A1 Lightning – Balderton

It was still sat there late last week!

As far as im aware it never .

Did XS919 sell?

the first cockpit i actively tried for was a meteor busted to bits…. on a gunnery range.. as i was told they wanted to move airframes from such places, but….. it never happened…got so far up the chain of command, then it just stopped, 🙁 ..

its not a total lost cause. Look at the fellow that got a lightning cockpit from a gunnery range and restored it!

I agree with all you say john, she sparked my interest as i found a few lightning bits in the shed, thats all, 😀

SHe is Miles away from me, the other side of the country infact so I didnt even know she was in a scrap yard, 😮

i remember some scrap yards years ago, things never moved on, they only moved on, when the yard closed down, or they became a liability .. hopefully one day someone might have the time trouble and money to restore something of her ,

Merkle,

The only ‘true’ value is what the current owner is willing to part with her for and nothing else, now I am not mud slinging here but just think about her current situation, she is sat within a scrap yard so the owner may look at her as a ‘weigh in’ value.

At more than 10+ tonnes she could be well over 5K as scrap, plus transport, plus craneage, plus cutting and manpower, this is starting to get expensive just for a bare cockpit tub!!.

The other spanner could be that the current owner sees her as a meal ticket and asks an astranomical price for her in the first place, think of a figure and treble it then add a few noughts and you see how this could end up!.

Still the only surefire way finding out the ‘true’ value is to go to the yard and ask, you never know you might come away a happy man, then again even if it was given away to some lucky punter, he would need clown sized pockets full of cash just to get her of site and anywhere near ready for restoration.

HTH,

John.

So.. I wonder.. what IS the true Value of such a wreck.. as i too believe that the pit, is worth saving, and any other parts that could be used /stored for future ongoing static projects, not alot i know, but after seeing pics of her gutted cockpit, on this very site,i can tell you she is in much better condition as a cockpit than i thought, ive seen much worse, when i sat in the cockpit of wv838 in flowers yard all them years ago, it was in a worse shape than the lightning.. but not much i do admit . :rolleyes:… but look at her now.. WV838 seahawk, is proof something in such condition can be made into a lovely exhibit , as a long term project, 😀

i suppose it all boils down to how much someone is willing to pay for it:D

just put it out of its misery and scrap it.

why there’s nothing left in it !! it sits on its tail because the radar equipment was nicked !!

As far as cockpit sections go she is a fairly good starting point!, I have seen much, much worse dragged out from the depths of a scrapyard and lovingly restored into award winning cockpits.

As for the tail sitting, she was cut inboard of the wings when moved to Balderton, the mainwheels were not safe anymore so they fabricated a support frame under the ventral tank, the fuselage still contains all the internals, engines, inter pipes and jet pipes and weighs a fair bit!.

As time went on and parts were stolen the weight forced the frame through the ventral tanks and she sank back on her tail, all she is good for now is nose section for salvage and then scrap the rest, all the internals would now just be boxes of dust!.

There are no doubt ‘some’ salvageable spare in the fuselage but whoever takes her on would have to have large pots of cash even just to cut her and remove from site.

It is a crying shame she went that way but she never got the best start when they chopped the wings the way they did, you just can’t save them all.

Regards,

John.

I thought it was the diving site just off a63, with the shell of a Sea King and other stuff in it!

Blue 2 – Thats Eight Acre Lake dive site at North Cave. Puma, light aircraft and airliner cockpit in there.

As for the Lightning. I love it just the way it is. If I won the lottery I would buy it and stick it in my front garden.

Ben

I’m not a ‘Lightning weights expert’ and this is a genuine question – what does the tail down attitude tell you?

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1377257&postcount=168

The last time I passed the airframe I don’t recall the nose being supported. :confused:

Looks like you went in Aeropark before the new fences went up and they tried to get the new Planning Permission! 😮

the tail down tells you the heavy nose radar was nicked so no weight to keep it down

No the nose could be saved;)

why there’s nothing left in it !! it sits on its tail because the radar equipment was nicked !!

It was yesterday afternoon!! 😀

is she still there… in no mans land ??.. XN728 ??.. how many years is that now ,such a shame,

Would lve to see what the cockpit inside of 919 looks like.
Regards 728 its a shame to see her sat rotting away.
If it ever did get scrapped it could help me out with the restoration of xm192 in the way of fittings and maybe engine parts etc as she is pretty much complete inside.
The tub would be worth saving indeed though as it could be restored eventually.

I thought it was the diving site just off a63, with the shell of a Sea King and other stuff in it!
Shame about the A1 Lightning, I stopped near it for a break not long before it was fenced in and went for a nosey. As has been said, some bits were obviously chavved off, but others seem to have been removed really carefully. The cockpit would need serious reskinning if it were to be saved, as the local ne’er do wells seem to have had little better to do than chuck heavy stuff at the cockpit area with varying degrees of (in)accuracy to try break the windows so its taken a serious battering. It amazes me how persistent they must’ve been to do that- I found a couple of bits of the canopy/screens lying around on the ground and had them away, just looking at them now, they’re bl**dy thick. The belly’s a proper mess where the frame’s gone through it, but I was amazed to see the engines still on board. The wings and tail seem to be held on with crude steel plates IIRC and there’s rot everywhere.
A sad waste of a truly beautiful aircraft- whenever I see it it’s with mixed emotions of happiness that it’s still clinging on (just!) and sadness it’s in that state.

Yes – the very same!! 😀

They own the Wheelgate Park at Farnsfield where XS919 is located; there’s a plastic Hurricane on display as well!

This site was originally called White Post Wonderland and its former owner generously donated steelwork that helped refurbish NAM’s Argosy Procedures Trainer building – the contents of which are now functioning well! 🙂

Obviously they’re receiving too many ‘buying signs!’ :rolleyes:

Sadly XS919 is one that literally might end up ‘down on the farm’ – at their Twin Lakes site near Melton!

twin lakes that has a petting zoo/”theme park”?

was there a couple of weeks she looks well rough now
the wheels are slowly sinking in the ground i think if ya moved her shed collapse :((