Some of us can remember when the Seahawk was originally overhauled and made airworthy again by the Station Flight at RNAS Culdrose, or HMS Seahawk if you prefer. It never seemed to have any problem then and attended a wide rage of displays around the country being beautifully displayed by a succession of skilled pilots. Now despite the best efforts of some, it seems to spend ever increasing decades on the ground with increasingly bizarre reasons being put forth. Jet-pipes, ejector seat cartridges, no money, H+S say the starter cartridges are too load/ a bit dangerous and go bang-whoosh without warning to innocent bystanders, OMG it’s not the correct bang-seat, how did we ever cope with this modified Hunter seat for all those years, we don’t have the entire history of its service life down to the last second and there was a day at the School of Aircraft Handling when it sat in dangerous rare Cornish Sunshine and was within 25 miles of Euro-decreed toxic mineral deposits scattered around disused Mining sites , blah blah blah. What’s the next reason, “we (the RN) find the arrestor hook intimidating and unrepresentative because we don’t have any Aircraft Carriers or fixed wing pilots anymore…
Wouldn’t it be great if someone could find a Seahawk from India, Holland, or Germany (presuming that they didn’t cut their wing spars) and get it back in the air?
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