Now, a very big what if…. but just supposing…in our wildest dreams…these two eminent gentlemen had shut the lid and pushed the throttles forward into reheat, bearing in mind I know nothing of the location ; would there have been enough runway, enough fuel on board for a circuit, and is the aircraft in all other respects airworthy with the only obvious restriction being the ruling that prohibits this beautiful aircraft from now flying in the UK?:dev2:

Just to add to John’s exellent answer 😉

There is no reason, why these two gentlemen couldnt have taken 458 for a
circuit, as 458 like our two and 724 at Binbrook all were as John points out flown to there current locations.
728’s radar is still operative, all bang seats and fire bottles were made safe within hours of delivery of both of ours.

What would happen to us ‘owners’ inside the world our ‘little’ hobby after this kind event doesnt bear thinking about.

Im affraid to say the aborted takeoff’s you see us do at Brunty infront of the public are as close as your gonna get, just come along when you can and enjoy the sounds, smells and the sight, we do 😉

But it takes one hell of alot of work and money to support even our limited ‘operation’ belive me;)

As for our two being airworthy after 20 and 15 years on the ground with our ‘tinkering’ and running Im not sure, there is no reason why not, but……………….. there’s alot to go wrong inside em.

This coming weekend will be one of those occasions, where we spend hours fighting with 728s pipes, bleeding knuckles, swearing, triple jointed arms, working upside down,at arms length, all spanners tied to yer arms, oh the fun we are gonna have.

Cheers from us all in the LPG and good look to all the Lightning ‘lads’ out there, you know who you are :rolleyes:

Dam it !!!!:diablo: Will it go a head at a later date?

Probably not, sorry, we the LPG are planning to re run our cancelled twlight static reheat ‘do’ in early Nov, more info when I have it.

We are as disapointed as everyone

Sorry

We have to respect Davids commercial decsion and support him, as he has been unstinting in supporting us over the last 20 years.

Remember there is still the twlight bash coming up in Nov
More on that one when I know

We still intend to be at the airfield all weekend, as we have all planned our ‘life’ around being there, we now intend to have half our ‘crew’ on painting and the other half on ‘chucking’ the pipes back in 728, as while Ive been on ‘me jollies’ Jim and Jack have pressure tested the AMCU and done all the other checks and Im glad to say all is good.
The areos will be open if anyone wants to have a look, we might be busy, and you might hear some interesting ‘words’ but thats Lightnings

Cheers

Hi Peter, the chaps above have got it right, our 728 was also on on the LTF, the last F6 to be extact to serve with them.

Cheers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7485852.stm

This is great news well done all 🙂

Nice one mate, 😉

A great day, and like you say 904 did us proud, mind you she didnt want to play at first, gave us the run around for an hour with a spurious starter fuse snag, Lightnings ! :rolleyes:

Good to see you had a good day as well, Dennis our pilot for the day certainly did, having a go in 333 then jumping in 904.;)

You will be glad to hear our 20th anniversary ‘do’ up in the control tower went on into the wee small hours of Sunday morning, Peter Collins gave us all and enthralling after dinner talk about his and Jimmy Dells time on AFDS in the last 50’s when they were working hard to get the Lightning into service, some interesting stories and a very nice fella.

Have just got home, feeling some what ‘fuzzy headed’

We presented Dave Walton with a framed ‘Q shed scramble’ pencil line drawing for all of his unstinting support he has given us over the last 20 years, he was visably touched and thanked us with a few very nice supportive words, if it wasnt for him we wouldnt be doing what we do today.

Thankyou David 🙂

Here’s to the next 20 years

I will post a few of my snaps of the day on the Q shed thread later

Cheers 😉

Hi all, didnt get many shots this weekend, as we were busy, sorry

But got a few snaps on Sunday

Sunday first thing just before it started raining

And right at the end, 558 going to bed, and the rain had typically just stopped 😡

The shot I should have got is firmly imprinted in my memory, as we raced (well 71mph in a 1981 Tranny van) after 904 to collect the soaking wet chute and check the brakes I was struck by a great sight, we raced (everything shacking)over the hill there straight in front of us was 904, rain beating down on her and the runway, heat rising from her, chute blowing about in the exhaust and to top it a dark menacing sky behind her, she looked perfect a true cold war warrior, shivers down the spine stuff and Im not usually affected by things like that, wonderfull 🙂

Cheers all 😉

Hopefully the rain didn’t stem the flow of coppers into the door fund Andy!

Hi Peter,
Yes we did take a few quid, the cockpit tours did great as people used the hangar as shelter, we could have done with 5 Lightnings, Ha !

Thats the thing the weather didnt spoil it it just turned it from an excellent day in to a really good one, I have booked that date in to my diary thanks for the heads up.

As I said it truely was a great day and this was worth the soaking:D

http://s56.photobucket.com/albums/g194/tigercatfan/Brunty250508/?action=view&current=DSCF0278.flv

Lovely clip, thanks, I was on the opposite side by our chute recovery van, and I must say 904 was on top form, blistering, both buners lighting perfeclty (rare for lots of reasons) when we got to the top, she was stting there, at 60% power looking really menacing against the stormy sky, rain pouring off her, we collected the chute checked the tyres and waved her off, John gave his usual wink and thumbs up and had a big smile on his face.

Kinda makes all the weekends we spend ‘fixing’ worth while.

Assume you liked the Q shed, great aint it ?
Kept the weather off yesterday and enabled us to do loads of cockpit tours and get some more cash in the kitty for the doors fund.

Cheers 😉