Hi Guys
I was with the new owner today, and he will be looking to build a team to work on her, with the eventual aim of her joining our fast taxi fleet.

Brian better start looking for spares and a suitable J-79, still plenty of parts to be found around Italy, I’ve got a couple of contacts that I can pass onto him if need be.

any contact info for the owners?

668

You’ve got no chance of getting 578 at Kemble, she is used for emergency drills by the resident fire crews and as Delta Jets operate 3 T-Birds, you’ll find that she is serving a very good purpose.

Near enough bang up to date shot of her.

Its got a crew hatch Chris, it can be seen in the image I supplied you, don’t forget that I have found replacements for the canopy and nose glazing.

I suspect asking £5k for this is a bit of a try-on. It will go for nowhere near that on eBay.

He’s got to try and get some return on these Hunters after costing him a packet when he first brought them at Auction, I have heard that when he was bidding for some of them, he was bidding against himself, I don’t know how true that is but I have heard it more than once and from different sources.

when i was alot younger, i used to climb all over WV838, I was allways in that scrap yard, i had the stick from wv838, (which i gave Roy when i found out he was restoring her)
she was in 5 parts, Tail, middle ,cockpit near the fence, and wings
all the undercarraige in as well, it was just the cockpit that was gutted,
those were the days 🙂

Flowers at Chippenham, I remember seeing that poor old bird there, Roy has done a sterling job on her.

Wasn’t Stavertons Canberra cockpit up for grabs lately?

Staverton is the current home of a dismantled but complete TT.18, it was sold fairly recently to a Dutch owner as a complete aircraft.
It is due to move from Stav in the near future.

Eric, you have a PM.

sadly Aviation has gotten pretty ruthless the last few years, and i think now its more about big bucks and not the passion,Its the modern way of the world i suppose,

For a lot of people it is, but patience can brings its rewards, I could rattle off a few names of people who have spent a fortune to get there aircraft ground running, we on the other hand are funded purely from my back pocket and that is not very deep as many would vouch, but have collected a huge amount of spares for our Buccaneer, including engines and I have spent less than 5K over a 6 year period.

Granted, some of the components we have salvaged were in poor condition, but we have a network of local businesses involved with the project and get a lot of our reworks done on the cheap, sometimes even free.

My advice is keep looking, don’t give up and try not to buy your section through Ebay, everything has become over priced on there, I’ll keep my ear to the ground and see what I come up with.