As a tribute to the late American entrepreneur and aviation enthusiast Steve Appleton, I thought I would post a series of images he sent me for publication purposes. Not only do they depict his brightly painted T.7 XL617 in display configuration, complete with underwing smoke generators, but also the beautiful all-black two-seat Hunter that he replaced it with. Built as F.4 WV386 for the RAF in 1955 and subsequently rebuilt to T.75A standards, it was delivered to the Singaporean air force as 532 in 1972. After retirement in 1994, it was purchased by Steve and shipped to the USA in readiness for a most ambitious project: to rebuild it completely, to install a glass cockpit and replace the Avon-207 with an 11,250 lbs thrust Avon 208 engine from a Sea Vixen. The result, a stunningly attractive aircraft with sufficient power to take it through Mach 0.98 in a climb. When asked if it could break the sound barrier while climbing or indeed, on the level, Steves reply was to the effect that that was not the intention but rather he wanted something special for the display circuit. I think you will agree, he succeeded in spades! Former RAF engineer Allan Phillips was instrumental in putting it all together and would, I am sure, be delighted to answer any queries you may have on the rebuild. It would also be nice to know where she is now.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:46:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015