Red and grey?, tip tanks?, now that would be an interesting Lightning!!!!:D .
This is XR725 a couple of years ago so she may have been spruced up a bit more since then.
Regards,
John.
🙂 How wonderful to look out of the window at home to get a view like this 🙂 a blessing indeed
The RAF Exhibition flight a/c were stripped and ndt’d. TE311 also shown in the pic was in far better state than TB382 and is well on the way to becoming airworthy again.
The fuselage of TB382 had been stripped of all systems and replacement pieces of wood and plastic subsituted extensively on the flying surfaces. This had taken place over a period of some 30 years. Beneath the glossy exterior she was a sorry state with a fair degree of corrosion. The all important data plate was missing although it was clear which airframe she had been.
Suffice to say she was beyong economic repair.
I am sure that the demise of TB382 was covered extensively on this forum previously.
No doubt one of the ‘Marks’ can advise which ones went most recently before. Potentially the Burmese Spits were the last to be struck off by an overseas airforce, although most of these are progressing now as rebuilds.
Given the fact that TB382 was the personal mount of Raymond Baxter perhaps the BBMF could raise a big chunk of money beyond the spare parts value by collecting up the frames and skins of TB382 and auctioning them with a provenance that will enable the buyer to restore it to fly at TB382?
SMS 88
Whilst i was at Duxford for Helitech earlier this week ,i heard a rumour
that once A19- is finnished and test flown it will depart to a new owner in Canada.Anyone know anything about this,is it true !!!
As i`ve never seen one fly, along with a lot of other people in this part of the world,it will be a great shame.G-ANPK
I agree, and I hope this rumour is groundless. If the Beau has to be sold the best home for it would be BBMF, perhaps as a use of lottery funds or from public subscription. I see that it is painted up as A19-144 BUT listed in Warbirds directory as being constructed as RAF JM135 before gaining its Aussie number -it would be nice to see it in RAF colors
Here are the Lizzie and Meteor -operational history is always a huge plus -its a shame that squadron aircraft tended to be quickly scrapped unless selected for gate guardian duties upon retirement
Here is the Tempest in closer view (I also have the Lizzie and Meteor if anybody wants to see them).
I havent ever seen any dicussions or old threads about RD867 -its great to finally know the story -with so few survivors its not surprising that little attention is given to this very significant type.Once or should I say if, the Duxford example reaches the British skies I suspect that all Beaus allover the world will be on the receiving end of a lot more care and attention, and passion too…….So the Hendon example was a half scrapped wreck that was rebuilt with all the HTF parts of RD867 before it went to Canada……….
If only the guys at Duxford realised how unique and entertaining that Beau would be compared to rare American (early marks of P40 and P51) or Russian types it might be able to jump to the front of the restoration queue.On my annual September visit to Duxford this year it has really come along since 2006 ,the highlight of the static airfames is always A19-144 for me:)
SMS88,
I hope you don’t mind, I couldn’t resist the cry from PSP, even working at low resolution.:)
Mark
…and a few ready for departure from Langley.
Very nice THANKYOU! I can see from the info provided by DCollins103 that these Furys are 233,232 and 231 with probably 234 being furthest away from the camera -aka ISS 3,2,1 and maybe 4 (which is the only recorded survivor today).So this excellent photo actually shows the very first 3 (probably 4 ) Furys produced for Iraq
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