Much like it’s later bretheren the Tornado and latterly, the Eurofighter.
and the Phantoms.
Phantoms were a crock of s*** american junk sold to us cheap so that the british aircraft industry couldn’t compete, and went under. Why did they decommision the Harrier? they were the most versitile aircraft around and could out fly most american so called fighters.
We have a history of fantastic world beating aircraft, but now all we have is a small percentage of Airbus and Eurofighter.
to name a few,
Vickers Viscount, Bristol Brittanna, DH Comet, TSR2, Concorde, the 3 V bombers, buccaneer, Harrier, lightening.
Its sad about that Lightning, I remember it appearing in that field in the early 70s and have watched it deteriorate over the years. I suppose I would compare it with our industry now. IMO that has faced a similar decline and the future is not looking good for us either. Regards kevmac47.
There are a breed of dealers who must think that the longer a vehicle/aircraft etc. sits in a field rotting away, the more valuable it becomes. Rush Green Motors and Ben Jordan are good examples of this thinking. They refuse to sell until it is too late then, sadly, treasures such as the Lightning are lost forever.
Driveroneuk:
Not a nice place to be in war time. A sitting duck. My Dad used to wash them out after the remains of the gunners had been removed.
Sometimes the rear turret wasn’t there anymore when the aircraft got home, as in this case.
I had a long chat with an old tail end charlie who was ‘promoted’ to rear gunner in the last 2 weeks of the war, I was working for a recovery co’ based at Tollerton airport & he was based there during the war as an airframe fitter assembling Lancs to feed the numerous local airfields.
His story scared the life out of me, they’d basically run out of suitable men to man the rear guns & ended up ‘promoting’ vital ground staff to what was considered a death sentance. He flew only 1 daytime mission & luckily the Germans had run out of experienced pilots, but at that time the rear gunners life expectancy was reckoned to be 90mins !
Much like it’s later bretheren the Tornado and latterly, the Eurofighter.
and the Phantoms.
Phantoms were a crock of s*** american junk sold to us cheap so that the british aircraft industry couldn’t compete, and went under. Why did they decommision the Harrier? they were the most versitile aircraft around and could out fly most american so called fighters.
We have a history of fantastic world beating aircraft, but now all we have is a small percentage of Airbus and Eurofighter.
to name a few,
Vickers Viscount, Bristol Brittanna, DH Comet, TSR2, Concorde, the 3 V bombers, buccaneer, Harrier, lightening.
It is a great shame about the old fighter jets, and especially the Harrier Jump Jet.
It is a much greater shame about the Brough Aircraft Factory who have started to lay off their staff. This was originally Blackburns Aircraft which became Hawker Siddeley, Kingston, BA and BAE Systems. Half of the kids I went to school with went to Brough and many are still there, or were until last Thursday. My mums next door neighbour was a black sheep of the Blackburn family who had turned to demon drink, he was an absolute gentleman though if sometimes a little raucous.
The Harrier, Beverley and Buccaneer were my favorite aircraft to be made in Brough and towards the end they built the T35 Hawk and fuselage parts for the Eurofighter.
Brough also turned out aeroplanes all during the second world war and despite nightly bombing raids by the Germans, it was only bombed once, possibly due to a mistake. Hull was described as a small fishing village on the east coast
That F35 video is great and I just watched another with the Delta Wing Eurofighter, some serious pieces of Armour.
Is that the scrap yard on the left southbound just before Balderton in the 60’s and 70’s they had an old FIRE ESCAPE ladder and a dummy dressed as a fireman at the top o the ladder.
vwgpmk2:
I do believe there is one sat in Wheelgate amusment park in Nottinghamshire wheelgatepark.com/
Forgot to say that the one at wheelgate has a plaque next to it saying it came from Akrotiri
They might have moved it, or it might be another victim of the high price of scrap?
I go past it fairly regular & it always ‘SHOUTS’ at you when you notice it out of the corner of your eye, but last time I only noticed a horrible glassfibre replica of a Hurricane on a plinth
Used to go past there every other friday in the car on way to Buckden from 1990 until 1998 when the wife’s grandad moved North. When we reached Brampton hut roundabout (pre flyover) we knew we had 10 minutes left before we reached Buckden;-) I was delivering to Tesco Peterborough a fortnight ago and the plane was still there then!
Dont know if its still there but there was only kept in a hanger at former RAF Binbrook. I used to go rallying on the airfield there after it shut and was spectating one year about 2002ish when a lightning got wheeled out a hanger thats at one end of airfield. As a mate with me was a plane nut we went to look, turns out it was a restoration project and the engines run and they ran them that day, apparently they ran them monthly. Story goes that they restored it all bar a few items including the canopy, when a former Lightning pilot was brought in to do some up and down runway runs but as he was a bit mental he took of in it for 5 mins flight.
I remember seeing and hearing the Lightnings at the Leuchars airshows in late 60s.What a huge leap in technology there was between the 40s and 60s. There is a little jet plane all fenced in at Balado Airfield where T in the park is held.
Doesn’t jerramy Clarkson have one at his house ?
I seam to remember on one of his videos he bought one ( but forgot to tell the mrs till it turned up !)
I think theres a rule to do with non military personel flying reheated/afterburner engined planes in uk airspace that prevents lightnings and similar doing flypasts. An old mate of mine was a mechanic in the raf in the lightning era and was questioning a pilot who flys the older stuff and that was what he said?
He said someone was going to bring a saab aircraft i think it was a viggen? over to an airshow but he wasnt allowed for the same reason.
maybe guff,who knows though i would love to see them flying around at shows.
Fallmonk:
Doesn’t jerramy Clarkson have one at his house ?
I seam to remember on one of his videos he bought one ( but forgot to tell the mrs till it turned up !)
Fallmonk:
Doesn’t jerramy Clarkson have one at his house ?
I seam to remember on one of his videos he bought one ( but forgot to tell the mrs till it turned up !)
Fallmonk:
Doesn’t jerramy Clarkson have one at his house ?
I seam to remember on one of his videos he bought one ( but forgot to tell the mrs till it turned up !)
Clarkson borrowed a Lightning (serial XM172), an RAF supersonic jet fighter of the Cold War era, which was temporarily placed in his garden and documented on his TV show Speed.
