Ceylon Jet Provosts at Luton
 

I am aware that this excellent forum focuses on the civilian operations at Luton Airport but I wonder if anyone can provide me with help regarding Jet Provost deliveries from Hunting/Percival to the Ceylon Air Force. I am aware that 12 Jet Provost T Mk.51s, CJ701-CJ712 from Luton - probably by company or Airwork pilots - from December 1959?
It is suggested that the first aircraft, CJ701, was the former company Mk.2 demonstrator, G-AOHD/'XN117' which was returned and modified to Mk.3 standard. Another suggestion was that this aircraft was scrapped at Luton in 1960 and that CJ 701 was anew-build airframe? Any help will be gratefully received?

I think we discuss anything and everything here!

CJ701 c/n PAC/W/5754 FF Luton 1959 as G-23-1. To Ceylon AF (no date given) WFU 1971
CJ702 c/n PAC/W/5760 FF Luton 1959 poss as G-23-5. To Ceylon AF 2.60. WFU 1971
CJ703 c/n PAC/W/5763? FF Luton 1959 poss as G-23-6. To Ceylon AF 2.60. WFU 1971
CJ704 c/n PAC/W/6192 FF Luton 1959. To Ceylon AF 2.60. WFU 1971. By 1994 in play area in Sri Lanka AF Museum Ratmalana Sri Lanka
CJ705 FF Luton 1959 poss as G-23-5. To Ceylon AF 2.60. WFU 1971. By 1994 in play area in Sri Lanka AF Museum Ratmalana Sri Lanka
CJ706 c/n PAC/W/6322? FF Luton 1959. To Ceylon AF 2.60. WFU 1971
CJ707 FF Luton 1959/60. To Ceylon AF 1962?. WFU 1971 and preserved
CJ708 FF Luton 1959/60. To Ceylon AF 1962?. WFU 1971
CJ709 FF Luton 1959/60. To Ceylon AF 1962?. WFU 1971
CJ710 FF Luton 1959/60. To Ceylon AF 1962?. WFU 1971
CJ711 FF Luton 1960. To Ceylon AF 1962?. WFU 1971. Preserved at Sri Lanka AF Museum Ratmalana Sri Lanka.
CJ712 FF Luton 1959/60. To Ceylon AF 1962. WFU 1971

G-AOHD was c/n PAC/84/012 FF Luton 1956 and did an overseas sales tour in Latin America and then was shipped out to Oz. It's preserved and stored at RAAF Museum, Point Cook.

Info from On the Wings of a Gull by David Gearing, published by Air Britain. It does contain errors.

Ceylon Jet Provosts at Luton
 

I would agree that the Gearing book is full of errors. Anyway, thanks to several enthusiasts I have found out that XN117 did not go to Ceylon AF as 'CJ701' but was placed into open store at Luton following weapons trials and overseas evaluations and scrapped in early 1962. The deliveries of the Jet Provosts to Ceylon have never been confirmed and I am sure that there must an accurate list somewhere?

1955 T1 Jet Provost
https://i.imgur.com/hly4ePN.jpg
Peter Worby

When did Hunting / Percival aircraft cease to be based at Luton airport ?
was it just a case of amalgamation into BAC and then the Luton site shut down ?
Where did the Jet Provost manufacturing move to after Luton ?

Hunting merged / acquired by BAC on 1 January 1964

Luton factory closed 31 July 1966

Production of Jet Provost Mk.5 and Strikemaster transferred to Warton; ten Strikemaster fuselages finally assembled at Hurn between 1979 / 1980 following increased production of Jaguar airframes at Warton

Thank you VampireDave.
does this mean the majority of production for the Jet Provost was at Luton ?

All Jet Provost Mk.1 to Mk.4 airframes, including T.Mk.51 and T.Mk.52 armed versions of the Mk.3 and Mk.4, respectively, were built at Luton. Wings built at Hurn

Luton ATC logbooks
 

Good afternoon
I've been pointed to this forum and hopefully someone will be able to help.
I am trying to find which specific aircraft I flew in and out of Luton on back in 1973, 1974 and 1975!
I know it's a long shot but a colleague said someone on the forum had access to the tower logbooks for the time.
I'd appreciate any help you could give, I have more info but it would probably be easier by PM if needed.

Regards

Gatman

Unfortunately they are common but here goes

Monarch Airlines Britannia Luton to Basel approx 29/5/73 returning 7 or 10/6/73 these are the two I'm really interested in

Dan Air BAC 1-11 Luton to Palma 14/1/74 am returning 18/1/74 PM

This one is slightly more sketchy on dates Britannia Airways B737 Luton to Rimini 3/5/75 returning 17/5/75 Previous research showed one a week but not sure which day. Return was within 5 days after the 13/5/75

I appreciate these will probably be unsolvable but it would be great to find out.

gatman

cj241101 to the rescue I suspect......

dc9-32, thanks for the vote of confidence - just had a look and I was actually living in Reading on the dates in question, so nothing doing, I'm afraid. The only source I know of for Luton ATC logs is the Bedford Archive Centre but they only have Aug 1966-Aug 1968.

Oh well, it was worth a try.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers

gatman

Marty Feldman during filming.
https://i.imgur.com/TV7lgE4.jpg
photo by Luton Airport

Did Air Inter ever operate the Mercure into LTN?

Unless it was a one-off charter, I'd very much doubt it because Air Inter were the French government's internal/domestic airline to counterbalance Air France being the international/external airline. An interesting aircraft, used to see them in Orly back in the day.

I recall a Mercure at Gatwick, not sure if I saw it or just a photo, or indeed why it was there.

My records show that no Mercure ever visited Luton.

I used to fly on Air Inter a lot in the 90's and I'm pretty sure that i flew on a Mercure between Paris Orly and Avignon and return in 93 or 94, but to my enthusiast shame the memory isn't clear, only that the airport was restricted to the size of aircraft that could land there. If anyone's interested there's one apiece at the Le Bourget and Speyer museums to wander around. A shame that this aircraft didn't have success, a bit like the story of the HS Trident.

To the best of my knowledge, the occasions Air Inter have appeared at Luton can be counted on less than the fingers of one hand. A320 F-GJVE visited on 18/7/91, don't have the reason, F-GHQB another A320 on 17/2/92 and F-BUAO an A300 on 19/2/92, the last 2 both football related I think.

https://i.imgur.com/OoBmMx4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/zXOTnVl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/gFUxnxN.jpg

Definitely no Mercures. Air Inter were indeed operating flights from Gatwick 1989-1990 (and probably beyond) using A320's.

Not LTN, but LHR, apparently there were several Air Inter substitutions for Air France in the 70's and both Caravelle and the mythical Mercure were pictured at T2.

Seeing the request for a tie up on a flight above made me remember I still have 2 I would like to find out. If I remember correctly we arrived home at some awful hour of the day!! I want to say the outbound was a 757 and inbound was a 737.

Monarch Airlines 03/Aug/1987 EGGW LEPA OM588
Monarch Airlines 17/Aug/1987 LEPA EGGW OM589

Here's hoping someone may be able to help?

Thanks CJ, can't be many types that have never visited. How about the Belfast? Some Soviet types, YAK40 maybe?

Heavylift Belfasts were occasional visitors throughout the 80's and 90's, up to my last record on 3/2/02.

https://i.imgur.com/bXrhZcd.jpg
G-HLFT 12/3/86.

Only YAK-40 I know to have visited was the Polish Government SP-GEA which I recorded on several dates in Sep 1974 (no photo).

Only IL-62 was OK-OBL of CSA which I never saw, some time in the mid- late 90's. Someone sent me a photo, credit unknown:-

https://i.imgur.com/QdN9kSr.jpg?1

Only visit I have of a NAMC YS-11 is P4-GLC which night stopped on 31/5/98. Photo at Sharjah a month later on airliners.net:-
NAMC YS-11A-310(F) - Global Air Cargo | Aviation Photo #1467671 | Airliners.net

Only TU-204 I have recorded is RA-64010, as recently as 15-16/11/18.

UR-DAP visited on at least a couple of occasions, 2008-2010.

Aircraft UR-DAP (1975 Yakovlev Yak-40 C/N 9521241) Photo by GarryLakin (Photo ID: AC484603)

I should have searched my log a bit more thoroughly, forgot this one, 28/6/09 I have it from Le Bourget, out to Karlovy (Czech Republic) on 30/6/09. Didn't see it on 15/5/10.

I performed the push-back on this and then headed over to the hangar for a few pics - think it was 20/04/2005
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....80c27bc096.jpg

Not the best of pics but we were loading an engine for a Britannia B757, I think? 31/01/2002
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....95acc55fcd.jpg

Flew on this a few times on the LTN-BRU-LTN
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....14e2d41aaa.jpg
Forgot this even existed!!
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8a7f2fa447.jpg

My logbook says I operated G-BEPS EMA-LTN-VOL on the 15th May 2000. We took a replacement engine and change team for a Monarch B757 that had a birdstrike on takeoff.

When I worked in ops in the 1990's I recall we had a number of weeks of operating LHR-LTN-BRU-LHR (or something similar), in place of the regular Merchantman which had suffered fire damage during a hangar visit.

One Friday evening we got a call for a short notice car parts flight for GM, not unusual except this was empty to Melbourne (via Karachi and Singapore), then back to Luton using the B707 G-HEVY with parts from Holden. A weekend of frantic telephone calls and telexing (remember them?) for overflight permits and dropping slip crews along the route, saw the 707 on final approach to Luton on the Monday morning.......

Date and airline anyone?
https://i.imgur.com/oWdXIBq.jpg

Love these stories from what seem to be much more exciting times for aviation. Maybe that's just Luton, it's always been a place with interesting traffic. Did Heavylift have a Belfast based at LHR?

Another of when was this taken photos?

https://i.imgur.com/99OtOA1.jpg

[QUOTE=LTNman;10494194]Another of when was this taken photos?

I recorded Heavylift IL76 RA-76401 many times between 26/11/96 and 5/3/97, but the photo looks like it was taken in the summer (green leaves on trees). RA-76842 I then recorded several times 7/11/97 to 15/4/98. The only record I have of their IL76's during summer is RA-76401 on 16/9/97. None of my sightings included Belfast G-BEPS on the same day as an IL-76. So no useful answer from me - some time between 1996 and 1998.....

The Air Bridge / Hunting service BCS412 operated LTN-LHR (ferry, STD 2015 I think) then LHR-BRU, returning to LTN as the BCS411 at 0355 (BCS=Eurotrans callsign, operating for DHL). Sun-Fri inclusive from memory. So when the Belfast substituted for the Merchantman it would have day stopped LTN rather than LHR.

I would put money on this being RA-76758, as it has the Oil Spill Service Centre titles. It was the first IL76 we got.....

Cheers, cj. Excellent knowledge of all things LTN, as always :)

Well that may have helped. This was CCCP-76758 on 19/5/92, parked in the same place as the earlier photo.

https://i.imgur.com/RzSVYHE.jpg

It had gone by the next day, replaced by this:-

https://i.imgur.com/HhGP4aF.jpg
YU-AMC 20/5/92.

European Cup final Barcelona versus Sampdoria, 70+ extra flights over 3 days....:eek:

Back in the days when the airport encouraged spectators. Not sure when this was taken but the low fence is seen with a new high fence in front of it.
https://i.imgur.com/ZeGEog0.jpg