No Rest for The Wicked!
Friday 30th October 2009
Work doesn't stop in the world of Lightning Preservation! In the last few months we've been flat out and progress with the shed rebuild has been very good; the side cladding is on, the side windows are fitted and importantly, have been made water tight! The remaining steel work has been drilled, bolted in place and painted in anticipation for the rear cladding to be fitted. The next little job is to fit the three personnel doors and their associated frames, which shouldn't take too long to complete.
At the rear, the building is now ready for the next hurdle, namely rehanging the back doors. They're gonna need some renovation before they can be hung, which is beyond our means, so this work will be done by outside an contractor when there is enough money in the pot to fund the work. Hopefully the takings from the inaugural twilight taxy run on 28th November should raise enough for that part of the project. Fingers crossed.
Once that's all done, it's just the fitting of the rear cladding to go. Realistically, that all depends on how funding goes, but we're hopeful that it can be done by the Spring of 2010, which will bring to an end 15 years of hard work and fund raising, so we really are tantalisingly close to achiving our goal of having two working Lightnings in an original QRA shed!
Away from the shed, aircraft wise, XS904 is poorly and in need of some TLC. With the work to the sheds taking up much of our time at the moment, that'll have to wait until late this year or early next, but there's no dramas and it should be fairly straight forwards to return her to full health.
On the otherside of the shed, sister ship XR728 is servicable at the moment. We've got an antidet run due in late October, which will keep her fit and ready for a public 'airing' at the twlight run next month.
In other news, we've just gained a new paying member at the LPG who is an ex-Lightning pilot no less. John Ward, who flew with 56 Sqn in the 60s and 70s, will be 'piloting' '728 on the 28th, so please do come along, have a chat to him and help us raise those funds!
That about wraps it up on the news front for this blog. We also keep a thread on the UKAR forums updated with little tidbits of news, so it's worth keeping an eye on that between our blog posts.
We hope to see many of you at Bruntingthorpe for the Twilight run.
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Hello Lightning Fans!
Friday 28th August 2009
Hello to all the Lightning fans out there, and welcome to our new blog.
In the future, we'll be using this page to keep you up to date with all the latest happenings from our open days and routine maintenance etc, but for this first post, I thought I'd outline the history of the Lightning Preservation Group for those unfamiliar with our story.
The LPG can trace its origins back to the spring of 1987, when a small handful of guys were stood at RAF Binbrook's Crash Gate 3 watching the final months of Lightning operations tick by. After a lot of behind the scenes work we managed to secure F6 XR728 for a 'one off' delivery flight to an airfield of our choice, which is where Bruntingthorpe and David Walton came in. On the 24th June, XR728 was delivered to Bruntingthorpe by 11 Sqn pilot Flt Lt Chris Berners Price on what was to be his penultimate flight in a Lightning. At this point we only had the aircraft and no ground equipment or spares, so we spent a while tendering for and buying anything Lightning related that we could get our hands on! Around Christmas 1988 we made the decision to begin ground running to keep her 'wet' which we had been advised was the best policy to keep her alive. We have done this ever since.
In the early 1990's there were still four flying Lightnings at BAe Warton being used as 'fast case' aircraft for the Tornado Foxhunter radar trails. When this came to its natural end in Dec 1992, XR773 and XP693 were bought by Barry Pover of the Lightning Flying club at Exeter and flown down there, where XR925 was stripped of spares and put on display the gate. This left XS904 the last ‘turkey’ in the shop as it were, so we tendered for her at the 11th hour and won! A phone call came the next day to inform us she would be arriving on Thursday, 23rd Jan 1993. Peter Orme flew her down to us with Sqn leader Andy Williams acting as 'guide' in a Tornado F3 from RAF Conningsby. When she touched down she had made the last flight of a Lightning in the UK (something we have no intention of ever changing), and so we became a two Lightning group.
Both aircraft have spent their time with the LPG living outside, exposed to the elements, which has proved a constant challenge to both us and the aircraft. We embarked on a long term project to rectify this when, in December 1994 - January 1995, we saved the old QRA Hangar at RAF Wattisham from demolition and transported hundreds of tons of rusty metal to Bruntingthorpe.
After much work behind the scenes and lots of fund raising, work on the rebuild began in May 2004 with a small kitty of funds and have worked hard rebuilding it ourselves ever since. By November 2007, our girls finally had a roof over their heads and good progress in 2008 meant that by early 2009 we had the doors fitted to both the front and rear of the sheds, to further protect our girls from the delights of the British weather. One of only three QRA sheds of this type ever built in the UK, ours is now the only one remaining with two Lightnings living inside once again.
So far, 2009 has been another productive year for our fund raising and our push towards completing the QRA Shed is going well, with enough money having been raised for the front and side cladding, all of which is now in situ. The next funding target it to get the rear doors refurbished and hung, then the rear cladding, which will see the QRA Shed completed, to act as a lasting reminder of how the UK was once defended.
The next chance to see our aircraft perform is this coming Sunday, August 30th, for the Cold War Jets open day. As well as one of our Lightnings, many of the other classics at Bruntingthorpe will be taking to the runway for fast taxi runs, so please do come along to show your support and help us reach our goal. Dates for future events in 2010 and the remainder of 2009 are yet to be announced. We'll update you on this blog nearer the time.
