The only major part of her to be saved was the nose. The rest was cut up at Bruntingthorpe.

idiot!

surely hes not scrapping it now then!??? when we went to look at it about a year ago when he first took ownership of it, it was in a bad state, but being that all the bits like ventral tank, aelerons, spine panels, missing panels, canopy, bullet, wheels, tyres etc are available from gash stock from the various groups, it seemed to me that if he and his bods had given it a basic rub down and clean up, and quick roller job of paint, the rest was sortable to look reasonably presentable, all be it with a quick “lash it up” job. For panels that he cant get, well, a few sheets of basic ally and pop rivet gun, its surprising how quickly panels can be knocked up for a display piece. HEs a scrappy, he must have loads of sheet metal knocking about. As for the holes in the fuselage, they could be quite easily sorted with fibre glass matting, by the time it was painted it would look quite presentable. The only question mark to me was the wings? attachment looked decidedly dodgy! personally I wouldn’t scrap it, a concerted effort from him and a couple of his others over 3 weeks, could have it reasonably tidy, after all its just a question of making it look reasonable, its too far gone to worry about corrsosion etc, but he is a scrap man, with all the necessary heavy equipment to do whats required. he cant be talking about a full restoration, unless hes nuts 😀 ! Is he?? I cant see that a quick bodge it and scarper job ( which will be a 150% improvement) on a hulk would cost a great deal, the main cost for him would be getting the missing bits.

ahhh, the old will we wont we see it debate! 😀

I hope you mother isnt reading this Andy. tut tut bunking off to go and

see silly aeroplanes indeed. pfffft.you naughty boy! playing truant gets the cane you know!. 😀

FMK6 John. Agree with many of your points 🙂 , but As Andy says, its a big big gulf! Even if an airframe was perfect to start with.

it still has to be taken to bits, no matter how recently it has been refurbished, so the gap between ground running and flying inherently is a big one, and even more so if the airframe has problems. As for 671, Ill set the record straight here, from the horses mouth. 😉

Her FI is indeed 81, and unlike the RAF FI records ( which 6/10 times can be reduced from the form 700) the Saudi airframes were 100% accurate.
Max FI was never assumed,for out of area deployment. The hours are 2119, 42 mins.

It had a major in 85 just before return to the uk, so All lifed components are bewteen 5- 50% used, most being less that 35%, eg, the jet pipes which have just 19 hours on them. We have been lucky taking on an aiframe that was a tin can, with all components removed for us already by bae, hence been able to inspect, refurb,replace, where required, luckily having just about every major aerospace supplier half a mile away, which makes life much simpler!
even though everything we do on it is treated as if it were flying, and done to those standards (thats just the only way to treat a Lightning, no compromise), and even after 5500+ man hours of restoration (so far) and new engines, she would require work, two new gear bay door hindge castings for instance, and to be on the safe side she would ideally require both No1 thrust panels replacing, which is not a job for the faint hearted! 😮 one or two skin repairs here and there, from wear and tear. Like any candidate, she would also have to be rewired completely. She would have to be stripped again by the OEM regardless of our paper work, or work done.

So already, thats probably a million quids worth of work from MArshalls or Bae., before you have even looked at the usual, ie main gear, Fin, canopy.
etc. All the new or nearly new components we have, or have fitted still have to have OEM inspection regardless, as its new old stock. Any other airframes that have FI left and hours without serious corossion problems? well that leaves hardly any candidates. Yes 458 is a candidate. she has FI. Most of the ex RAF ones arent candidates because they have already had 400 hour moded life extensions, and have since exceeded that extension, so theres no room to stretch the life. I dont know if the 400 hour mod applies to 904 and 728, but certainly does for 724.

Whilst we, LPG, Lightning association, AALO and one or two others, have a fairly large spares inventory, its the critical spares that are important, and those are short in the UK. That is an undeniable problem that would have to be overcome.

Never say never, but its a seriously tall order. And at risk of starting a bun fight, contrary to the rumour mill, the CAA isnt the problem as such, and never has been. (shock horror! 😀 ) The Vulcan and the Bucc are testiment to that.