In 1963 students from Cranfield Aeronautics College decided to wheel their Corsair down from the college to the local village pub under the cover of night. This naturally caused a buzz of amusement in the village and the college sent out to retrieve the bird with a tractor.
This aircraft is KD431, the only surviving Fleet Air Arm Corsair of around 2,000 delivered. It survived the chopping block whilst waiting for scrapping in 1946 when Cranfield requested a modern aircraft with hydraulic wing-fold as a learning aid for it's students.
Shortly after the incident it was transfered to the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton. In 2000 restoration begun, removing layers of paint from a quickly and thickly applied 1963 repainting and bringing it back to the layers of paint seen in 1946.