New arrival for Aviation Heritage Ltd ,Coventry airport ,it is not part of the Classic Aircraft Trust fleet. But it may spend time at the Classic Air Force base at Newquay,once it sheds its French registration and gets a UK CAA ‘G’ Reg.
CAT chief pilot,and the aircraft’s previous owner flew the jet from Le Touquet to CVT.
It is nicely stencilled up too, all be it in Frenchand German !
It has been a good week for Jon, as he became the first civilian (non military) pilot ever to solo the Meteor , when he the CAT’s T7, which is the worlds oldest airworthy jet at Newquay on Tuesday, following a number of months instruction from CAA test pilot Dan Griffith.
By: Bruce - 6th May 2013 at 16:23
Sandy Topen….
No idea why it happened, but the only thing seemingly left of her is a boom….
By: Vampirefan - 6th May 2013 at 16:20
Mention was made of FB.5 VZ304. What’s the background to that aeroplane? I’ve seen photos of her taken at Duxford in the early days – how come she ended up being scrapped?
By: Vampirefan - 6th May 2013 at 12:32
Regarding WL505, I know a little of the aircraft. She is stored under cover, not in Norfolk, but Lincolnshire by a small group of new owners who are keen to see her back in one piece. They are collecting all the various bits back together and are making good albeit slow progress. More details when I know more.
By: David Burke - 6th May 2013 at 11:17
What a sorry story WL505 is from being a quite presentable machine at St Athan!
By: Bruce - 6th May 2013 at 09:21
Not that one – and I have been asked not to elucidate further…
By: Firebex - 5th May 2013 at 23:42
I thought you had most of the spare Vampires Bruce ??:D:D
By: Bruce - 4th May 2013 at 16:54
Yes, it was painted as VZ304, which was the Mk 5 he had that was scrapped. When Gwyn Jones took on much of the Topen collection, he had the single seater repainted as WL505. It later transpired that the aircraft hadn’t been owned by Sandy, but by his daughter, so the aircraft went back to them. It was subsequently sold to Turkey where it remains.
WL505 has been in Norfolk for some while now – over a year, but not with me.
Bruce
By: David Burke - 4th May 2013 at 15:26
The picture of the machine in Turkey looks very much like Sandy’s flyer that was painted as ‘VZ304’ . There is a picture of the former Gwynn Jones FB.9 WL505 at Bournemouth late last year . I do recall Sandy scrapping some FB.5 wings when he was at Bruntingthorpe sadly!
By: Bruce - 4th May 2013 at 13:47
No, the FB9 whose colours and markings that one wears is in Norfolk. There was a FB5 owned by Topen back in the day, but it was broken up I think.
Bruce
By: Thunderbird167 - 3rd May 2013 at 21:37
Turkey from memory! I cannot recall the exact details of the Vampire FB.9 saga from St Athan.
See here http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1304156/
The one in Turkey is apparently not the FB.9
By: Sylar - 3rd May 2013 at 21:28
A few clips of the arrival on Thursday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-5uVSG0pu8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhSDcUOpWBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNvf0SxhF5k
What a lovely sound!
cheers
Shane
By: David Burke - 3rd May 2013 at 18:52
Turkey from memory! I cannot recall the exact details of the Vampire FB.9 saga from St Athan.
By: Bruce - 3rd May 2013 at 18:48
What happened to the silver single-seater in 112 sqn markings that used to live at Cranfield back in the day?
Wasn’t that Sandy Topens ex Swiss aircraft? It ended up in a museum somewhere you wouldn’t expect – someone will tell me where at some point!
Bruce
By: l.garey - 3rd May 2013 at 17:11
Re airworthy single-seaters: J-1197, HB-RVN, is based at Sion in Switzerland. Seen here at Geneva in 2009.
By: Mike J - 3rd May 2013 at 14:14
What happened to the silver single-seater in 112 sqn markings that used to live at Cranfield back in the day?
By: Bruce - 3rd May 2013 at 13:46
Mike, I think there’s a couple of single seaters airworthy in France, and possibly one in Switzerland – not sure off hand.
Fortunately, all of the Source vampires are either flying again, or on their way back – its the Venoms that really suffered.
Bruce
By: Wyvernfan - 3rd May 2013 at 13:09
Excellent news. There’s never too many Vampires, or any other classic jets on the UK airshow circuit.
I wonder if she’ll stay in her current markings?!
Rob
By: Mike J - 3rd May 2013 at 12:40
Nice to see Vampires coming back into favour.
A bit too late now sadly, after the Source fiasco decimated the UK population of airworthy examples.
Are there any single-seater Vampires still airworthy in Europe, other than the Norwegian one? I seem to remember a French one flying at La Ferte a few years back.
By: Bruce - 3rd May 2013 at 12:26
About £60K sterling – sounds about the right sort of money. Actually its a bargain when you compare it to similar aged fighters that just happen to have a piston engine up front.
Or I could buy an F type Jaguar……
Nice to see Vampires coming back into favour.
Bruce
By: Firebex - 3rd May 2013 at 01:56
This is the aircraft recently up for auction in Paris at circa 70,000 euro’s guide price dont know if it fetched that though.
Mike E
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May 2, 2013 at 10:05 pm