Originally Posted by
Rhino power
You wouldn't be allowed to fly it from ANY civil airfield, the CAA rules and regs would see to that! Before he finally gave up and sold his Lightnings to Mike Beachy Head in South Africa, Barry Pover had tried for years to get permission to fly at least one of his Lightnings on the UK civil register, everytime he met the conditions laid down by the CAA they moved the goal posts again and added further conditions until in the end it was obvious the CAA were never going to allow a privately flown Lightning in the UK, some may argue for very good reasons, and he packed it in...
-RP
And that is why the CAA appeared at Carlisle airport one quite day and ran a cutter/grinder through the main spar of the lowest houred lightning left after its delivery from Warton.
It was one of the ex Saudi airframes that was flown in fully serviceable, I believe the CAA appeared first thing in the morning after its delivery terrified someone would try to fly it.