Originally Posted by
GeeRam
Some of the Brunty Bucc crew flew in '986 with IP about a year or so ago. I think '986 is maybe the only one of the 3 x Bucc's out there currently still flying?
'986 was one of the three S2s (along with '987 and '988) delivered to RAE Farnborough in about 1974 and as such, being an MOD(PE) aircraft, must have had very low hours on it when it was 'retired'.
One amusing thing; when it was delivered the navs on Experimental Flying Squadron had to be trained on the up to date nav systems so it did a lot of flying on airways, the problem being that it cruised at 550 kt (T) which meant it overtook everything else in the airway including Tridents and VC10s ('normal' Douglas and Boeing types could only manage about 460-480) at whatever level it was flying which rather annoyed the airways controllers.