Our One Eleven arrived with us in April 2013 after being kindly made available to us by Qinetiq.  When it touched down on April 26 we saw the end of an era.  G-BGKE was the last One Eleven to fly in the UK, and it's possible that this was her last flight.

The aircraft is potentially flyable, so our first task is to stabilise her condition and ensure that she doesn't deteriorate while we work to raise the funds necessary to return her to the skies.

Given the modern lines of the One Eleven it's hard to believe that the type sees its 50th birthday in 2013.  Kilo Echo is somewhat younger, being a late-build model that was delivered to British Airways in 1980.  She flew with them for eleven years before being sold to Marconi Avionics as an electronics test-bed.  She was repainted in the livery of the Defence Research Agency amd moved to Farnborough in February 1994, adopting the military registration ZH763.

On 15th July she moved again, this time to Boscombe Down, where she became a flying laboratory for testing radar equipment.  She was extensively modified inside, with multi-purpose, re-configurable racking.  Large radomes were added externally to house scanners for enhanced radar systems and her streamlined fuselage sprouted a stubble of aerials and antennae.

Kilo Echo, alias ZH763, continued in daily use with Qinetiq until 2013, by which time she was the last One Eleven still flying in the UK.  She was donated to The Classic Aircraft Trust in April when Qinetiq generously allowed us to buy her for the vast sum of one pound!  

She's now proudly occupying a substantial area of our hangar apron and we have great plans for her as a climb-inside exhibit to recall the dawn of the package holiday.