The types
Percival aircraft you can see
| Type | First flew | Built | UK museums |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percival Mew Gull | 1934 | 6 | 1 |
| Percival Proctor | 1939 | 1,143 | 3 |
| Percival Prentice | 1946 | ~370 | 3 |
| Percival Pembroke & Sea Prince | 1948 | ~170 | 8 |
| Percival Provost | 1950 | 461 | 10 |
The firm
Percival in brief
In 1936 the company was restructured as Percival Aircraft Ltd and moved to Luton Airport. During the war it built the Proctor, a development of the Vega Gull. After the war came the Prentice and Provost trainers and the Pembroke light transport.
Percival joined the Hunting Group in 1944, and Edgar Percival sold his remaining interest. The firm became Hunting Percival in 1954 and Hunting Aircraft in 1957. Its Jet Provost became the RAF’s basic jet trainer. BAC took over in 1960, and a Hunting design became the starting point for the One-Eleven.
Where to go
Museums holding Percival aircraft
| Museum | Percival types | Adult entry | Airframes | Headline exhibit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newark Air MuseumNewark, Nottinghamshire | 2 | £12.50 | 95 | Vulcan XM594, with cockpit tours occasionally given by former Vulcan aircrew, which reviewers describe with the reverence normally… |
| Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation MuseumBungay, Suffolk | 2 | £10 | 65 | Depends who you ask — the joy is the oddities. Come for the Bloodhound missiles and decoy rarities; stay for volunteer flight-simulator… |
| South Wales Aviation MuseumBarry, Vale of Glamorgan | 2 | £10 | 73 | The resident Harrier and a growing VC10/Tornado-era collection, most with steps and open canopies. Kids exit wearing thousand-yard grins. |
| The Shuttleworth CollectionBiggleswade, Bedfordshire | 2 | £19.50 | 55 | The 1934 DH.88 Comet 'Grosvenor House', winner of the MacRobertson England–Australia air race, restored to fly; and the Edwardians —… |
| Bournemouth Aviation MuseumChristchurch, Dorset | 1 | £10 | 29 | The sit-anywhere policy itself — one entry fee, no per-cockpit charges, a full BAC 1-11 flight-deck sim in a shed, and thousands… |
| East Midlands AeroparkDerby, Leicestershire | 1 | £5 | 35 | East Midlands Aeropark: a Vulcan, Nimrod R1 and Buccaneer parked on grassy mounds overlooking EMA's runway — half museum, half premier… |
| Fleet Air Arm MuseumYeovil, Somerset | 1 | £21 | 97 | Concorde 002 (G-BSST), the first British-assembled Concorde, which made her maiden flight from Filton in 1969 and now headlines a hall of… |
| Gatwick Aviation MuseumGatwick, Surrey | 1 | £12.50 | 16 | Avro Shackleton WR982 (the £5 guided tour is unanimously endorsed) and a live-engined English Electric Lightning. There's also… |
| Hooton Park HangarsEllesmere Port, Cheshire | 1 | £9 | 45 | Hooton Park's 1917 Belfast-truss hangars — among the finest WWI aviation buildings surviving — hold aircraft, buses and a printing museum… |
| IWM DuxfordCambridge, Cambridgeshire | 1 | £29 | 146 | Concorde 101 (G-AXDN), the pre-production development aircraft and the fastest Concorde of them all at Mach 2.23 — plus an SR-71A… |
| Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage CentreSpilsby, Lincolnshire | 1 | £13.50 | 11 | Lancaster NX611 (taxiing now, returning to flight one day, they swear) and Mosquito NF.II HJ711 — the only running Mosquito in Europe.… |
| Midland Air MuseumCoventry, Warwickshire | 1 | £11 | 66 | Vulcan XL360 with cockpit access and volunteer-led tours (ask for the instrumentation talk), plus the Whittle jet heritage collection a… |
| National Museum Of FlightNorth Berwick, East Lothian | 1 | £15 | 47 | Concorde G-BOAA, which flew British Airways' first commercial supersonic service in 1976 and arrived here by barge and giant road-crawl… |
| Royal Air Force Museum LondonLondon, Greater London | 1 | Free | 88 | Avro Lancaster R5868 'S-Sugar' — 137 operations, the RAF's highest-scoring surviving heavy — under the same roof as a Vulcan, a… |
| Royal Air Force Museum MidlandsShifnal, Shropshire | 1 | Free | 78 | TSR-2 XR220, one of two survivors of the most gifted aircraft Britain ever cancelled, sharing floor space with the stainless-steel… |
| Solway Aviation MuseumCrosby on Eden, Cumbria | 1 | £8 | 21 | Vulcan XJ823 with pre-bookable crew-compartment visits; a Phantom, Lightning and Canberra (whose three-crew cockpit reviewers describe as… |
| South Yorkshire Aircraft MuseumDoncaster, South Yorkshire | 1 | £7.50 | 109 | Doncaster's South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum sprawls across the old RAF Doncaster site: dozens of airframes and helicopters, strong… |
| Speke Aerodrome Heritage GroupLiverpool, Merseyside | 1 | Free | 7 | Speke Airport Museum — Speke Aerodrome Heritage Group keeps airliners, including a Dan-Air 748 under restoration, on Liverpool's gorgeous… |
| Tangmere Military Aviation MuseumChichester, West Sussex | 1 | £15 | 23 | Hawker Hunter WB188 in one-off scarlet, in which Neville Duke took the world air speed record to 727.63 mph off this coast in 1953;… |
| Ulster Aviation Society (Maze Long Kesh)Lisburn, County Antrim | 1 | By appointment | 63 | The Shorts family — SC.1 vertical take-off research aircraft included — plus a Buccaneer, Phantom, Wildcat, and a newly arrived AV-8… |
| Wellesbourne Wartime MuseumWarwick, Warwickshire | 1 | £1.50 | 3 | Wellesbourne's underground WWII battle HQ bunker plus a compact museum — and, crucially, shared turf with Vulcan XM655, the most complete… |
Questions
Frequently asked
Where was Percival based?
At Gravesend from 1933, then at Luton Airport from 1936.
Is the Jet Provost a Percival?
It was built by the same company after it was renamed Hunting Percival in 1954. The Compendium lists it under Hunting.
What happened to Percival?
It became Hunting Percival in 1954 and Hunting Aircraft in 1957. BAC took it over in 1960.