Armstrong Whitworth AW.650 Argosy C.1 9Q-COE
(ex Royal Air Force) Armstrong Whitworth AW.650 Argosy C.1 9Q-COE (msn 6778, ex XP446), of O.R.A.S. (Otrag Range Air Services) at East Midlands Airport. XP446 was first flown on 4 October 1962 and delivered to the RAF on 7 March 1963. When the T.2 programme was cancelled the partially completed conversion of XP446 was sold to O.R.A.S. which provided air transport for the OTRAG rocket range in Zaire, hence the Zaire registration. OTRAG (German: Orbital Transport und Raketen AG, or Orbital Transport and Rockets, Inc.), was a German company based in Stuttgart, which in the late 1970s and early 1980s planned to develop an alternative propulsion system for rockets. After intense international pressure OTRAG was forced to re-locate to Libya, but had closed down by 1987. 9Q-COE was written off on 1 June 1979 and scrapped in 1980
