On Saturday 5th June the team met up at Durham Tees Valley to spend a day working on G-ARPO. The intention was to clean the fuselage from nose to tail and also spend time cleaning the cabin and removing more parts from the cockpit to take away and restore.

We arrived at 8.30am, and thanks to Serco who assigned a member of staff to look after us and shepherd us to the fire ground, we spent over 7 hours working on the aircraft. Thanks also to our experienced former firefighters Peter and Phil, who set up high pressure hoses to blast the fuselage and tail.

27 years of grime came clean away in most places. After this we scrubbed whatever we could reach with some industrial detergent. We couldn’t believe how good the condition of the wing surfaces were, and much of the fuselage was gleaming (even reflective!) by the end of the day.

Inside the cockpit Neil and Julian spent time removing more panels to take away for restoration, and they also temporarily fitted what Neil had restored so far to see how it looked – the answer was impressive (see the gallery below). They also managed to clear the blackout paint from the windows, letting light into the cockpit again. We also had a good sweep of the cabin, removing a lot of loose rubbish.

It was a fantastic day spent in the sun, and we were pleased to welcome Julian to help us. We can really see how great this aircraft is going to look once restored, and every step we take brings it a little closer to move day.

Please donate if you can as we still need to raise money for the move itself. As you can see from the photos, there is great potential in this aircraft but we are still short of the money needed!

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