Excellent.
Whens the next local display....localish to me.
Got me going now.

 

 

EE Lightning. Find £10k+ and you can fly in one at Cape Town.

Wish they could get the Lanc at East Kirkby air worthy, as I'd love to see a pair fly together.

Concorde as a civy, I saw AC sat on a taxiway at Manchester just before Crimbo... sad it was. For the oldest aircraft in view, it sure as damn it looks the newest. Shame they'll never fly again.

Even though progress has been made on lottery funds for XH558, I still can't see it getting in the air again

 

Leslie -- I saw the last flying Vulcan do a display at North Weald in about 1989 I guess. Fantastic noise -- maybe it was you flying it! Red Arrows were there too.

 

'ck me that's a big chopper

I'm not sure if we had one of them over here, North Yorks, the other week...there was a big monster and it was dam noisy

 

I saw the last public display flight of the Vulcan at Woodford, my mate worked there for almost 20 years. Love that aircraft. The lightning was an awesome piece of kit too, built as a missile interceptor before ground to air missiles were invented, unbelievable thrust in that thing. The last of those i saw was as a decoy aircraft at RAF Bruggen in Germany.

One of the most impresive sights i have seen is the Sukhoi 27 being flown in a display, just incredible what that thing can do.



Leslie, i hate you.

 

Bugga, I've been to Mildenhall a few times...laughing at dumb yanks, can't fault it

Waddington is quite a good one, will probably look at going there again

 

Anyone going to the London Airshow in April?

 

When I was 8 (or thereabouts) my best mate at schools Dad was OC RAF Waddington just as they were starting to decommision the Vulcan. I spent a half-term there with him and we got the full guided tour of the base. Sat in on a Vulcan flight briefing, crawled all over and inside the aircraft, flew the vulcan simulator (1 room of valves, 1 room with HUGE scale map models that a camera was moved around on - no computer generated view )then Went to the Control tower to watch the Vulcan take-off.

Then it went round and did a touch and go just for us, with a full throttle climb away. We were in the control tower - with ear defenders - and it still hurt

Quite amazing experience as an 8 year old

Deano

[Edited by dsmith - 1/15/2004 5:42:42 PM]

 

Ah, a spotters 'n' jotters thread

So, all time fav. has to be the Vulcan, closely followed by the Lightning. I've got a special place in my heart for the F4 Phantom, mainly as I worked with them for several years (pictures below). But another fav. is the humble C130. Spent many an hour bimbling about in the back of one of those, ah, those were the days....

Now I do more work with rotary wing aircraft. I'm currently "involved" in a lot of work with the Apache (D variant).

Cheers

Ian


Old School














New Toys







[Edited by IWatkins - 1/15/2004 9:44:15 PM]

 

Vulcan
Lightning
spitfire/Hurricane
Get my vote

I must admit the memory of seeing and hearing vulcans fly at low level will always stay with me till the day I die. Awesome.

Steve
(the Battle of Britain Nut)

 

How anyone can think the Phantom looks nice is beyond me. The first plane to challenge the adage "If it looks right, it'll fly right".

Saw one at Duxford parked next to a Hunter (which does look right). The Phantom was huuugge

 

Phantom was a proper airplane. Yes, it was huge, yes, it was butt ugly, but it could shift. Back seat jolly in one is still in the top three best things I've done in my life.

Standing fifty feet from one when it kicked in the burners to roll down the runway was something that would stick with anybody for life. Total assault on the senses. Modern fighters are too quiet, probably due to the CATs.

Cheers

Ian

 

didnt know you worked with this type of kit Ian.

I have a cracking photo i took from the control tower at RAF losiemouth of a Buccaneer buzzing the tower, those were big old fighter bombers.

Just found my photos from Bruggen too, i forgot how close to the runway they stuck us, we were 50' from the Lightning decoys. Shows what we were worth during the cold war LOL

Buccaneer

 

Nothing goes as low and fast as a Buccaneer

 

Should be obvious where this was taken

The Daddy

 

nice piccie, shame there's three butt ugly planes spoiling the view

 

Love to have been at the Lightning design meeting (prob in some Pub).

Right we've got this f**k off engine. Lets add 2 wings. maybe a wheel underneath. Fuel tanks ? - nah lets not bother. Better put a saddle on top for the bloke whos going to guide it between tankers

Deano

 

Now they just are the Daddies Doesn't Jeremy Clarkson have one in his front garden?

I also thought the P38 Lightning was a beautiful thing

Ian, having been underneath (not directly) an F-15 doing a full power vertical climb (taking out a few windows locally) there is no way you can convince me that they are quiet

 

Of course, you're all forgetting the DADDY!!!



It IS real - if anybody disagrees, "LA LA LA, I'm not listening........."




Dan

 

He did have, but when at TG, I asked that question. The local council threw a wobbler about it, and I think it's now on a roundabout somewhere (or will be at some point). Saying it was on wheels didn't cut any ice, as it sunk in that far it was impossible move - hence a permanant fixture (something like that anyway).

Said he was going to get a tank instead

JC is obviouslly very passionate about such things, as he was enthusiastic to talk about them - suppose it's better than "what's the best car then?"

 

ace film

 

Joolz

 

If I hear of a Vulcan about to get airborne again Telboy I'll let you know, I'll be there too. You might even get that Sloe Gin I promised.

Yoza, I was lucky enough to get a Lemania wrist/stop watch. They usually were only issued to navigators but I persuaded them I needed one for low level on the Red Flag exercises in Nevada.

I didn't a display at Mildenhall in 1979 but did at Henlow,Nottingham,Yeovilton,Filey,Teeside,Clevelan d Ohio,Toronto, Bouley Bay Jersey, and Nellis AFB in Nevada.

I was stationed at Waddington and did most of the displays there while I was there and also did the last 4 x Vulcan display scramble at the Battle of Britain day at Finningley in 1981. I was number four and turned the opposite way to the leading three. I then sneaked round the back and returned from behind the crowd to give them a shock and then did the solo display. The aircraft was amazing, you could get away with going inverted to stop it going too high on a wingover but never to roll it in public view. Any suspicion of that and you never did another display! The landing was made using the tail brake chute and if you got the short landing technique right it could be stopped in 1000 feet or so. The picture XT showed was one of the slightly earlier ones I now realise with the smaller engines. mainly based at Scampton.

The Valkyrie was an impressive sight. They have one on display at the big aircraft museum near Dayton Ohio. Bit of an insect in real life. If you are ever near there, the museum has an incredible collection of aircraft, particularly between the wars classics.

I never flew the Buccaneer or the Phantom. As someone said they were real men's aeroplanes! Only way to break them was to crash them. Although a couple of Buccaneers were lost with wing breakages. Theye were rumoured to be ex Navy aircraft which suffered a bit with deck landings. The Lightning had more power than you would believe, it seemed to do most of its departures to height vertically! and the Hunter was the most precise handling machine I ever flew. Lovely aircraft.

Les, getting nostalgic.

[Edited by Leslie - 1/16/2004 12:57:24 PM]