Revisiting Doncaster Sheffield Airport

End of life , uninsurable

Oh well. Not a lot can be done. Just a shame

How they going to get it out without cutting its wings off? CAA won’t let that even do a short one off hop to a new permanent home with it’s wheels down so…

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The airframe has surpassed its flying life and more.
The original plan was to build an aircraft museum at the airport but the funding target wasn’t reached.

The only way it’s leaving is in bits on a trailer.
Very expensive and it will never be the same again.
Luckily it’s got a stay of execution until the airport fiasco plays out

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Great picture and interesting to know.

I’ve got a few pictures similar to that but slightly lower down of course

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It’s way over any other aircraft of its type that was in service. Yes we know the wings won’t drop off and it will probably get there with two engines on idle but you know the CAA are like.

Yes it was fun while it lasted but nothing lasts forever :worried:

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Agreed. I live a 5 min walk from the airport and frequently saw the crew working on her and ensuring she was in great order.

But the risk I guess is too great and more importantly there is no financial gain for any big business, just a charity and the public so it’s unsurprising that it was going to come to an end.

I’ll dig out the footage I have somewhere as we were lucky and got to see her fly most weekends when active.

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I watched grown men look to the sky and weep when she used to do her turn at airshows and howl for their entertainment.

I was one of them. I have no shame in saying that.

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Nothing better than that Howl.

Used to love hearing them engines start to idle on a weekend, knowing that soon enough we would be treated to a display.

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I was too young to appreciate them up close and personal, Tornado had replaced them. They don’t scream as much.

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Got to agree, living local and hearing the howl was great.
My mate was a firefighter at the airport and used to give me the heads up when anything other than the normal pax aircraft was due to arrive or leave.
I saw the 1st flight of XH558 after the initial refurb and her last ever landing.
That was good but when the Antinov AN-225 came in that was something else !

Such a shame that neither will ever fly again :cry:

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I’m that close I could hear the engines on the Vulcan as they start up.

I’d often use flight radar 24 to see expected arrivals and another site that I cannot recall the name of.

Seeing antanov arrive and depart was awesome and how surprisingly quiet it was compared to the Vulcan too.

My brother in law worked security at the airport and eventually joined the fire team so equally we had some inside info.

We saw every flight pretty much of XH558 too.
It’s got a special place in this village as you can probably imagine

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FR24 & FREEDAR are both good apps, there was also the DSAF forum which was helpful

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I never joined that due to the odd linking of accounts to Facebook thing.

I don’t have Facebook and have no plans in opening an account just to get on a forum

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I wasn’t aware you had to link to facebook, i thought you could just sign up using an email address

it might be something new or another forum?!

But having looked this morning it requires a facebook account for verification purposes.

Looks like they may have changed it, im currently logged out and forgot my login details :sweat_smile:

Yeah, I wouldn’t have minded joining tbh but as I came off Faceache years ago its a no from me.

Thefe may yet be a second AN-225. Antonov have a second airframe which was never completed

Apparently they have 30% of the components needed to make it fly

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that would be great