Back in the early 70’s Luton Airport based Court Line acquired a Blackburn Beverley to support their 2 Lockheed TriStars. After the airline went bust the Beverley sat at the airport for quite a while, from memory for a year or two.
My question is, how did it move up to Beverley to the museum from Luton? Did it fly out? (I know that it was dismantled to move it from Beverley to Fort Paull)
By: WG-13 - 16th June 2009 at 16:53
From what little I can recall from those far-off days, HB bought it, as one of the Directors was high-up in Hull Aero Club. The plan was to turn the airframe into a clubhouse, with the cockpit as the air/ground radio station.
Instead, it provided the local ATC Sqn cadets – myself included – with a heaven-sent opportunity to clamber around a proper aeroplane. The pax seats ended up at East Park drill hall in the Cadets NCO’s Mess, and a fusebox cover was swapped-out with a cracked one from ‘our’ Auster.
By: nigelrob - 16th June 2009 at 16:48
Following the fall of Court Line, XB259 flew in to Paull Airfield, (about a mile East of Fort Paull, and now sadly no more) on 30th March 1974; owned ostensibly by Hull Breweries, (no longer with us) for the Hull Aero Club, (gone as well), where it sat for a while before being dismantled for the road-move to the (now defunct) Museum of Army Transport, thence back to Fort Paull. Bit of a jinxed cab, this one.:diablo:
Thanks for the prompt response! Where Hull Breweries planning to fly it or did they have some other use in mind? Either way its good that it was saved. I have fond childhood memories of being taken to Abingdon (or Benson) and climbing up the ladder into the seats in the tail boom of a Bev, quite an experience for a 6 year old.
By: WG-13 - 16th June 2009 at 16:07
That’s the badger, according to this site.
By: Newforest - 16th June 2009 at 16:02
Presumably this would have been G-AOAI?:confused:
By: WG-13 - 16th June 2009 at 15:45
Following the fall of Court Line, XB259 flew in to Paull Airfield, (about a mile East of Fort Paull, and now sadly no more) on 30th March 1974; owned ostensibly by Hull Breweries, (no longer with us) for the Hull Aero Club, (gone as well), where it sat for a while before being dismantled for the road-move to the (now defunct) Museum of Army Transport, thence back to Fort Paull. Bit of a jinxed cab, this one.:diablo:
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June 16, 2009 at 3:33 pm