I happened to be at Wycombe Air Park yesterday afternoon and took another picture of the ex Coltishall gate guard Lightning XM172 that is still here by the main entrance. Looking a bit tired now.

Picture corrupt with the bottom half of the picture totally gone and the top half has lots of horizontal bands across it.

As to the reason why ???

The last passenger flights by Tridents took place on 31st Dec 1985 with the final two aircraft doing parallel landings at Heathrow on runways 27L and 27R. The two aircraft in question were G-AWZO arriving from Manchester and G-AWZU arriving from Amsterdam. I dont know which was actually last to land.

Although the Wroughton Trident’s CoA expired in Nov 1985 several Tridents were flown in 1986 for one off ferry flights to museums and their final destinations.

G-AWZJ Heathrow-Prestwick 24/02/86
G-AWZM Heathrow-Wroughton 28/02/86
G-AWZN Heathrow-Cranfield 07/03/86
G-AWZO Heathrow-Hatfield 18/04/86
G-AWZR Heathrow-Teesside 19/03/86
G-AWZS Heathrow-Teesside 12/03/86
G-AWZU Heathrow-Stansted 05/03/86

The last ever flight of a Trident 3 was 18/04/86 of G-AWZO going back to it’s birthplace of Hatfield.

Hope this helps.

Any Corrections/Additions/Comments welcomed.

Another old HS125 displayed at the Midland Air Museum at Coventry. Registration is G-ARYB.

G-ARYC is preserved at London Colney and I believe the nose of G-ARYA is still surviving in use as a procedures trainer at the North East Wales Institute at Wrexham. The rest of the fuselage and other parts are at Connahs Quay in Wales.

I went to the Aeroventure museum at Doncaster last October for the first time. Great museum, Well worth a visit.

http://www.planepictures.com

Go to http://www.planepictures.net and search Doncaster for more pictures.

Regards

Wroughton

The Science museum collection at Wroughton is definetly worth a visit. As well as G-AWZM the Trident 3 they have a Dan Air Comet G-APYC, TWA Constellation, DC3, Dove, and more. All the aircraft have been kept hangared since they arrived and as far as I know have not been robbed of bits for other aircraft. Both the Trident and Comet arrived by air and are in excellent condition.

They have open days during this weeks half term of which the aircraft hangars are to be open on Thursday and Friday. Check their web site or phone first just to make sure.

There is a Yahoo groups list covering most UK airfields that you can subscribe to. Gives most details of movements and information etc.