Thunder City to launch 4 Leccy Lightnings

come across supplies, I have no idea what you mean 😀 pm’d you.

Holy s@!t, thats expensive, who’s your supplier, thats daylight robbery. Ill pm you.

OK I will name and shame, Victoria Hydralic’s of Leicester, I have only used them once which is how I know the price per gallon, most of the time we come arcoss supplies 😉

Holy s@!t, thats expensive, who’s your supplier, thats daylight robbery. Ill pm you.

Andy, do you seriously pay 65 quid a gallon for OM15?! Or did you mean 6.50 a gallon?

MJR

Yes we have done in the past when Max or Phil hasnt helped us out, if you go to a comerical stockest that the going price, promise.

Why are you offering any on the cheap 😉

Andy, do you seriously pay 65 quid a gallon for OM15?! Or did you mean 6.50 a gallon?

MJR

How about fixing a pair of seats to the tailplanes? 😮 😮 .

Seriously, this will be my third year to Brunty and the car is now packed to capacity……….keep up the good work lads.

Regards

John.

Jokingly we once thought about putting the over wing tanks back on 904 with holes cut in the top and bolting a seat and harness in each, put a bike helmet on and ‘Bobs your uncle’
A three seater Lightning 😀 😀
Cant imagine what 0-150kts in ten seconds would be like in the open 😮

Dont worry it was only pub talk after a few pints.

Glad you can make it John, come and introduce yourself

Andy B

Andy B

I always find your e-mails fascinating.

Have you approached any of the oil companies to see if they were prepare to sponsor you at all or even give (eek!) you a supply of POL to keep these mighty jets running? After all their (oil companies) success & profitability has in part been down to the huges quantities of POL purchased by HM Gov (although they probably don’t see it that way!!)

Keep up the fascinating responses!

Kind regards

NickB

Nick, thanks for the comments,
I sometimes shy away from typing endless explanations but this subject is very close to my heart so here goes.

You never know my time with these two old ladies might end up as a book in about 20 years !
I will try to make any responses entertaining 🙂
As for sponsership forget it, I have been down so many dead end roads on this subject over the years with both the aircraft and the QRA hangar, we entertain so many prospective sponsers which take for ever to decide on what they can offer us which drags on and on wasting time, so far we have had no takers for anything we have done, which in some way I can understand, they get hardly any return for their money because we have no way of advertising their names, Brunty is very out of the way, has very few visitors, has very tight security (which is great in one aspect) and has no general apeal.
So we have taken the line over the years that we the 12 shareholders stand the costs for our hobby (which it is) and try to hold open days so the general public can come and share the sight and sound of two alive and kicking Lightnings.
Its now becoming more and more costly (insurance wise) to have the public on site, but we must keep it up to raise the outstanding amount to finish the hangar.

Hope that answers your questions
Why not come along on the 8th July

Cheers
🙂 🙂

Andy, probably a daft question but are the seats live for a taxi-run?

Steve.

Hi Steve, yes its a daft question, the seats on both were made safe within hours of us taking delivery of them, everything else is very much alive though, mind you some of us humans are slowing 😉 😉

There’s no need to make them live for fast taxying, you need to be doing well over 90kts (this is the lowest speed that the canopy will be ripped off at) and at 10,000ft (not saying you cant eject below this height though)to get the best results from the seat fitted to the Lightning
Our two will only get to 120-150kts (depending on wind direction) at the top of Bruntingthorpes hill after a nine/ten second reheated run, and thats eaten up half the runway, 1mile, its then pop the chute and gentle on the brakes, they tend to get very over heated with our fast demos. (over heated brakes means blown tyres) 😮
In the event of any problems like a trye blowing/brakes/steering failing the pilot would have to sit with it untill it came to a stop at the end or in the crops at the side of the runway, we always follow with fire tender and crash van with ladder, its then release the emergency canopy handle and extact the pilot, theres a risk in all of what we do, which is why insuance keeps climbing and we practice these events as best we can.
Fire is my biggest concern. But the fire tender is big.

Cheers for the interest

Andy B

Shame we cant take passengers as we might recoup some of these costs as the 458 crew do at Cranfield, not sure how Russel goes about insuring his passengers, we stuggle to insure the crowd !

Cheers
Andy B (LPG)

How about fixing a pair of seats to the tailplanes? 😮 😮 .

Seriously, this will be my third year to Brunty and the car is now packed to capacity……….keep up the good work lads.

Regards

John.

Andy B

I always find your e-mails fascinating.

Have you approached any of the oil companies to see if they were prepare to sponsor you at all or even give (eek!) you a supply of POL to keep these mighty jets running? After all their (oil companies) success & profitability has in part been down to the huges quantities of POL purchased by HM Gov (although they probably don’t see it that way!!)

Keep up the fascinating responses!

Kind regards

NickB

Andy, probably a daft question but are the seats live for a taxi-run?

Steve.

Keep fingers crossed that my lottery ticket comes up tomorrow as I’ll charter the new Airbus and take you all out there, however you will have to provide your own sleeping bags and tents.
Incidentally, what does it cost to do a high speed run in a Frightening at Brunters or Cranfield, the take off sequence and fly by at The Last Last Lightning Show at Binbrook must have increased the National Dept by 100%.

Here’s a little break down of our costs on an open day:

3rd party Insruance = £4,560 for two days so divide that by two

Fuel for a single run = £200ish

Avpin at present price’s = £155 per engine start working on last quote for a 45gallon drum

Cant give a price for a possible wrecked set of tyres after a single run (which does happen) we have a good stock of tyres we aquired a few years ago.
would assume the price per tyre from Dunlop would be well over £1000 each (but we have never had to price any up.)

Also brake chutes do sometimes get totalled, last time we had a qutoe from Irvin, the drouge alone was £500 each

Hydralic oil OM15 = £65 per gallon, in a run we might lose half that on the concrete once the aircraft shuts down

Engine oil = £simular to Hyd oil but the use is measured by a tiny amount

All our time servicing them (which is about 2hrs to do a BF and 1hr to do an AF ) is free of course.

So if you forgot about insurance,chutes and tryes, just to do a single fast run up Bruntingthorpes runway is about:

£540ish

Shame we cant take passengers as we might recoup some of these costs as the 458 crew do at Cranfield, not sure how Russel goes about insuring his passengers, we stuggle to insure the crowd !

Hope this gives you an idea, they are only rounded up figures mind you

Cheers
Andy B (LPG)

£530 return by KLM!

Keep fingers crossed that my lottery ticket comes up tomorrow as I’ll charter the new Airbus and take you all out there, however you will have to provide your own sleeping bags and tents.
Incidentally, what does it cost to do a high speed run in a Frightening at Brunters or Cranfield, the take off sequence and fly by at The Last Last Lightning Show at Binbrook must have increased the National Dept by 100%.

Flights should be cheap – out of season and the kids back at school. Maybe Flypast could sponsor a Jolly Boys day out!!!

Forum Visit anyone! On my birthday too!

Would love it, my 51st on 23rd, too.

Chances of actually making it are about the same as me reaching my 151st, though 🙁

Forum Visit anyone! On my birthday too!

I’m up for that….and I’m being 100% serious.

I even spent an hour or so on the net at the weekend looking into the possibility of going out for that.

Good response Andrew – I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I think we should also remember the costs of running these complex and very thirsty a/c. While we would all love to see a ‘wish list’ of fantastic fast jets gracing our skies I think we should remember that somebody has to fork out huge amounts of money just to keep them airworthy – let alone fly them.

Those of us who were lucky enough to have seen the RAF’s & Fleet Air Arm’s heavy metal thunder across our skies in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s did so because the maintenance, fuel and ground/aircrews were paid for by HM Gov. not a private individual or consortium.

Point made – sorry to go on but it gets a bit tiresome constantly hearing some forum members go on and on about getting certain pointy shaped aircraft in the air like it was just the case of putting air in tyres, fuel in the tank and chocks away!

Hear hear, Im one of those ‘lucky’ people who fork out to keep two Lightnings taxiable and its not cheap even doing that, the costs go on and on and on, insurance and fuel being the biggest snags at present.

Cheers

Good response Andrew – I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I think we should also remember the costs of running these complex and very thirsty a/c. While we would all love to see a ‘wish list’ of fantastic fast jets gracing our skies I think we should remember that somebody has to fork out huge amounts of money just to keep them airworthy – let alone fly them.

Those of us who were lucky enough to have seen the RAF’s & Fleet Air Arm’s heavy metal thunder across our skies in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s did so because the maintenance, fuel and ground/aircrews were paid for by HM Gov. not a private individual or consortium.

Point made – sorry to go on but it gets a bit tiresome constantly hearing some forum members go on and on about getting certain pointy shaped aircraft in the air like it was just the case of putting air in tyres, fuel in the tank and chocks away!

Would them “b*****ds who made that s*** about civies flying complex jets” be the same people who allow the Sea Vixen to fly, and if the rebuilds and funds are sorted will let the Bucc and Vulcan fly.

A few years back I was all hopeful we would have Lightning’s, Phantom’s and Victors etc all flying in the UK, however when you start talking to people and look at what we have and realistically could have we should be very pleased, calling people “b*****ds” and saying they want a “good kick up the backside” is not going to help anything at all.