Blackburn Buccaneer XX894 started its flying career with 16 Squadron based at RAF Laarbruch in Germany towards the latter part of 1975. After a stint with 16 Squadron, XX894 then went on to serve with 15 Squadron.
In 1980, XX894 took part in the Red Flag exercise held in the United States, sadly, during which Buccaneer 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. This accident caused a temporary grounding of the entire fleet. Once flying eventually resumed, XX894 went on to serve with 208 Squadron, 237 OCU, and 12 Squadron based at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.
XX894 wasn’t a stranger to special schemes… In 1990, the airframe acquired an overall grey colour scheme with a large green and black flash from the tail down the side of the fuselage to the nose cone on both sides. This was to mark 12 Squadron’s 75th anniversary. This became a very much ‘love or hate’ it livery.
The following year, in January 1991, XX894 was prepared for operation in the Gulf War. The aircraft received secure radios and improved IFF along with a coat of ARTF (Alkali Removable Temporary Finish), or, as it more commonly became known, desert pink. Prior to deployment, each Buccaneer involved in the operation was given a name and a tail code, XX894 was named Aberlour, with the tail code ‘O’. Unfortunately, unlike a lot of Gulf War Buccaneers, XX894 never received any nose art besides the name ‘Aberlour’ on the starboard side.
XX894’s claim to fame came on February 27th 1991, when on return from a sortie. The aircraft flew over the Iraqi airfield Shaykh Mazhar, where it attacked an Antonov AN-12, which was taxiing at the time. This resulted in the AN-12 being completely destroyed, making XX894 the only Buccaneer in the Gulf War to destroy another aircraft. Buccaneer XX901, on display at the Yorkshire Air Museum, also dropped a bomb onto an aircraft around the same time period; however, the bomb failed to detonate when it hit the target aircraft.
Sadly, XX894 didn’t quite get the full credit it deserved for the bombing. After landing, Buccaneer XX885 (also on the same sortie) taxied into XX894’s parking slot, resulting in XX885 receiving the AN-12 symbol on its nose instead of XX894, which XX885 still carries today.
XX894 kept all of the hard-earned mission symbols, as well as the ARFT colours up until 1992, and by the end of 1993, was moved back to 208 Squadron.
Moving forward to February 1994, the Buccaneers’ retirement was just weeks away. In order to celebrate the Blackburn Buccaneers’ impressive capabilities and service it brought to both the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the RAF decided to celebrate the occasion by painting several airframes into different Squadron colours, including 16 Sqn, 15 Sqn, 12 Sqn, etc. XX894 was the airframe chosen to represent the Royal Navy within the line-up – being painted up in the Fleet Air Arm colours of Buccaneer XV869 ‘020’. Over the course of retirement and preservation, this made the airframe rather well known – and often still mistaken today as an original Royal Navy jet.
XX894 made its final flight on the 7th April 1994 into St Athan for disposal alongside several other airframes, most of which are still around today in some form or another.
In 1995, Gary Spoors transported Buccaneers XX894 and XX900 (XX900 was purchased by David Walton) by road from St Athan to Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground in Leicestershire. Later that same year, Gary moved XX894 by road again, this time to the former airfield of RAF Kemble in the Cotswolds. The aircraft was generally cared for at Kemble, but ultimately ended up donating some parts to Buccaneer XW986 (ZU-NIP) which in 2002 flew to Thunder City in Cape Town, South Africa, making it the last ever Buccaneer flight in the UK.
During XX894’s stay at Kemble, the aircraft was briefly looked after by several volunteers, known as the Buccaneers Supporters Club, and was frequently seen on static display at the very popular Kemble airshows.
Later in 2002, XX894 was road moved once again, this time to Farnborough for display at the airshow, and later storage. The airframe was also looked after rather well by a small number of people, but before too long, the aircraft was put up for sale, and was on the move again.
In 2003, Guy Hulme brought the airframe to display in his garden as a memorial to his father, who flew as an observer and sadly lost his life in a Buccaneer. After some gentle persuasion that XX894 could become semi-operational once again, Guy transported the airframe by road back to Bruntingthorpe, where full restoration to fast taxing condition could begin…
Guy’s team made steady progress with the restoration, and by July 2007, XX894 made its first slow taxi in over a decade.
Around this time, the two individual teams working on XX894 and XW544 started to join forces – this collaboration eventually went on to become The Buccaneer Aviation Group as it is known today.
In March 2011, Guy put XX894 up for sale, and it was sold back to its original owner, Gary Spoors. A few months later, in October 2011, XX894 was sold again to Colin Robinson, who placed the aircraft on loan to TBAG, and so the restoration and preservation continued.
By 2013, XX894’s external paintwork had begun to look quite tired, and so a full repaint was carried out during the winter period. After the repaint, a roll-out event was held in early 2014, celebrating the restoration efforts with the project.
In 2020, Bruntingthorpe’s days of seeing vintage Cold War jets taxi along the 2-mile-long runway sadly came to an end. After much discussion and a kind invitation, The Buccaneer Aviation Group elected to move both XX894 and XW544 to Cotswold Airport (former RAF Kemble) as this prospering location would allow both aircraft to continue living and breathing.
After an amazing 17-year journey at Bruntingthorpe, on 20th August 2020, XX894 left the aerodrome for Cotswold Airport with XW544 leading the convoy. The following day, both XX894 and XW544 touched down (by low loaders) at Cotswold Airport to start their next chapter of preservation.
Maintenance work began straight away after the move, with many jobs to sort after several months being untouched due to COVID-19. XX894 got back to running condition fairly quickly, performing many static engine runs. However, it wouldn’t be until 2025 when it performed its first public taxi since 2019 due to a few minor issues preventing it from taxiing, but the team is pleased to say these have now been fixed!
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