The move of Trident G-ARPO up to the North East Aircraft Museum at Sunderland went like a dream. Over two days, we were helped by lots of great people and companies, including (in no particular order): MSD Cranes, JDPL, Serco for their co-operation, Give Svaergods and JParr (Mboro). Also a big thanks to Northumbria Police [...]

As we approach move date at the speed of a Trident in cruise (fastest subsonic airliner in its day, don’t you know!), we’ve been landed with a big insurance bill to top us up to the required amount for the move. This amounts to an extra £2000 in costs, which we just don’t have lying [...]

We can now announce the date we will move Trident 1C G-ARPO up to the North East Aircraft Museum at Sunderland. The date set by our transport permit is Sunday 31st July. We will begin on Saturday 30th by moving the aircraft from Serco’s fire training ground at Teesside and lifting it over the various [...]

Two more days of work on G-ARPO at Durham Tees Valley and the last stage of dismantling the aircraft is now complete! Over Thursday and Friday we worked on removing the wings from the aircraft so that she can be transported by road to the North East Aircraft Museum at Sunderland. We had worked out [...]

The final stage of dismantling the Trident was started today when the team met. First of all, the remaining #3 engine side pod was removed, leaving the rear of the aircraft clear for the move. Then, after marking up the lines to cut along the wings, Stan (from MSD) and Neil began pre-cutting. They also [...]

As we move forward towards the final stages of dismantling Trident 1C G-ARPO ready to move to Sunderland, our costs have increased as we have to find £300 extra for costs of scaffolding. Can you help? Everyone who donates to our project – even if it’s only a few pounds – is helping to preserve [...]

We had another productive day on the Trident on 3rd February 2011. Members of the team, along with hired contractors from MSD Cranes, SAS Access and Henderson Engineering met at Teesside on what was a bright but windy and cold day ready to make some more progress. The main focus of the day was to [...]

We reconvened at Teesside yesterday for our first visit to the Trident of 2011, determined to make progress on the horizontal stabiliser which had delayed us so much. In tow we had MSD Cranes along with their cutter, Stan, SAS Access with their cherry picker and operator, and Henderson Engineering ready to cut the bolts. [...]

In case you didn’t know, our Trident – G-ARPO – was the last Trident 1C ever to fly. Makes her a fitting one to restore don’t you think? 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 [...]

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 [...]