I say keep options open, with the facility to operate and house large airships; new projects come along every so often and who knows what the future holds.

Any Nevil Shute fan will sign the petition, so I have.

ZF130

I hope I may be excused for going back to the previous subject, ZF130; I have only recently joined these forums, and spotted this.

I was a technical photographer at Dunsfold 1979-93, and remember this aircraft well, I’d heard it had been scrapped, very sad and like the whole Sea Harrier FRS2 / FA2 programme a huge waste of good kit.

130 had a complete Sea Harrier FRS2 ( as then ) cockpit on the right hand side of the flight deck, complete with stick control column.

There were 2 observer stations at the aft end of the cabin, facing aft to view various displays; with this arrangement it was unsurprisingly notorious for upsetting the most cast iron stomachs !

One avionics observer fresh from his survival training refused to fly in it, as there was a heavy chemical toilet out in the open in the cabin, basically unuseable, but the aircraft didn’t carry a liferaft…

While the chances of surviving a ditching are of course slim, I thought he had a good point; unfortunately he had quite a brusque attitude which put peoples’ backs up, so it developed into a matter of who would give in; I have a feeling he did agree to fly in it in the end, not doing so would have been a career limiting move in every way.

God knows what the conversion to Blue Vixen test-bed cost, but I’m sure something useful could have been done with this aircraft – the Captor radar in the Typhoon is a descendant of Blue Vixen…

Scrapping ZF130 reminds me of destroying the jigs for TSR2, the Navy acted with indecent haste to scrap the Sea Harrier FA2, the ultimate indication that winning wars comes a very poor second to glittering careers in the Admiralty !

Dick Everett had a GR.7 which had been ditched . I guess that will be preserved in due course . Apart from that not many! The one that should have been preserved in the U.K was ZD318 which effectively was the first U.K production Harrier II.

Hello David and all here,

I’ve just discovered this forum so please be gentle !

ZD 318 & 319 were always kept back as development aircraft, mostly at Dunsfold where they were built; ZD318 was the first British Harrier II to fly, in the hands of CTP Mike Snelling.

318 usually did avionics development, while 319 performed weapons & equipment trials, so software & hardware respecively; I usually went along to look after the onboard instrumentation cameras on ZD319, up to 16 could be carried in one go, 3 each side in modified CBLS200 practice bomb carriers, 2 wide angle facing forward by the airbrake, and 4 in each dummy mahogany gunpod, of which 3 faced outboard & 1 in each pod faced forward for gun, rocket & missile work.

ZD318 was retired because it was nowhere near production GR9 standard, through its’ testing career the aircraft was usually ahead but sometimes behind of or different to what the squadrons had, and nowadays there is an effort to avoid ‘fleets within fleets’ and to keep every aircraft to the same standard.

I heard ZD319 was overstressed while at Wart On, they tried flying it without pylons and it departed, at least that’s what I was told.

Both these aircraft, in my view especially ZD319, should be preserved and saved from the aeronautical National vandalism that the recent defence cuts represent.

I was one of two photographers at Dunsfold 1979-93, I loved it and left when I couldn’t stand what the bean counters were doing…

Hope the pics are of interest…

ZD318 Under build, Dunsfold; the chap leaning over the starboard side in a grey suit is Ted Fitton, in the words of John Farley ” the only person I know to survive a Mosquito engine failure on takeoff ! “…

ZD318 1st takeoff, 1st British Harrier II

ZD319 On Harrier II Rough Ground Trials, this is at Wittering on the PSP, camera gunpods and CBLS200’s.

ZD319 Rough Ground Trials Wittering, Test Pilot Graham Tomlinson. nb nose reaction control duct.

ZD319 landing on PSP, Rough Ground Trials Wittering ( these trials were also carried out at Boscombe ). Test Pilot Bernie Scott.