TWO former RAF servicemen have been reunited after half a century by a part from one of their old aircraft.

Ray Landers and Brian Merifield were among former members of 66 Squadron who returned to RAF Linton-on-Ouse, near York, to see a cockpit canopy from a 1950s Sabre jet return to base.

After the aircraft crashed near Helmsley in 1954 the canopy lay undiscovered for five years until a Lincolnshire aviation group gave it a home. Despite its age, the frame is in good condition with shards of perspex remaining on the edges. The rest disintegrated when the pilot ejected.

More recently, the canopy lay forgotten in a barn near Burton-on-Trent until the Derbyshire Aviation Society rescued it for display at Linton-on-Ouse.

Mr Landers, from Selby, North Yorkshire, was an aircraft mechanic at Linton and remembered working on the Sabre days before it went down.

He said: "The biggest problem was the front fire warning light and that caused its pilot to eject. If the light came on, there was no messing about. Pilots didn't try to work out if it was spurious. They immediately baled out.

"The light signified a possible fire near the ammunition bay and the last thing you wanted was bullets whistling around the cockpit.''

The pilot who ejected was Flying Officer Glyn Owen. He survived the crash, but later died ejecting from a Lightning fighter.

The presentation reunited Mr Landers with Mr Merifield, from Chesterfield, a former 66 Squadron pilot, for the first time since 1955.

Memorial room curator Alan Mawby said: "We have a lot of Second World War artefacts and pictures, but this is the first tangible object to go in display, giving a first-hand connection with the station's fighter era during the 1950s.''