FlyPast – August 2018

August 2018 FLYPAST 57

Missiles

The Firestreak air-air missile pack

beneath the cockpit was corroded

and had been holed by a forklift.

I obtained a replacement from

Marine Salvage at Portsmouth,

which was disposing of former

Saudi Lightnings at the time.

My luck continued as Kelvin

offered me one-and-a-half

inert Firestreaks. Further

enquiries got me another, almost

complete, example so that I could

make up a pair. They needed

dismantling and a fair bit of work

to be made presentable.

More difficult to find were the

launch rails to attach the

missiles to the pylons. Currently,

I have one which is authentic,

while the other missile is attached

via a later Red Top rail. This does

the job perfectly well with only

minor modifications.

BDAC volunteer Dave Quigley,

an armourer by trade, was a

great help in freeing up the pylon

ejector units and getting the

missiles mounted correctly.

He also made new mounting

lugs for the ejection seat gun,

as they had been sawn off,

and serviced the seat motor.

Meanwhile, Bill Saunders of

Tangmere did a great job rebuilding

the seat from a mish-mash of newly

acquired and original, but often

corroded, items.

Split personality

Lightning XN726 served initially

as an unmodified F.2 with the Air

Fighting Development Squadron

(AFDS) during 1963 and 1964 at

Binbrook, Lincolnshire. Following

a period of storage she underwent

a major rework to approximately

F.6 standard at British Aircraft

Corporation, Warton, Lancashire,

becoming an F.2A.

Work completed, she was

delivered to 19 Squadron at

Gütersloh in 1968. Ironically,

XN726 sustained major damage

from a bolt of lightning to the

ventral tank in 1972 and was

roaded to Warton for repair.

She was assigned to 92

Squadron and returned to

Germany in 1974. Adopting a dark

green finish, XN726 served until

the end of March 1977 when the

F.2As were withdrawn from use.

I made contact with former pilot

Flt Lt (later Sqn Ldr) James G Wild,

whose name is on the cockpit side.

Jim has been extremely supportive

of XN726’s restoration and has

donated a control column, a pitot

tube and an aircrew manual. He’s

also driven down from his home in

East Anglia to Old Sarum on several

occasions and even got his hands

dirty (unusual for a pilot!) rubbing

down the missiles’ paintwork.

XN726 and XN725?

A curious feature found on the rearmost fuselage frame, the transport joint,
was the hand-painted serial ‘XN725’. Also, when removing steel retaining strips

to replace the broken starboard quarterlight, ‘XN725 STBD’ appeared, written
in pencil. The cockpit construction number (on a plate in the nosewheel bay) is

95097, which is also appropriate for XN725.
Lightning XN725 never fl ew as a pure F.2, being modifi ed as a trial installation

aircraft for the F.3 variant. Its maiden fl ight was six months after XN726’s.
My cockpit section defi nitely served as XN726, as I have the rear fuselage

serial to prove it, and other panels carry that serial. The most likely
explanation for this oddity is that the cockpits were swapped on the

production line at Samlesbury, Lancashire, for reasons unknown, but these
puzzles help to keep life interesting.

XN726 is marked as XN725 on the rear transport joint.

Painting the starboard nose
roundel and 19 Squadron bars.

The remains of the ‘Fly
Marrows’ zap, the
original orange
DayGlo sheet
having weathered
to white, and
the re-created
version.

The base of a new stand is wheeled in below

the cockpit. HERBIE FATHERLY