First Tristar arrives at Bruntingthorpe

Wednesday 12 March 2014, was the day for the delivery of the first of the Tristars to be delivered to Bruntingthorpe. Ray Ball was there to witness the arrivals and he takes up the story:

"I had a day of mixed fortunes, I rang up and got a disgruntled gatehouseman who didn't have time for calls, but he did tell me 11:00, but it as foggy over here. I went over for 11 and they did let me in, but I was confined to the museum aircraft pans. Over there I did meet up with some people I knew and also met with Geoffrey Pool. The plan was that three Tristars would fly in at 11am, 1pm and 3pm. Apparently the RAF only had one Tristar crew and a DH-125 would fly with the Tristar and take the crew back to Brize to do the next flight.

However, the fog upset the plans. Things seem to be on and off throughout the day and we were finally informed that they were good to go at 3:30pm. The first Tristar (ZE705) arrived at 4:20pm closely followed by the DH-125. In view of the time, it was thought that there would only be ebough dayight for one more flight in. We were then informed that the secon Tristar had gone u/s at Brize and the flights were postponed to another day. Altogether six Tristars will be going to going to Bruntingthorpe."

Both pictures, taken by Ray, depict ZE705 in her final approach to Bruntingthorpe's lengthy runway.

21 March 2014
Theo Claassen