“It was quite funny because we heard that he’d bought a model – didn’t even bother checking,” he said, adding it had been used in the Blackpool illuminations display.
Thunderbird 3 was the primary spacecraft of the show’s international rescue, piloted by Alan and John Tracy.
Mr Bellamy, from Epworth, said staff had gone to pick it up in a Land Rover and “a chap came out and went ‘alright, well, where’s your lorry?’.
“And they went ‘well we haven’t got a lorry, it’s only a model isn’t it?’
“They turned round and went back to Humberside Airport, organised the lorry and I had the fantastic job alongside the airlines carpenter joiner to repair it.”