Chris Freer
After a difficult winter in the new hangar, Saturday 28 April marked a milestone for Lightning Association members as British Electric Lightning F.6 XR724 rolled out for the first time since October. Not only did the engineering team show off the jet's partially completed repaint, but they were also able to run a test that is expected to eventually result in the XR724's engines starting for the first time in 17 years.
In British aviation circles, the British Electric Lightning is as iconic as the Supermarine Spitfire of World War II. But by the late 1980s, the Lightning, a 1950s air defense fighter similar to the F-102 and F-106, was technologically obsolete and finally scheduled for retirement. The type was used at many RAF bases, but it is RAF Binbrook in the quiet rural county of Lincolnshire that is considered the spiritual home of the type. It was in 1988 that this type was finally retired.
In 1990, the RAF placed XR724 in climate-controlled storage at RAF Shawbury. In 1991, with the British Civil Aviation Authority granting permission for her one final flight home to RAF Binbrook in July, the Light Society was able to purchase her and begin preparing her for flight (with two engines and operable ejection seats). including need to find). June 23, 1992. It's June, 31 years later and after more than 30 years, mostly outdoors, RAF Binbrook's last complete Lightning, XR724, finally has a new home. As previously reported vintage aviation news The Lightning Association built a new aircraft shelter at the former airfield.
said Chief Engineer John Watson. van, “We performed a starter starter operation on the No. 1 Avon engine and then a practical, successful start and ignition of a Plessey LTSA 140 starter, spinning up a Rolls Royce Avon engine ready for future ignitions.” So it may have been a long wait, but if you're lucky, the sound of a pair of Rolls-Royce Avon engines could once again echo around Binbrook and across the Lincolnshire landscape.