FlyPast – August 2018

(John Hannent) #1
August 2018 FLYPAST 55

Hugh Trevor details the restoration of his Lightning F.2A cockpit – from ballistics target to museum piece


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August 2018FLYPAST 55

dubbed them ‘The Green Marrows’
and the name stuck.
The next question was where
was I going to put it? I volunteer at
Tangmere Military Aviation Museum
in Sussex, but it already had a
complete Lightning F.53 on display.
Fortunately Sqn Ldr John
Sharpe, leader of the museum
project at the Defence Evaluation
and Research Agency at
Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, agreed

to accommodate the relic. I had
it delivered to the collection’s
hardened aircraft shelter on April
1, 2000 – an appropriate date
perhaps! When the Boscombe
Down Aviation Collection (BDAC)
relocated to nearby Old Sarum in
2012, XN726 moved with it.

Networking
At Shoeburyness the airframe
had been used to determine

the optimum alloy and shape of
shot to do maximum damage to
aircraft structures, possibly for
the Sea Wolf missile programme.
Fortunately the cockpit area of
XN726 survived reasonably intact,
although in an idle moment I did
count roughly 85 holes in the
starboard side and 35 to port.
The canopy and one of the
quarterlights had been smashed;
and since replaced, while a chip

Essex, following use in weapons
testing: trials aircraft XN795 and
Gütersloh veteran XN726.
A hand-painted cartoon of a
lightning ‘zap’ on the nose decided
me on XN726. A contemporary
photograph shows this illustration
originally bore the slogan ‘Fly
Marrows’, a reference to the 92
Squadron five-ship aerobatic
team of 1975-76. Officially known
as ‘Cobra Five’, a wag cheekily

Kelvin Petty removes the starboard
quarterlight in March 2002.

A pair of 92 Squadron F.2As on fi nal in
June 1976: XN726 is the nearer jet. ERICH
WESTERSÖTEBIER VIA FLUGPLATZMUSEUM
GÜTERSLOH
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