Man transforms jet engine into a unique four-bed holiday home

There are plenty of unique caravans and pods around the world, but have you ever seen one built inside a decommissioned jet’s engine? This is your chance to take a look inside one.

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The VC10 caravan pod was built from scratch by Steve Jones, a resident of Lancashire and ex-RAF aircraft engineer. He told Lonely Planet that he had worked with this kind of aircraft for a while and loved it before leaving the RAF some twenty years ago. “Jump forward 13 years after leaving I had the opportunity to join a small team of engineers looking after decommissioned VC10s for an aviation museum in Leicester,” he continued, describing this moment as the one that sparked his interested in turning one of the aircraft’s nacelles into a caravan pod.

A picture of the nacelles being loaded up read to be carried to Steve's home — It's not the first time Steve Jones takes up a project of this kind, but he said this was by far the most difficult he has ever worked on © Steven Jones

So when the chance came up to buy a pair of VC10 nacelles he immediately jumped on it and started working on turning one of them into a pod comfortable enough to live and travel in. “My first major task was to split the nacelle into two so I could use the outboard unit for my pod,” he told Lonely Planet. After that came the gutting it out of wires and gears completely, putting plywood in, and then making it habitable by adding furniture and appliances. In total, Steve ended up putting in around 1000 hours of work into the pod – and completed his project between January and March 2020.

A picture of the living room of the pod with the benches that can convert into beds — The pod's living room turns into a double bed and two berths, allowing for four people to sleep inside © Steven Jones

The result is a 13 feet-long pod with two doors to get in and out, a kitchenette, a skylight to enjoy the view and a living area that converts into four berths so that Steve and his family can all lay down for a night’s sleep. Steve said that he hasn’t had the chance to take out his pod for a holiday yet because of the pandemic but he and his family “are hoping to start using it middle of next year”.