Originally Posted by
VX275
The last I heard of Mrs Hepple was that she was languishing in the RAF Museum's store at Stafford. She went to Stafford straight from RAF Saint Athan where she had been used on the last RAF wood workers course. She should be in good condition with no evidence of your mistreatment showing.
My 'mistreatment' occured on 17 May 1967. The only damage visible was a broken main skid so the Officer i/c (the late Chris Rollings who put up 'B' Cat wings whilst still a Cadet W/O) initially wanted to fly her out of the field where I put her, however getting a winch in there was going to be difficult so we pulled the fence of the field (which adjoined the airfield) out of the ground and towed her back to the hangar.
When MGSP inspected her however, they assessed her as Cat 5; normally a write off but as she was a presentation aircraft, she was sent back to Kirbymoorside to be rebuilt.
I next flew her again at Halton on 20 May 1968 almost exactly a year later and last flew her at White Waltham on 13 Jun 1976 where my logbook says we managed a trip of 32 min; not bad when Heathrow arrivals were passing overhead at 3,000ft amsl limiting the height you could climb to!
So as you say, after (effectively) two re-builds, she should be in good condition.