AIRPORT landing and lighting systems at Leeds-Bradford International Airport at Yeadon have been given the thumbs up.

The airport received full marks from the instruments of an aircraft which has checked out airport landing and lighting systems throughout the worldwide.

"Leeds-Bradford's systems are very good indeed," said Captain Ray Watson, of Flight Precision Ltd, as their 29-year-old BAe (HS) 748 made its final visit to the airport and concluded its long time job as guardian of systems' safety for clients' airports.

It has now been sold to Emerald Airways and could end its' days as a freighter.

Two Beech King Air aircraft will replace it on check-out duties, joining the two Cessna Conquest 44s already in use.

Custom built for use as a flight calibration aircraft by the Civic Aviation Flying Unit, and registered G-AVX1.

The 748 was later used by Flight Calibration Services and then sold to Teeside based Flight Precision.

Over the years, the 748, call sign X-Ray India, 'splattered with aerials and electronic gear,' as one crew member put it, and easily identifiable in its bold red, white and blue paint scheme, has intrigued resident around many airports as it made tight turns at fairly low altitude during its sequence of checks on approaches to runways.

What the locals could not see, of course, was the instruments packed inside the aircraft.

At the conclusion of each check on an airport, one copy of the crew's report goes to the Civil Aviation Authority Safety Regulations Group and another to the airport's operating body.

The reports added up to a detailed history of ILS (instrument landing system) and lighting systems at airports all over the world.

The 748 has travelled far and wide, running up some 16,500 hours across some 3,300,000 miles.

Her last overseas job before the final test at Leeds-Bradford International Airport involved four months' work in Lithuania.

At LBA, crew members said they got a lot of satisfaction out of their job.

That was in spite of the cramped conditions aboard the 748 and the somewhat repetitive nature of the work, which required some 800 hours' flying a year.

As a tribute to a former crew member, the late Eddie Stockton, Navaid Inspector, who was project manager for the last set of flight information systems installed in the aircraft, the 748 has carried his name on the fuselage below its cockpit windows.

The first 748s originally designed by AVRO to use Leeds-Bradford were introduced by BKS Air Transport on its LBA - London service in October 1962.

The airline ordered five of the type at a cost of £176,000 each and their introduction saw an immediate increase in passenger numbers on all routes where they were employed.

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