I was very grateful for the offer as, when researching printers, SK came out in my wish list.

You can easily set up and print task with them through their website, and their prices are great. Have a look at their website here http://www.skprintdesign.com/

Make sure you mention us if you place an order with them. They’d be happy to help you out, and offer a fast, professional service.

These pallets will become useful when we cut the wings off the airframe, and when the nosewheel is raised ready for transporting the aircraft.

Evergreen are a local company, based on a 3.5 acre site in Darlington. They are experts in the manufacture, repair, refurbishment and recovery of pallets and other wooden packaging items.

You can visit their website here http://www.evergreen-pallets.co.uk/

Neil was quizzed on how the move is possible, what it entails, and why we’re doing it. If you missed it, you can listen again on this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_newcastle?sort=dateavailable

Thanks to BBC Newcastle for featuring our project!

Flavells are based in Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, just a few miles from Durham Tees Valley Airport. They have agreed to sponsor us the welding work required when putting our aircraft back together at the museum in Sunderland.

We couldn’t ask for a better partner in this. Flavells are a family business and have been experts in the welding field since 1958. They offer first class welding, fabrication and machining service to local industry and have expanded to become one of the region’s finest contractors in their field. They have great prices and work efficiently to deadlines, meeting ISO9002 requirements.

You can see the K D Flavell website at http://www.flavellwelding.co.uk/

We now have taken out the airside insurance that we need in order to meet the requirements for us to cut the our aircraft ready for transportation.

A lot of work to clear the rear service area needs to be done, and we will begin this shortly in order to access the rear to cut the tail.

The insurance policy we have taken is with Hayward Aviation company who specialise in airside insurance and airport related cover. They have kindly sponsered us with some of the premium. We thank them very much for their kind help towards this project.

If you require very competitive insurance for airside and museums speak to Hayward first and mention us. Ask for Claire http://www.haywards.net/Home/

She had been laid up at London Heathrow in the BA maintenance area for a while, with her stablemates all being scrapped or sent to fire grounds around the country. Finally, the call came to send her up to Teesside Airport (as Durham Tees Valley was then known) on a cold December day in 1983. On the flight deck that day was Dick Boas  as Captain, Colin Rule as Engineer and a young First Officer named Chris Barnes. He was an aircraft enthusiast as well as a Trident pilot and had to ‘bid’ for the chance to be part of the crew for this historic flight.

As luck would have it, Chris documented the day in a series of photographs showing G-ARPO at Heathrow, flying up over the wintry countryside, then making its approach and landing at Teesside. On the ground there, he was marshalled into place by our own Peter Foster, who is today part of the Save The Trident team.

As if this stroke of luck wasn’t enough (we could never have dreamed of a better display of photographs of our aircraft than those covering its last flight), Chris also happened to have a number of items of cockpit instrumentation from G-ARPO. He has sent these to us to put back in their original place!

A big thanks go out to Chris Barnes for this kind gesture and for showing us his photographs of the day. You can be sure they’ll form part of the display when G-ARPO is restored at the museum. In the meantime, have a look below:

[View with PicLens]

Cosford was formerly the home of the only preserved Trident 1C, G-ARPH. The nose of this aircraft is now at the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune.

The stairs are in need of a little restoration, but that is no problem to our team. We’ll have this authentic addition to our display ready for the first visitors.

Staff at Cosford are also looking for any spare cockpit equipment which may still be in their care, and if found will be donated to us. We really want to say a big thank you for these kind offers.

If anyone can help with transportation for these steps from Cosford (near Wolverhampton) to Sunderland, we’d really appreciate it. Please get in touch!

Thanks very much to Max Kingsley-Jones for this, and Flight magazine.

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!

[View with PicLens]

These will be used underneath the wings to support the airframe as parts are removed.

TNT have a major depot in one of the hangars at Durham Tees Valley Airport, so it’s great to have a local team helping us out. They also have an office in Darlington and many more around the country. They’re experts at parcel delivery and logistics, with an air and road network.

This kind offer has been made jointly between the Darlington and Durham Tees Valley branches of TNT will deliver the pallets to the fire ground when we need them, and remove them when we’re finished. Thanks to them for making life so simple! Visit their website at http://www.tnt.com