SR53 Cockpit Photo

Hi Steve and John,

I vividly remember the arrival of XD145 at Brize Norton, on a trailer at the top of the MT yard! I even came down to the restoration shed to see it ‘close up’ as a member of 2267 (Brize Norton) Sqn ATC one evening, as it was virtually the next shed down from our ATC HQ! I seem to remember that the cockpit was quite complete then, though the seat was removed and one or two instruments missing. I can remember the complete column being in place and the rudder pedals being very similar to the Hunter, great big foot plates!
Oh for a time machine!

Martyn

GYD

Hi Steve
If I remember rightly we had two spectres at one time. I think the first one came with the aircraft which was the wrong type but somebody mentioned that it may have had something to do with Valiants. The second one we obtained from Shuttleworth which was the correct one. Eventually after we had delivered the aircraft to Cosford one of the flight commanders in the hangar decided to give the remaining things we had left in our little building away. The Spectre ended up in a collection up north somewhere but I do not know exactly were. The Whitley parts were taken to Cardington.
They were good times restoring that aircraft andI still have all of the press cuttings from our roll out day.
Hope you are well and keep writing .
John

Quite right John. We even found a Spectre rocket that had actually been fitted to that aeroplane, lurking in storage at Old Warden. Shuttleworth kindly donated it to us, but the RAF Museum did not want us to fit it.

Cheers John. The 1958 photo shows the same grip as your restored aircraft. The weird thing is I have a different grip that the archivist said was for SR53, had it for years. Sadly he is no longer with us. Martyn also found phots of the Gnat F1 having a similar grip as SR53.

.Tony
As one of the team responsible for the restoration of the SR53 at Brize Norton I can assure you that the grip was not replaced by us and was exactly as it came to us from storage at Henlow. At the rollout of the aircraft we had one of the original pilots present as well as an original engineer and either commented on the fact that the control column grip had been replaced. The only non standard part of the restoration was the pitot probe which came from a HS Gnat T1.

John

Must admit Pprune ‘What Cockpit’ is one of the best resource tools I have come across for identifying yokes and sticks especially for the more obscure types. It’s a cracking thread but as you have probably discovered some of the cockpit photos no longer open. Still good to use though..

Cheers Martyn

Hi Tony
Just sent you an e-mail with that picture and another from my erratic archive!

Martyn