put it this way. If you ever witness our crew working on her, you will never hear such profanity, expletives and general colourful abuse going on. We DONT have a swear jar, we tried that and no one had any money in their pockets after about 2 hours!!!:rolleyes:

The last open day we had, we forgot that the general public were around watching us, whilst 4 grown men were engrossed on a pig of an engine FCU change, in record time. A young lad sat with his dad, asked “dad? what did that man working on the plane mean, when he heard *!!@*!ing piece of *!!!t, *****!!*le British krap!!!!*, arghhh, just go in the efin hole for gauds sake!!!”

his dad wrily grinned at the boy, and said “when your grown up you will understand” we were utterly oblivious that anyone was hearing this going on. One chap came up afterward and said “thank you so much, it takes me back to when I was a linney on these things, brilliant! He’d been in stitches watching and listening to this tirade against an inanimate ogject going on :rolleyes:

sometimes I wonder why we torture ourselves…

Gents, following on from my update post. We are now looking for a scrap Avon 302b or c, or parts from the oil pan assembly from a 302b/c, to rectify the problem with no1 engine. If anyone has any leads, please post here or pm me if you like. many thanks

Not wishing to distract you from all the internal work you are doing, do you have any idea when the repaint will occur?

Hi AMB. she won’t be painted at all, rather will be left in all natural metal finish, with saudi warnings and SQ decals one side, and RAF the other. the f53’s were never painted, apart from the leading edges,flaps and stabs. we have already started applying the markings, we should have mos of it done during the summer this year.

Re the “vortex generators”, were these not introduced as “flow straighteners” for the Avon302C engines, to allow the 102% rpm in the SaudiKuwait temperatures, rather than the 100% of the avon301 fitted to the F6??

Milt, thanks for taking the time to post those shots of the internal organs of a lightning! It’s certainly not built with the engineers in mind!

Outstanding work thus far mate, having seen our sooties employing military grade swearing when installing FCU’s and the like, i can only imagine what that day must have sounded like to visitors!

Must visit this summer.

no worries PJ. Defo not built with engineers in mind, it takes some seriously dextrous work in various places on the airframe to get by. millitray grade swearing is a must on this ******!!:rolleyes: drop me a pm when you want to come over..

pagen, as far as Im aware, none of the kuwaiti ones came back. they are all still out there, most of them very low houred and dry. one of those Kuwaiti tubs would make an excellent basis for a full restoration if the parts were available, since I would imagine the aiframes to be in excellent structural order.

Robert, 17 and initiated on Lightnings, you poor sod, talk about thrown in at the deep end!:o. Sounds like you know your onions though mate:) Yea I believe the 302C fit is essentially the same as the 301, bar 102% max rpm, over the 301 for increased Saudi temps , The 53’s also suffered similar issues with the IPN system, which required moding the LP, HP switches and starter atomisers.

Hi all, an update for you, from the last couple of weeks.

We have located the parts we require to rectify the small problem on n02 Avon 302 engine, in short order. Plus additional spares in case we ever have the same issue. We have also located a spare Avon 301 engine, which we are negotiating aquiring at present. We were also exceptionally lucky to find half a dozen brand new, never used Rolls Royce turbo reheat pumps, still in their packaging, with paperwork, and a brand new standby generator in extraordinary condition,.. what a find!! oh and the cherry on the cake, another 6 IPN HF control units, now tested and squirrelled away. he he the spares mountain is growing!:D

No2 engine is just about finished dressing wise, as we have located all of the pipework, and fitted what is required.This engine is now ready for fitting, and an oil flush.

Airframe wise. We will be making some small repairs to the top hatch tommorow. we had to cut 2 top hatch bolts through, since they were seized. we have spares, and will be replacing those in the morning. Hopefully we will have time to split pin the final throttle linkages in no2 bay too, and that wraps up no2 bay. The top hatch will be bolted back down, and the Ventral tank removed for final inspection of no1 engine bay for wrapping up too.

With any luck, the last 2 seized bolts will be drilled and replaced on number 2 reheat pipe, ready for it to go back together too.

Pictures to follow soon.;)

shame mate. I would have gone too, but we have to keep pushing to get finished this year. I let you know when we fire her up, hopefully not in more ways than one!:p

Fouga, Im no Avon expert, but I believe that the 302 was modified to provide another 2% rpm over the 301, something for the Saudi and Kuwait market, something to do with the ambient heat there. Otherwise the engines are identical as far as I know.