Members of the Save The Trident team visited Belfast International on Thursday 20 May to strip useful parts from Trident 2E G-AVFE, which is owned by the airport fire service there.

Tony Jarrett and Neil Lomax took a van, kindly supplied half-price by Intack, across to Belfast on a donated ferry crossing with Stena Line from Stranraer. They stayed the night courtesy of Gil Good Lodge near the airport, who treated them both very well and provided a very pleasant night’s sleep.

Peter Foster and Matt Falcus flew across to meet them on Thursday 20th, and the team were met by Wayne Spence of the fire service and given airside access to the Trident.

All day was spent stripping parts such as overhead panels, PSU’s, rows of good seats, and just about everything we could take from the cockpit. We managed to take the ‘rams horn’ control columns, although they required cutting.

As with our visit in Februrary, the guys at the fire service were incredibly helpful and friendly, taking turns to supervise us and provide us with drinks and friendly banter. We really appreciate their help!

Matt and Peter flew home that night, whilst Neil and Tony took the van back across on the Stena Line ferry, with a complimentary night in the Swan Inn at Stranraer.

The next day they drove to the North East Aircraft Museum at Sunderland to offload the parts into a special container which has been provided. The rest of the day was spent meeting with the hauliers and crane company making plans for the move of G-ARPO later this year. We concluded the trip with drinks and a complimentary night’s stay at the St. George Hotel at Durham Tees Valley Airport.

All in all this was a fantastic trip and very useful. We can’t thank all of those who sponsored us enough for making it possible. Also to all those who donated money to use for fuel costs. We now have some fantastic parts to use on our aircraft when it comes to putting her back together.

Here are some photos from the trip:

[View with PicLens]

Tony adds:

Well we all got back safe and sound from Belfast after stripping off the parts from G-AVFE Trident 2E, and what a fantastic time we all had. Firstly I would like to say a big Thank You to all our sponsors on this trip and to all the people who chipped in for the fuel to get us there and back. We brought back a whole Luton Van full of parts including the nosewheel, and achieved what we set out to do. There wasn’t anything else to take inside the aircraft! We also managed to get the rear service door that we required, and the fire service have promised to get the rudder and wing tips off for us as we were not able to do it on this trip. The total cost that came out of the fund was: £125.90 for half price van hire, and we spent £134.55 on fuel and an excess van insurance policy of £11.17 that reduced our excess on the van from £500 to £100 ……… so in total £270.72 spent …..

Sponsorships for the trip were Stena Line for ferry crossings, Gil-GoodL odge , Swan Hotel and the St. George Hotel, as well as Intack with the van. Also Spacewise for a container for a year at Sunderland.

The fire service have said they will remove the wing tips and rudder for us and we can collect some time later.
Early june G-ARPO is going to be cleaned on the outside in readiness for cutting. We met up with the hauliers and crane company and have finalised all details at Teesside. So more will be hapening soon.

What we need now is to raise the money for the airside insurance we now need to have for Neil to cut the Trident, and also the cost of hiring cutting tools. We do have half price hire from HSS for this but will need the tools for at least 6 days. We estimate the cost to be around £1000 for the insurance and tools so to move forward we need your generous help.
Regards Tony

Gil-Good Lodge put Neil and Tony up in Belfast

Intack Self Drive

The Swan Inn Stranraer