Andy,
Dont worry about boring us with your insights, that will never happen!
I know ,from my small involvement with classic aircraft, how hard it can be to find the time to do things, let alone find time to write about what you do as well!
If you ever get round to writing a book I am sure it would be well received, it isn’t easy to write about a subject and make it easy for people to understand at the same time without waffling, a bit like I am now!

Keep it up!
Cheers, Alan.

Cheers Alan, nice to know your still out there.
Ive got so many stories, mostly funny ones 🙂

markp451a were you one of the chaps that came over to Brunt in 1991 with Barry when we had 728’s no.2 out for the first time ?

I did the starter, as i was the only one that could fit past the bullet.. one thing i would say it was no fun fail safe/leak check on both starters… lol

These few shots might bring back memories:

One Avon 302 on its way down

The chap in blue is the one and only late Baz Livesly, what he didnt know about Lightnings……..

And yours truly being born again from the top starter hatch once the new engine was back in

Ive always had the dubious honour of being the smallest across the chest to get by the radar bullet for FOD checks, starter leak checks etc as well 😀

Cheers
Andy

Andy B

I always find your e-mails fascinating.

Have you approached any of the oil companies to see if they were prepare to sponsor you at all or even give (eek!) you a supply of POL to keep these mighty jets running? After all their (oil companies) success & profitability has in part been down to the huges quantities of POL purchased by HM Gov (although they probably don’t see it that way!!)

Keep up the fascinating responses!

Kind regards

NickB

Nick, thanks for the comments,
I sometimes shy away from typing endless explanations but this subject is very close to my heart so here goes.

You never know my time with these two old ladies might end up as a book in about 20 years !
I will try to make any responses entertaining 🙂
As for sponsership forget it, I have been down so many dead end roads on this subject over the years with both the aircraft and the QRA hangar, we entertain so many prospective sponsers which take for ever to decide on what they can offer us which drags on and on wasting time, so far we have had no takers for anything we have done, which in some way I can understand, they get hardly any return for their money because we have no way of advertising their names, Brunty is very out of the way, has very few visitors, has very tight security (which is great in one aspect) and has no general apeal.
So we have taken the line over the years that we the 12 shareholders stand the costs for our hobby (which it is) and try to hold open days so the general public can come and share the sight and sound of two alive and kicking Lightnings.
Its now becoming more and more costly (insurance wise) to have the public on site, but we must keep it up to raise the outstanding amount to finish the hangar.

Hope that answers your questions
Why not come along on the 8th July

Cheers
🙂 🙂

Somebody once told me, that the tyres had a very short life, and so when practicing touch and goes they didn’t let the wheels contact the runway…

I don’t know if thats true, but if it is it seems pretty incredible.

Steve

Yes tyre wear was and is big problem, they never did touch and goes, one landing could well total a set of tyres with a cross wind like ‘megalith’ says above.
Very thin and 21bar/320psi does them no favours when 14 tons lands at 200mph

We might get two/three runs out of our tyres.

markp451a were you one of the chaps that came over to Brunt in 1993 with Barry when we had 728’s no.2 out for the first time ?

I have some piccies somewhere if it is you

Just for the record that one’s been out three times since then 😉

Cheers

Keep fingers crossed that my lottery ticket comes up tomorrow as I’ll charter the new Airbus and take you all out there, however you will have to provide your own sleeping bags and tents.
Incidentally, what does it cost to do a high speed run in a Frightening at Brunters or Cranfield, the take off sequence and fly by at The Last Last Lightning Show at Binbrook must have increased the National Dept by 100%.

Here’s a little break down of our costs on an open day:

3rd party Insruance = £4,560 for two days so divide that by two

Fuel for a single run = £200ish

Avpin at present price’s = £155 per engine start working on last quote for a 45gallon drum

Cant give a price for a possible wrecked set of tyres after a single run (which does happen) we have a good stock of tyres we aquired a few years ago.
would assume the price per tyre from Dunlop would be well over £1000 each (but we have never had to price any up.)

Also brake chutes do sometimes get totalled, last time we had a qutoe from Irvin, the drouge alone was £500 each

Hydralic oil OM15 = £65 per gallon, in a run we might lose half that on the concrete once the aircraft shuts down

Engine oil = £simular to Hyd oil but the use is measured by a tiny amount

All our time servicing them (which is about 2hrs to do a BF and 1hr to do an AF ) is free of course.

So if you forgot about insurance,chutes and tryes, just to do a single fast run up Bruntingthorpes runway is about:

£540ish

Shame we cant take passengers as we might recoup some of these costs as the 458 crew do at Cranfield, not sure how Russel goes about insuring his passengers, we stuggle to insure the crowd !

Hope this gives you an idea, they are only rounded up figures mind you

Cheers
Andy B (LPG)

With the ref to DGH “When I was at Thunder City the engineers working on 693 told me they didn’t have enough parts to get all 4 up at the same time and so 773 would be robbed when needed” the plan was to fly 773 until life exed ( which ist long) and then remove the fin mod and fit it to 693….. so at the mo 693 is flying without the fin mod and has to be NDT a lot at the mo…..

As for ships in the UK 903 is all most life exed
JS has some life ( how much i do not know)
724 has 1 or 2 FI left
458 would be poss the best

the 2 big problems would be spares as most are in SA and the CAA

Just jump in here, JS, 728 has 1 FI left but has serious heat destortion to the port side under wing/engine bearer stress panel (its a long story).

Cheers

You ain’t got a hope of getting XS903 flying again, its starting to corode, it aint got engines and its not had its systems run up in about 20 years, its a nice enough static exhibit but it wont ever be anything more.

I must add here as well, 458 will be in a worse corrsion state than our two, (we have corrosion in the wheel wells and thats after 18 years of lavish TLC and waxoil, 458 had no attention till Tony Hulls got his hands on it in the mid 90’s.
724 was flown from Warton to Shawbury when its FI was up, it then made a final flight to Binbrook, and as we all know there is nothing left of the pans, perimter track or runways there now, so getting 724 out would be a big task.
I feel that to fly a Lightning in the UK is a bigger headache than the Vulcan’s return to flight.

Just buy a ticket to Cape Town, where the skys are blue 🙂

Nice one mate, well done 😀