Jet Provost Comments and Corrections

Stig,
Thanks for the reply. You raise some valid points, which I will comment on below.

G-AOHD: Your suspicions are fully justified. The accident was to G-AOUS (not ’OHD).

XN460: The version of events described is still impossible to believe. XN460 was abandoned in an uncontrollable spin, crashed and caught fire on 1 February 1961. We are asked to believe that the burnt wreckage was then carefully collected and stored by the RAF for 32 years (in a secret location, after the aircraft record card — which I have seen — was falsified with “SoC 3.2.61”), until someone decided to buy it and laboriously reconstruct it, at a time when complete, flyable, surplus JPs could be bought off-the-shelf.
We are also told that it was converted to a T.3A but, if so, that was also at a secret location, because it is not on the complete list of 177 JPs that passed through Warton between 14.6.73 and 6.8.76. for T.3A or T.5A upgrades. It was never reported in service as a T.3A and, indeed there is only one sighting (in storage at Binbrook) of the aircraft between 1961 and 2019.
My guess would be that this is XN470 mis-identified.

XN600 and XN601: I am sure it is significant that the book states BOTH aircraft were destroyed on the same day (17.10.62.) — a fact which must be highly improbable, especially as one incident was loss of control immediately after take-off (and, thus, a mid-air collision is ruled out).
For XN600, I read the history card as stating 6 FTS on 21.11.61. However, my personal (‘spotter’s’) aircraft history notes DO say 3 FTS on the same date, code ‘16’. Considering the delivery date and the codes of nearby aircraft, 3 FTS seems more probable — but the official record is, well.... official. This question still needs to be resolved.
Spotters’ wisdom in the 1960s was that XN600 crashed on 17 October 1962 at an unknown location and was dumped at Dishforth; and XN601 crashed at Ouston (6 FTS’s auxiliary landing ground) on 16 October. The record card for XN600 does not support this, but the aircraft began its long association with MUs at about the same time as XN601 crashed, so it might be that enthusiasts wrongly linked its disappearance to the accident.
Note that while at Dishforth, 60 MU was responsible for collecting any crashed aircraft in the North of England. There was a scrap dump on an accessible part of the aerodrome which was a ‘happy hunting ground’ for spotters. This recovery & salvage duty was discontinued on the MU’s transfer to Leconfield in 1966 (in fact the salvage section remained at Dishforth as a detachment until 1970).
My contention is that the report of XN600’s crash is a misreading of XN601. The card for XN601 shows SoC 19.10.62.; that for XN600 shows activity (mostly at MUs) until SoC 28.5.76.
BTW, the 1961 BoB Day display mentioned for XN600 seems to have been a static event on Horseguards Parade, London.

Hello Stig.

See : www.192.com/atoz/business/ulceby-dn39/aircraft---services-for/global-aviation/02187e732539fefeac8a0df24669c9f0e6bf3e6a/ml/

When you Google them it seems they had quite a few Jet Provosts at Binbrook in the 1990s

Regards

John Taylor