To be honest I was surprised that planes had actually been invented when you were a boy

 

Yes, yes, yes and YES please Les

 

I think I was lucky as I just avoided being sent down the mines or being sent to the trenches in France

 

No, I was staying outside of Grimsby Town where there's a better class of crimnial

 

It was put there next to the A15 after some bright spark in Whitehall decided that my Dads Royal Engineer Air Support unit was to be posted up north where it would be 50 miles away from the nearest RAF base. So the RAF had to sort the move themselves.
Afterall, Whitehall always know best of course

I see 607 evertime I'm out round the otherside of the airbase (usually when training on my bike). TBH it's in a much better place there. It used to be in a place where it was only ever seen by millatry personel but now she's in full public display.
There's be a few times I've seen something flying and wished I'd had a camera with me and it wouldv'e been an awsome picture.

 

One evening, someone (I think it was a Warrant Officer) went into the radar transmitter building at the far side of the airfield, to complete a bit of paperwork. Since he was getting a bit cold, he thought he'd turn off the air con for a bit, and shut the vents. The air con had to be kept on permanently to avoid excessive heat build up. Anyway, when he left, he forgot to turn on the air con and open the vents. The result was millions of pounds of fire damage. The metal cabinets actually melted.
A mobile AR1 radar was set up the following day, that was 38 group tactical comms wing. They were there for a couple of days until we could get our AR1 to the site. So at one point there were two mobile radars sitting side by side. I'm sure the story would have been all round the station, and also a very red faced WO.

 

Just a late thank you to Leslie, I still remember the display at Kirmington where the Vulcan out-shone the "yanks" in their toys...

duncan

 

Remembering a Vulcan story...

When my elder brother had his passing out parade we had a Vulcan fly over, and it scared the living sh** out of EVERYONE there.

It came over from behind the stands where we were, so we had no idea it was coming over. It was very quiet on the approach and dear God was it ever low. Right as it came over the noise level went up exponentially and everyone ducked! Including all the recruits standing to attention. Honestly, it was like the crack of doom!

Stunning sight though and I can clearly remember it pulling away with this ear shattering roar.... So cool

(only ever beaten by me watching a Spitfire doing lazy aerobatics over East Midlands Airport late one evening. I never did find out why the hell he was circling the airport for so long....)

 

Great pics there mate.

 

What an amazing story and great pictures.

I class myself as lucky that we had one of these incredible machines decomissioned at Blackpool and i got to look at her regularly whenever I was up near the airport and I even got to climb in and crawl about.

What a privilege to be able to say you flew one and of course lived to tell the tale after all those missions. I salute you sir. :god:

 

1977 mildenhall airbase..

We were on our way back to the car thinking the static displays were all that

happened.

Suddenly the ground shook and this almighty roar grew from nowhere, being

11 and a midget, i couldn't see what was causing it, just conscious of this

banshee howl somewhere in the distance

Car alarms were going off, and this beast just launched itself near on

vertically into the air, and did what looked like a wing over at the top of its

climb.

Still remember it clearly to this day.


So here,s my top eight of planes & flying displays

1) Vulcan bomber 1977 Mildenhall & others

2) Sr71 Blackbird, it rocks, Mildenhall again.

3) MD Phantom, used to see this puppy daily when i lived Nr Ely.

4) A10 Thunderbolt. (Warthog) Hearn Airport, Jeez do these things wail.

5) F104- Starfighter, that's not a plane its a missile, Hearn & Deadelous

airshow.
6) Harrier mid 80,s Portsmouth Harbour, he rolled inverted at the

entrance to the harbour, flew up the harbour inverted at mast height of

the Ark Royal, then went vertical from an inverted attitude.

7) Harrier again took off from hover, pushed to vertical, then nailed

it . Deadelous airshow

8) Concorde how many commercial jets have afterburners nuff

said.


Mart

 

I'd liked to have seen that Harrier Mart, he sounds like a bit of a "player".

Les

 

I still see Phantoms fly, often taking off in pairs, from the airbase just 3k from my house. The Japanese airforce (JASDAF) bought the Americans old stock and still fly them on a daily basis.
I can also often watch them in action on a bombing range on the way to my office

 

Great pics Les - did yo ever , presumably not , have to drop a bomb in earnest ?

- i bet you use a butter-knife when alone

 

*Obviously runs past Boneheads house all the time....*

I'm usually only working 100m or so from 607; that part of Lincolnshire has a it's own weather system... usually a good 10c colder than anywhere else in the UK.

 

Very nearly, during Iraq's first move towards annexing Kuwait. We were scrambled and then recalled. Pity because I had a great target to thump.

We were in Canberra B(I)8's, the one with the fighter style cockpit. We had gunpacks in the bomb bay and 1,000 pounder bombs under the wings. We were running a book on who would be the first to shoot down an Iraqi Mig 17!

Butter knife, whats that?

Les

 

Some S Netters asked for a few more pictures, so I found a few.

The first one is of the three trainer aircraft used in the Royal Canadian Air Force which is where I trained in a Nato agreement. The Chipmunk is the Canadian version which has a bubble canopy and the US Silver Star Jet trainer was fitted with the more powerful RR Nene 10 engine. Went much better than the original US ones. The Harvard was a good tough old single piston machine-I loved flying it. There is a black one at Goodwood in the flying club. Wish I could get my hands on it!



These are two of the three crews I had, they were all outstanding at their jobs and I was very lucky to have such good blokes to fly with. Coffin Dodger, as I said I did fly XM 652 and I cant understand why you can't remember me when I certainly have had a few drinks with the captain which you say is you in your photo!



The next three were air to air photos which were taken by a professional who had a Cessna with a hole in the door for his camera. I had to pose for him with the aircraft over Lincoln Cathedral, the Humber Bridge, and he took one of us landing after the flight. The first one banked away from him was an extra.









The last is a private one taken on an exercise we were doing in the Canberra, all fully authorised of course, just a little bit of hooliganism on the side




The Canberra was a lovely aircraft, it was extremely versatile and served the RAF for some 50 years. It was called the jet engined version of the Mosquito!
I flew it operationally in Germany, on research in this country and also did a flying instructional tour. All in all about ten years flying on it. I flew some 6 different marks, the B2,PR3,B(I)8, PR7,B6,T4, and only missed out on flying the PR9, which I much regretted.

Les

 

Great pictures Les!

 

Brilliant photos, Les!

 

The humber one is awesome!

 

Les will you be my dad
Joking aside a good read and great photo's there, thanks for making the day more bearable.

Jim.

 

Never doubted you Les.

I wish I had worked on the Vulcan but I think they had been de-commissioned when I joined up . I guess working on something a little bit newer will have to do for now .

 

Great pictures Les. What a life you've led.

 

Les, you should write a book. Fantastic pics

 

What Lesley said.

 

i was thinking the same.very interesting thread les.great picsgot any more

 

Whoa, glad I checked in again on this, epic photos.

Your landing one is now my desktop background.

 

Sorry, couldn't refrain from quoting your post. This bunch of pictures, too, is fantastic