JW411 & KPIKO3

Dont hold your breath on GBEPS getting airborne. Still an awful lot of work needed to get it airborne! Can't see it happening myself.

I recently seen G-BEPS on airliners at southend.
No engines(only covers)
No Side Door and I wasnt to sure whether it had wheels or not,but if they can find one that is on display and nick some working parts off of them and replace with replicas,who knows.

Kris

The only Belfast on display is XR371 "Enceladus" at the RAF Museum at Cosford. I sincerely hope that they do not intend to let anyone else have or even borrow any major components!

I did hear on one of my grapevines that when G-BEPS was parked by Heavylift, all useful spares were carefully removed and stored. I have subsequently heard that a couple of engineers were equally carefully putting all the bits back on again.

This would certainly be a long process and, in particular, the poor bu**er who has to put the hydraulics back together again should be payed every penny that he asks for!

G-BEPS is parked at the back of the dump at SEN an area usually leading to terminal decline and scrapping. Who owns the hull.

It's good to hear that the Belfast has re-entered service.
Who will do the mx,there can't be too many experienced guys out there?

I think the Polar guys at Prestwick will do it as they got ten months experience on it while it was at PIK.
It would certainly be nice to see it back at Prestwick.

Kris

Belfast
 

:O Hello all you believers and doubters!

Despite all the bad tidings about the Queen of the Skies future I can tell you that she is earning a respectful living at the moment flying out of Townsville, Australia.
So what went wrong H&P? It was said that if the old HCA couldn't make a living out of her no-one could......................I'm afraid you've been proved wrong (yet again).

And I must think back, 'cos the first civil registered Belfast was GBEPE, the pre-production model, which we flew out of SIN during the early 80's. She weighed about 2 tons more than any of the others.....but could always (eventually) make FL 120 out of SIN with 30tons at ISA +15

And what about that 250,000lbs TOW out of Saigon in 1980? NOT intentional but we just about managed to survive it!

Hockham Admiral

It's my understanding that the Belfast is based here in Brisbane, having arrived late on 21 Sep. She positioned to Townsville on 25 Sep to operate an Australian Defence Force charter to Honiara in the Solomon Islands on 26 Sep.

She is a most honoured guest in our city!

Cheers

Belfast
 

Fris.B
Many thanks for the info, perhaps you would let us know any more info you hear about "The Queen". She has been flying for nearly FORTY YEARS now, but when I last saw the Tech Log had obout only 26000 hours total!!!
I know the crew very well and can assure any of your Oz drivers out there that they will get a warm welcome if they want to look around the FIRST cat 3 aeroplane. And it was all analogue..........
ledex switches and relays galore!
Again many thanks, perhaps you would spread the word in your part of the world about "Freight Dogs"?

Admiral

Have posted a link on the local enthusiasts forum. If there are any significant developments I'll post them on "Freight Dogs".

Cheers

BELFAST
 

Hello from Townsville in North Queensland Australia.

a BELFAST arrived here a fortnight ago. It is being used by the ADF to resupply the regional assistance mission to the SOLOMAN ISLANDS. The BELFAST replaced an IL-76 Candid and is supported by a fleet of RAAF C-130-J's. The BELFAST is white with red and blue and has the H on the tail.

Daruman, I think thats THE Belfast, singular! The 'H' is a leftover from her previous operators 'Heavylift' in the UK.

Hockam Admiral

Have received an email that the Belfast did at least 3 flights to Hir from Tsv for the ADF but i believe it has done quite a lot more.It is there for 4 weeks then back to BNE.

Wirraway

Hockham Admiral:

I would just like to make a small historical correction to your piece on G-BEPE. The reason that she weighed so much was that she was the prototype and still had a lot of test wiring in the airframe. In fact she carried the first civilian Belfast registration with Shorts as G-ASKE.

In the pre-Heavylift days we had three Belfasts at Manston; G-BEPE (ex-XR362 "Samson"), G-BEPL (ex-XR369 "Spartacus") and G-BEPS (ex-XR368 "Theseus").

G-BEPS was the first civilian registered Belfast to fly (if we discount the "Short" time that G-BEPE/XR362 was G-ASKE during initial trials).

G-BEPL made a one-way flight to Hucknall and was swopped for (I believe) G-BFYU (XR367 "Heracles").

Heavylift also purchased G-OHCA (XR363 "Goliath") which was ferried to Southend and used for spares and G-HLFT (XR365 "Hector") which is the Australian based survivor.

Here endeth this historical lesson.

HUCKNALL
 

Thks for the history lesson, good on ya!
So what did happen to the one that made a oneway trip to RAF Hucknall??
Never seen it down there...

XR364 "Pallas", XR366 "Atlas" and XR370 "Ajax" made one-way flights from RAF Kemble to Rolls Royce at Hucknall and were immediately broken up. Rolls Royce were only interested in the engines.

The same fate met XR369/G-BEPL when she was flown from Manston to Hucknall.

The tenth aircraft, XR371 "Enceladus" was flown from Kemble to Cosford and is on display there.

And the destination for the engines.... Libya and their G222Ts!

G222's use Tynes? Must be an up-gunned version for sure!

TT

No just a bit on Anglo-Libyan sanction busting (the US would not sell the standard engines).

;) Any of you guys in Oz any recent news on the location of the Belfast?