Airplane Enthusiast Buys '60s Jet Off eBay, Refurbishes it in His Spare Time

As Paul Greig tells the Daily Mail (video at the bottom of the page), he didn’t believe his kids when they told him you could buy literally anything off eBay. So he took them up on that bet and looked for a plane.

To his shock, he found it – and he liked it so much that he and his friends scrambled to come up with £1,000 to place a bid on it. It turned out this was the only bid, even if it came 2 minutes before the sale closed. They had bought a plane.

Greig says he’s always dreamed of owning a plane, and even if he can’t fly the one in his garden, he takes pride in knowing he personally refurbished it. He had help from the friends he bought it with, and he considers the project the one closest to his heart.

Greig’s plane now serves as back garden “furniture,” but it’s actually a functional1966 retired Jet Provost T Mark Three. Built in Luton and used as an RAF jet trainer, this model was in service between 1960 and 1973.

The seller had salvaged it from a history museum but was looking to get rid of it and other war machines he had lying around in a field because he was downsizing after his wife’s death. That’s why he sold it so cheap.

Greig and his pals worked on the plane at weekends, after they agreed to put it in his backyard since it was the biggest. They didn’t have actual knowledge of how airplanes worked, but they had the passion so they invested time in research as well.

The most difficult part of the restoration was finding pieces that are no longer manufactured. However, the reward makes all that worth it.

“The best part of the day is watching people come in and gasp, saying is it real? Can it fly? How did you land it here?” Greig says. “We get customers coming all the way from Holland to see it - they're amazed it's just sat in the back of the beer garden.”