How long until we go through this whole thing again? Possibly new year when more money is needed for it to get its wheels off the ground again prior to the season starting.

Al Ain

The camera ship was strikemaster G-UVNR

XL500

Well Mr Hellman
It seems that you want to find out information through the Forum as you are not brave enough to use your real identity and it is obvious that you may be scared of the legal comebacks from the person or persons involved with this pareticular aircraft.
I have been involved in the maintenance of XL500 from the time served on ARK Royal right through to present with obvious different postings in between. I would not get involved with restoring this aircraft if
1, there was an issue with ownership
2, I did not think it was worthwhile
3, The public did not want to see it fly and not just rot away on the ground.

I was working on the School of Aircraft handling and when an aircraft is sent to this department it becomes ‘Struck off charge’ and no longer becomes an aircraft but becomes a Training aid. It just seems strange but over the last few weeks there has been a question of ownership of this aircraft and it started with a small group of individuals that were ex aircrew of 849 that paid a small fee to keep this and a Mk 5 gannet at Culdrose to let them rot away as a gate guard. I have seen the invoice of the sale of the aircraft to Mr Manna and the signature is from someone well qualified to sell the aircraft. All i can say to you Mr Hellman is, if you would like to re-emburse all the money and time that has been spent up to now on XL500 i would gladly let you have the aircraft and i will retire to somewhere warmer and not have to worry about finances anymore and you can also explain to everybody that has helped in providing spares and tooling to assist in the restoration of the aircraft why the aircraft will just get scrapped.

Politics within the historic aviation is the biggest cause of confrontation within companies and owners of these aircraft and it seems that you want to look for any excuse to have a private confrontation with someone on a popular Forum.

Apologies to all the genuine forum members that have been a great supporter of returning a fine aircraft to the air. (eventually).

Permit

I believe the Sea Vixen managed to fly

STRIKEMASTER CRASH

Despite what everyone has read in the media, i can confirm that the aircraft had been flying for 50 minutes before the crash and the pilot made the decision to land the aircraft in a field and not to eject, its just a shame that the field was not 100 feet longer. a large hedge got in the way. the landing was totally controlled and both pilots walked away from the scene although they are both pretty sore from hitting the bank. The pilot who i will not name did a landing that anyone should be proud off in that situation as there is very little damage to the area and it was under control right to the end.

After reading some of the media reports it makes me smile because no matter what the truth is they will print whatever they want. Lets just let the AAIB do there job so that we can make sure that whatever caused the problem will not happen again.

PALOUSTE

We will require one at Exeter for the Gannet in the future.

I have been watching this thread for many months now and feel that it is time for me to make a few comments.
First of all i would like to congratulate everyone involved in getting the aircraft back in the air you all did a great job.

Now the negative bit. A lot of money came from the HLF which all operators of historic aircraft would have liked even if it was a percentage of what was spent on 558. I know that we could of all applied, but when we applied for an ongoing project the structure or the finance was not in place for us to spend a vast amount of valuable time or money to employ someone to do it for us. Now we are in the position to do this it seems that HLF are once bitten twice shy when it comes to giving money to projects involving hstoric aircraft, so all i can say is rather than keep pouring more and more money in to one project that lets face it in this economic climate no one has, lets try and get some more less expensive projects that, when they are airworthy it will not take a massive money pit to keep going.
I am sure that all operators of historic aircraft would like to have a wage in the bank equal to some personnel on the 558 team that have only one aircraft to operate (all be it a large one) because i dont know of any vintage aircraft companies that could survive with just one aircraft.

If it means that 558 has to leave these shores to carry on flying, surely that is far better than letting it decay here. As i mentioned at the start, well done to all but even if there is any chance of raising money to fly this year it can only get harder next time.