The lost Greater Manchester restaurant plane that served cocktails from its cockpit

There was a time when hungry diners seeking somewhere a little different to eat out in Manchester could book a table in a plane that had been reinvented as a restaurant and cocktail lounge.

Back in the 1970s, customers would venture to Pomona Docks to board a 21 year old plane - known as the Comet - to enjoy a delicious meal or have a drink in its 'cockpit' cocktail lounge. The brainchild of Liverpool businessmen George 'Jud' Evans and Colin Peers of Compass Catering, the Comet was built by De Havilland Aircraft Company Limited at Hatfield and first flew in 1953.

After being struck off charge in 1974, the former RAF plane was acquired by Compass Catering and flown to Manchester by a crew of six from the Wyton air base in Cambridgeshire. The plane cost £10,000 and had its wings, tail and fin removed for a 12-mile road journey to Salford.

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This wasn't the first unusual business venture for George and Colin, who already had two nightclubs under their belt, including a floating nightclub in Liverpool by the name of the Clubship Landfall, moored comfortably in Salthouse Dock.

That was followed by North Westward Ho! - a floating nightclub in the early 1970s, bobbing gently on the still waters of Salford's Pomona Docks. The North Westward Ho was so popular that the owners soon acquired the De Havilland Comet, parking the RAF aircraft adjacent to the ship as an added attraction for their patrons.

Sven Evans, the eldest of George Evans' children, has memories of the Comet as a young boy. Sven, 60, told the MEN: "They wanted to