FlyPast – August 2018

August 2018 FLYPAST 55

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

Best of Breed

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