Originally Posted by
walbut
I used to live in Holme on Spalding Moor, quite close to the HSA airfield where I occasionally worked on detachment from Brough. I remember one Friday afternoon, probably in the 1970's, there was a Buccaneer being flown very enthusiastically at low level around the airfield, which was unusual since 'the works' normally finished at lunchtime on Friday. The word in the office on the following Monday was that Jimmy Saville had been in the back seat and it was an RN display pilot, so maybe he did once fly in a Buccaneer.
I am pretty sure no Buccaneer was ever landed after running out of fuel. I think one did run out of fuel during an air test from Aldergrove as a result of the fuel jettison valves failing open after testing the system, but that one crashed and was written off.
The aircraft took off from the royal naval facilities at Sydenham Belfast ,now Belfast city airportIt went out and they tested the fuel dump over the houses of East Belfast and it failedLuckily enough a office building caught it after the pilots ejected
The faulty valve was presented to the company and is still on display at the front reception
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/55097