(Image: Dave Collins, reproduced with permission)
English Electric Lightning XR718 was one of the last Lightning F.3 fighters to fly in RAF service after the majority of its kind had been scrapped (many believe prematurely) in the mid 1970s (see here).
(Image: Alan Allen, reproduced with permission)
Soldiering on for another decade or so, Lightning XR718 was eventually sent to RAF Wattisham (above), where it saw out its military days as a battle damage repair trainer alongside the dumped carcasses of Wattisham’s retired Phantom FGR.2s.
Against considerable odds, the Lightning survived the dreaded Wattisham scrap line of the early ’90s and still exists today, albeit not (yet) in one piece. Like many other surviving examples of its kind, XR718’s wings and tail were cut off for transport. And despite spending more than a decade at Walpole, Suffolk, the airframe was never reassembled.
(Image: Dave Collins, reproduced with permission)
In 2006 Lightning XR718 moved north to Over Dinsdale on the border of North Yorkshire and County Durham. Now displayed in a farmer’s field, the aircraft is still awaiting its extremities but with any luck it’ll be back in one piece in the not too distant future.
View more English Electric Lightning articles here.
The post Lightning XR718 Awaits Reassembly in Yorkshire appeared first on Urban Ghosts.