Work to return Blackburn Buccaneer S.2B XX900 to its former Exercise Red Flag 77-2 colours continues apace with most of the two-tone sand and dark earth desert camouflage scheme now applied to the jet at its Tatenhill home near Burton-upon-Trent in the Midlands.

Delivered to the RAF in November 1976, XX900 began her career with 208 Squadron at RAF Honington in Suffolk. While with 208, it was one of the few jets to receive desert camouflage for participation in Red Flag out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada the following year.

Owned by David Walton, XX900 spent more than 25 years at Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire following its withdrawal from service, before the decision was taken to move the jet to Tatenhill in mid-2020. With the move completed in early November that same year, work to repaint the jet commenced in May 2022.

Taking to social media in late February, the team looking after XX900 announced: “Work continues with the refurbishment of the front ejection seat and cockpit. The Red Flag scheme is now 95% complete and the team are getting on with various maintenance tasks before our first anti det run of the year. For those of you passing Tatenhill in the next few weeks and wondering where ‘900 has gone, we have moved her out of harm’s way while work is carried out on the new entrance to the airfield.”