Hawker Sea Fury WG630 Restoration

There is a historic Australian Sea Fury restoration soon to commence on Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 WG630 with the intention of returning it to flight .

Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 WG630 was brought on charge with the Royal Australian Navy on the 7th of March 1952 and served with the Navy until it was struck off Charge on the 15th of November 1959. She is not a Fury but a genuine Sea Fury having original folding wings, tail hook, catapult hooks and all the other naval Sea Fury features. She arrived as deck cargo on the RAN carrier HMAS Vengeance in March 1952. This aircraft was an attrition replacement aircraft to replace those lost in Korea and in operations in Australia and as such had a relatively short service career of just on 6 years.

Following its demilitarization, Sea Fury WG630 was obtained with another aircraft (VW647 now on display in the private Camden Museum of the Thomas family) and a spare engine for £100 by the CSIRO Commonwealth Experimental Building Station in the 1950’s to test the weather resisting ability of windows and sliding doors! It is believed that at first VW647 was used as the wind machine and then for some unknown reason was replaced by WG630. At some stage WG630’s engine driven fuel pump failed and it was decided to use an electric pump feeding fuel from a 44 gallon drum and to get the fuel into the engine the CSIRO team bolted caterpillar filter housing on the rear of the forward spar and cut a hole in the spar to run the fuel line.

In 1986 WG630 was no longer required by the CSIRO and was acquired by The Australian War Memorial (AWM), Canberra and it was then stored and upon the work being undertaken to restore another Sea Fury (VX730) held by the AWM in 1999, WG630 acted as a source of the spares required for completing VX 730.

Subsequently WG630 returned to the Naval Aviation Museum, Nowra NAS, NSW, and was utilized again as a parts source by the RAN Historic Flight in their restoration to airworthy status of Sea Fury FB.11 VW623. WG630 was then restored to static condition as WG630 “K” 110 and placed on display in 2007 at the Naval Aviation Museum.

With the acquisition of the ex-RAN Historic Flight Sea Fury VW623 finished as 102 “K” which was more complete and in better condition, for display in the FAAM a decision was taken to dispose of FB.11 WG630 and she was acquired by the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) in December 2018 along with many other aircraft (two Grumman Trackers , two Iroquois , Sea Venom, Sea Fury, two Wessex , and a Dakota from the now defunct Naval Historic Flight and transported to HARS Albion Park where it is being surveyed for a return to flight. A significant amount of money and time will be required to get this aircraft flying again so readers who want to help should make contact via the HARS website to make a donation to see this genuine Australian Sea Fury fly again.

The purpose of the HARS Naval Historic Flight is to restore and operate selected Australian Naval Aviation heritage aircraft – essentially those that are feasible and realistic to operate, and within the constraint that some of these airframes may only be restored and operated at taxi-able as distinct from airworthy status.

The HARS Navy Heritage Flight is the wholly owned subsidiary of HARS which controls and operates the airframes and activities of the ex-Royal Australian Navy Fleet Air Arm (RANFAA) historic aircraft.

There is considerable conjecture and confusion as to the intertwining history and provenance of RAN Sea Furys including three of the survivors WG630, VW623 and VX730, especially the last, now on display at the Australian War Memorial (AWM). Although identified as VX730 it appears very few (if any) parts of this aircraft are from this identity and it is thought to be VW232 with additional components (rear fuselage, outer wings & stern post) of TF925. Is it possible VW232 was perhaps misidentified as VX730? We would welcome any feedback from those with specific knowledge of these three aircraft.

We would like to acknowledge Steve Long for his assistance in compiling this article and providing valuable insights into this intriguing restoration project and its history and acknowledge and are grateful for the use of some images in this story from other online sources.

Warbirds online will continue to monitor progress on the potential restoration of Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 WG630 to airworthy status and in future articles we will explore the history of the other RAN Sea Fury survivors.

Want to know more about other Sea Fury restorations?

Sea Fury News

Read about the imminent refurbishment of Hawker Fury also known as a “Bagdad Fury” FB.10 Construction No 37723 civil registered VH-SHF about to take place at Scone NSW.

© John Parker 2019