XW550 was delivered to 15 Squadron RAF Laarbruch in 1973 and later moved on to 16 Squadron.
In the 1980s, the fleet was temporarily grounded after XV345 broke apart and crashed during a low-level sortie. The cause was subsequently traced to a crack in the wing spar, resulting in structural failure. After this, the entire fleet was inspected. On inspection of XW550, it was found to have the largest wing spar crack, and so was grounded with immediate effect.
The aircraft made its way St Athan for spares recovery to help keep the remaining fleet in the air. After spares recovery, XW550 was eventually scrapped at St Athan, with the cockpit saved by Ricky Kelley.
Ricky brought the cockpit along with many instruments and stored it undercover at his home with a plan to restore it in the near future. However, this never came to be, and XW550 was put up for sale in 2016.
Shortly after hearing XW550 was for sale, Francis Wallace (now Chairman) was keen to purchase the cockpit and relocate it to his garden as a side restoration project. However, this unfortunately couldn’t happen at such a time, and so Francis purchased the cockpit with The Buccaneer Aviation Group, purchasing any spares. The cockpit was moved to Bruntingthorpe in late 2016.
The cockpit was stored at Bruntingthorpe in one of the temporary hangars until the winter of 2017/18 when the restoration project finally began to take off! It was agreed with Francis and TBAG that XW550 would be used as a traveling exhibit that could be towed to numerous events around the country to promote the groups activites.
To start with, most of the cockpit floor panels were removed in order to free up the rudder pedals and flight control linkages.
During the latter stage of 2017, a trailer was acquired for the cockpit. The trailer underwent some TLC and extra strengthening to take the weight of the cockpit. However, in order to get the weight down, the cockpit was tipped on its side so all the side and bottom accessory bays could be emptied. Everything was removed sympathetically and placed into TBAG’s collection of spares for XX894 and XW544. Whilst tipped over, the team took the opportunity to give the underside a fresh coat of grey paint.
TBAG’s first event of 2018 was fast approaching, celebrating 60 years since the type’s first flight! This saw XW550 temporarily lifted and strapped to its trailer so it could be seen by the public for the first time in nearly 25 years! The cockpit was kept company at the event by the nose of XZ431.
After the event, XW550 was removed from the trailer so more work could be carried out. By November 2018, XW550 was finally mounted on the trailer! Now that it was on the trailer, it was time to finally begin populating all the empty instrument holes in the cockpit.
In April 2019, TBAG held an event celebrating 25 years since the type’s retirement, and so all hands were on deck to push XW550 through the repaint, ready for the event. Thankfully, the cockpit was fully finished just before the event, and looked superb as a result.
The following year saw XW550 attend several events on the road, including Cockpit-Fest held at the Newark Air Museum, where it was awarded the ‘Spirit of Cockpit-Fest’.
During 2020, Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground had a change of hands, which saw the aircraft being evicted. Happily, The Buccaneer Aviation Group was invited to Cotswold Airport, where the team spent the next several months moving XX894 and XW544 to Kemble over the summer of 2020. Whilst this was happening, XW550 was moved to Bridgnorth for storage.
By late 2021, when the team had a year of settling into Cotswold Airport, it was decided to pull XW550 from storage and be reunited with XX894 and XW544.
Since being at Cotswold Airport, the cockpit has attended numerous events such as the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, but during the summer months, it can often be seen on display at the airport’s AV8 Cafe.
At the end of 2025, Francis purchased XW550’s trailer from TBAG, with his son, Jake, buying a share of the cockpit. Francis and Jake later decided to give the cockpit a bit of an external makeover as it had started showing its age, and is currently in the stage of a repaint.
