N2980 “R for Robert”

N2980 was assembled at the Vickers-Armstrongs works at Weybridge in October 1939. Chief test pilot 'Mutt' Summers first flew it on 16 November 1939. It went to No. 149 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall, coded 'R' for Robert and flew 14 operations.

On 18 December 1939 it flew the Heligoland Bight raid. German fighters shot down more than half of the 22 Wellingtons. The losses pushed the RAF towards bombing at night.

By late 1940 it was a trainer with No. 20 Operational Training Unit at RAF Lossiemouth. On 31 December 1940 an engine failed in a snowstorm over the Monadhliath Mountains. The crew were told to bale out. Rear gunner Sgt J.S. Fensome died when his parachute failed. Sqn Ldr David Marwood-Elton and his co-pilot ditched on Loch Ness and paddled ashore in the dinghy.

American sonar searchers looking for the monster found the wreck in 1976. A Royal Navy diving team confirmed the serial in 1979. Robin Holmes formed the Loch Ness Wellington Association in 1984. After a first lifting frame collapsed, the bomber was craned out at Bona Lighthouse on 21 September 1985.

British Aerospace delivered it to Brooklands on 27 September 1985, making it one of the museum's first exhibits. Volunteers have since put in more than 100,000 hours. In 2016 it left the Bellman Hangar while that building was moved, returning when the hangar reopened as the Brooklands Aircraft Factory in 2017.

Centrepiece of the Brooklands Aircraft Factory (the re-erected Bellman Hangar). Parts are left unskinned to show the geodetic structure; you view it from the floor, and occasional behind-the-scenes tours run.