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Handley Page Victor - Survivor XL191

K.2 XL191 - Walter Soplata, Newbury, Ohio, USA

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Victor K.2 XL191 at Newbury, 1987; Rodney Williams

This is the stripped-out cockpit section of a Victor K.2, XL191, late of 55 Sqn. Built as a B.2 and later converted to a K.2, it had only recently lost its green/grey camouflage for an overall hemp tanker scheme when it crash-landed short of the runway at Mt.Hope (Hamilton), Ontario, on arrival in wretched weather for the Hamilton airshow in June 1986. Most of the airframe was scrapped after spares removal, but the shell of the nose and two ejection seats were left with the Canadian Warplane Heritage for possible display. In those days CWH didn't collect things as modern as the Victor, so they offered the nose for sale; it looked likely to be scrapped but was instead bought by Walter Soplata and hauled back to Ohio in Spring 1987.

After being hidden away for decades, XL190 re-emerged in early 2020, sadly to be cut up for keyrings and now has hundreds of cuts in the skin. It's uncertain what the future now holds for this cockpit but it doesn't look good...

Information on this page current as of 07/08/2021, last updated by Jake

Find other photos of XL191 on the following sites:

Air-Britain - Airliners.net - Airplane-Pictures.net - flickr.com - WorldAirPics.com - JetPhotos.net - PlanePictures.net