Taxi run’s to the curry house? 😉

I think 2 of the Sri Lanken T2 Balliols still survive.

CA-302 with the Sri Lanken Air Force Museum in Ratmalana and

CA-310 with the recruiting centre in Diyatalawa.

Hope this helps. 🙂

The book is indeed based on RAF Coltishall and deals with the replacement of 226 OCU’s Lightnings by Jaguars in 1974. Also mentioned are the Lanc and Spits of the BBMF that were there at the time as well as the humble Chippy! The boys like to go and watch from ‘ Firegate Four’.

I’ve often wondered, the boys visit a cemetry on the outside of the airfield full of ex-airmen, many from different countries ( including Germany ) is that actually there?

A little bit from the book, ( hope I’m not breaking any copyright and remeber this was 1974 )

‘You know what?’ he said. ‘When the Jaguars come I bet they scrap all the Lightnings. People will forget what great planes they were and they’ll all be broken up.’

‘But you said there were lots of them in other countries,’ said Andrew. ‘They might be around for years yet.’

‘They won’t be here,’ said Victor. ‘ I shan’t see them. That’s just like the end of the war. When the fighting planes were finished with, they scrapped them, because they weren’t needed anymore. That wasn’t till afterwards they realized there weren’t any left and they had to go round looking for bits to put together again.’

‘Perhaps when the war was ended they just wanted to forget about it. They like remembering now, because we won anyway, it’s been over for years. I bet people wouldn’t be so keen on that old Lancaster if it wasn’t the only one left,’ said Andrew.

Lightnings never won any wars,’ said Victor.’There won’t be anything to remeber them for. When I’m grown up and I tell people that I can remember when Lightnings flew over every day, no one will care. They won’t know what I’m talking about.’

‘They might not all be scrapped,’ said Andrew. ‘You might be wrong.’

‘I might be,’ said Victor. ‘Where have all the Hawker Hunters gone?’ he shouted. Andrew blinked. ‘I don’t know. Where have they gone?’

‘I don’t know either,’ said Victor. ‘But there don’t seem to be any left. Not long ago there were still a couple flying around here. I haven’t seen them in months.’

Just a taster – know go out and buy it!!!!

Um, Trumper – you mentioned guarantees first. 🙂

I think the issue is more to do with being sold with know defects.

One of the Strikemasters is I believe ex G-UNNY. A former british airshow regular from it’s base at Duxford!

Hmm… This could be interesting, but I remember the chao that wanted to keep the early lightning behind his pub and his plan was squashed resulting in the scrapping of the aircraft and only the nose section surviving

Er, wasn’t that F3 XR749 – still very much in one peace and wonderfully restored by Ken Ward and his crew? I’ve had a bit to drink so I could be missing something obvious.

The lunatics are bidding from the asylum! 😀

I understand what your saying Kodak and I respect your opinion. I think the main difference between our views is that you see the aircraft as preserved while I see it as still in ‘service’ with it’s current operators. I see an aircraft that is flown privately for the pleasure of the operator as providing a service to it’s owner, a preserved aircraft is one that belongs to a preservation group or memorial flight – e.g. RNHF, BBMF, Shuttleworth etc.