English Electric Lightning - Survivor XM191
F.1A XM191 - Privately owned, North Scarle, Lincolnshire
 |  |  |
Lightning F.1A XM191 at North Weald, May 1994; Damien Burke
XM191 began her career with 111 Squadron but came a cropper on 9th June 1964, when she suffered an engine fire on approach to RAF Wattisham. While she landed okay, the damage to the airframe was such that she was not repaired, so she was stripped for spares and most of the aircraft was scrapped. The nose was retained and ended up being used by the RAF's exhibition unit who used to cart her around to airshows and fairs as a recruiting aid. Masquerading as a 5 Squadron F.6 in this superb shark mouth scheme, some panels were replaced with perspex to give an indication of the construction. After the mid 1990s and the arrival of several complete plastic airframes for use by the unit, XM191 ceased to be used much. When Babcock got the contract to carry out the exhibition duties, they took XM191 on and she had a brief resurgence of use, appearing at the Newark Cockpitfest in 2004, but was finally put up for disposal in 2006 and sold by sealed bid. Updates on her condition welcome!
Information on this page current as of 19/10/2008, last updated by Damien |
Find other photos of XM191 on the following sites:
Air-Britain - Airliners.net - Airplane-Pictures.net - flickr.com - WorldAirPics.com - JetPhotos.net - PlanePictures.net