BAC Jet Provost T5 Hartlepool College

There are curiosities in Hartlepool that can attract your attention and this jet plane outside the Hartlepool College of Further Education is one. I don't know much about planes, so I'm going to just wing it!

I wondered why it was here, so My Perfect Cousin (The Undertones Song) sprang to mind. My dear Aunty Ivy's son, Robert Cottrell, is a great aeronautical enthusiast, and within minutes, he came back to me with information. Firstly, the college has an Aerospace Department, so it's obvious to have a jet outside. He said:

The word provost is a person in charge (generally academia) and comes from Latin.

Rob also commented that this one has the serial number XW405 and was manufactured in 1971 by British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), which took over the Hunting Aircraft company in 1960. Rob had photographed it at the 1980 Alconbury Air Show.

The jet went to RAF Cosford in 1993, where it was used for taxiing training. The term taxiing comes from over 100 years ago when pilots in Paris were trained to land and take off. One observer noted that in between doing this, the plane looked like it was moving around looking for a fare, as with the Parisian taxi drivers.

The photographs below are by kind permission of Robert Cottrell. "Piston Provost & Jet Provost from the Cottrell photo collection."

In 2007, it went to a farm in Devon, and in 2011, it was purchased and came to Hartlepool College in pieces.

There's more high-flying information from Wikipedia.

Here's me in action, pretending it was really in flight.

Whilst here, have a look at 'Marilyn', The Whirling Welded Metal Art outside the entrance to the college.