 1968.

No. 27 MU at Shawbury restored it for display in 1968. Missing parts were improvised: the spinner came from a Hastings and the radiator from a Bedford lorry. It reached Hendon by November 1972. In 2013 it went to Cosford, where it was repainted in No. 440 Squadron RCAF markings, then spent 2014 to 2018 on loan in Ottawa. After a summer at Coningsby it was reassembled at Hendon in late November 2018.

On show in Hangars 3 and 4, the historic hangars with the Second World War fighters.