Aircraft memories

[zenrat]

3 vivid aircraft memories.

During my last years of living in the UK I commuted from Central London to Croydon by train every day and would regularly be able to stand at Clapham junction station (platform 10 IIRC) and look up and watch Concord fly over.
As a child I lived in Sussex and in those days she was allowed to go supersonic over land and she'd rattle our windows.
What a gracefull aircraft she was.  Like a big metal paper dart.  I miss her.

As a kid I lived in a village about 3 or 4 miles North of the South Downs.  At this point the Weald of Sussex was rising so we could look slightly downwards towards the foot of the Downs.  I have a vivid memory of standing in the school playing field during a PE lesson (cricket - I was no good so the teacher took no interest in me and just stuck me out in the field somewhere) looking South and watching a Hercules flying West between me and the hills below the height of the hill tops.  I recognised what it was as i'd built the Airfix kit with the Landrover and Bloodhound.

And the final memory is when. aged about 14, a mates dad took a car load of us to Farnborough for the air show.  The Battle of Britain flight did a fly past in formation along the runway and then a couple of single engined fighters came back and did a bit of a dog fight display (can't remember what they were - Spit & a Hurricane maybe?).  This ended and there was a lull in the action.  Just as we were wondering what was next there was a roar and the BOB flight Lancaster flew over us from behind at zero feet.
Marvelous.  What a beautiful sound.  I've been surprised by the RAAF FA18 display overflight but it just doesn't have the same impact as 4 Merlins.

[rickshaw]

I remember I was about 7 and the class was out in the playground, doing something or other with our teacher.  Suddenly there was this almighty clap of thunder-like sound a  What I know recognise as a Vampire trainer came over the classrooms at under a 100 feet, moving quite slowly.  Looking back,  I'm not sure what had happened but I suspect it had just relit it's engine, just in time, before it crashed into the school!  It was obviously flying too slow to have come anywhere near the sound barrier (not that Vampires could go transonic!).   I suspect it was the luckiest day of my life, otherwise we have all either been killed or hurt.   

Much later, I have two abiding memories from when I was in the Army.  The first was being air piquet on top of a ridge for a day, on Exercise Kangaroo'83.   I was having a snooze under a convenient tree while my opposite number was standing watch (we'd come to an arrangement of a couple hours on and a couple hours off to keep us fresh) when he came up, kicked me in the foot and said, "Come and look at this!"  A bit annoyed I walked back to where he was and there was two B-52s (whom we'd been briefed were on our side in the exercise) tooling down the valley on one side of our ridge and then back up the other, below us.   Very impressive.

Another memory from the same exercise was standing outside a stores tent and hearing the roar of jet engines, looking up and my head moved at just the right moment to allow me to track a Mirage flying over at about 50 feet.  It was as if, for a moment it was standing still, until my head stopped and it kept moving.  I had an impression of every rivet and the drop tanks it was carrying and just how dirty its fuselage was.   

[perttime]

Back in 1960's and '70's, we'd go visiting my grandparents and uncles who lived on the other side of the town of Tampere. At that time the main road passed between the Härmälä Airport and the former Valtion Lentokonetehtaat (VL) main factory. In my opinion, stopping at the airport every time was a necessity. There I'd look at the Cessnas and Pipers and, if lucky, a Convair Metropolitan. In late 70's I was old enough to get around on my own and went to see some airshows there. A few airshow attractions really got my attention: there was the rumble in my chest when a Draken was turning and burning, the Rothmans aerobatic team in Pitts S2 biplanes, a little red Pitts S1 (my photo of it from last year), and the static display of the VL Humu and Pyörremyrsky prototypes (Photo on Airliners).

We lived right next door to an Anti-Aircraft-Artillery unit. There was also a swimming spot at a lake right behind their small training ground. Somehow, passing through along the edge of that area was quite OK by all parties. Pretty frequently, there'd be military aircraft buzzing them, or playing target for their training. Usually it'd be a SAAB Safir or a Fouga Magister.

I'm not quite sure if this was an Indepence Day or a Defence Forces Flag Day, but there was a national parade/review in town, and there would be an overflight too. I wanted to see the flight but didn't really feel like going to town for it. So I took the phone book and studied the maps on it for a while. I estimated that the aircraft would pass very close to our house on the way. So, some minutes before "the time" I went behind the house and started looking and listening. Sure enough: four MiG-21 F models in silver color cruised past my appreciating eyes.

[PR19_Kit]

When I was at school in Upper Heyford Village in the early 50s we were right on the end of the runway for RAF Upper Heyford where I lived at the time. The runway threshold was about 20-30 ft above the school though, so the aircraft passed right overhead if landing to the west. Upper Heyford was the last bastion of the Glider Pilot Regiment and there were maybe 20 Horsas still based there, and one of them suffered a horrendous undershoot one afternoon and landed in the school playground!

We were having Music Practice at the time (I was a demon tri-angle player....) and the crash, right outside the classroom, was terrible. Thy shipped us all back home on buses quite quickly as it turned out there were no survivors from the crew or the paratroops aboard the Horsa. A sad day for sure.

I've got some better memories too, but they'll wait for a bit.

[The Rat]

Summer, 1958, I was 5. We were having a day at the beach on the south shore of Lake Simcoe, when there was a bang and a roar. Looked up to see the Avro Arrow streaking northbound.

[PR19_Kit]

Summer, 1958, I was 5. We were having a day at the beach on the south shore of Lake Simcoe, when there was a bang and a roar. Looked up to see the Avro Arrow streaking northbound.

Green with envy!

[Gondor]

I remember being with my dad one summer on the golf course at Lossiemouth when a Victor K2 came in to lave from offshore.... right over the golf course through which the runway lights were placed and right where we were. One of my sisters didn't depreciate when the Victor decided to go around again, right above her head was where he decided to open up the throttles, needless to say it got a little bit louder.....

Gondor

[scooter]

My family and I would spend a week's vacation up at Lake George (NY) during the summer, from the about '85 to '89.  I remember our first trip up there, my father and I are just bobbing on the lake, and a B-29(!) buzzing right over the lake.

Nor will I forget the Blue Angels coming into NAS Keflavik after their '92 European tour.  I was duty flight that day, and watched them from the flightline do an brief aerobatic display. 

[PR19_Kit]

When we lived in Oxford after my Dad retired from the RAF our house was almost  directly under the approach to Brize Norton's 26 runway. As a result USAF B-36s and B-47s on approach came right overhead on an almost daily basis. The B-47s would trail their tiny drag chute on the end of a HUGE cable because the engines in those days were very slow on throttle response. They'd run at high throttle settings and deploy the baby chute, then if anything went wrong they'd jettison the chute and do a go-around. Sadly they never dropped a chute in our garden.......... 

Another aviation highlight was in 1975 when I was part of the test team for the APT-E train trying for the British Railway Speed Record (which we achieved at 152.3 mph  ) and BA were doing their Concorde crew training from Fairford. As this involved a few flights to land and take-off from Heathrow they'd do a 180 off the end of the Fairford runway and climb out directly over us waiting to do our test runs on the WR main line at Uffington Loop. Fantastic views of a superb aircraft. 

But the best time for an aviation nut like me was living at RAF Benson in 1955-56, my Dad's last station before he retired. At that time Benson was the Ferry Command HQ and we had all sorts of different aircraft coming through, either outbound to their overseas postings or inbound to maintenance units in the UK. During that period I saw Sabres, Hunters, Swifts, Canberras, Javelins, Valettas, Hastings, Beverleys, Pioneers  and Twin Pioneers, Pembrokes and loads of others. There were also two RNVR squadrons who flew Sea Hawks and Attackers at weekends. Great days. 

[Rheged]

As a teacher under training  in 1971, I did a term in Dalintober Primary School in Campbeltown. My classroom was directly under the flightpath for Machiehanish airfield.........and there was a NATO exercise on.  You could just about teach through the noise of a Neptune landing,  but  the whole building shook as Shackletons came in.In the end,  pupils and teacher all just stopped and waited for the tumult to cease.   The exercise ended........and then we had the flight testing of Concorde down the West Coast of Scotland.

All fascinating for  an enthusiast, but not helpful for a trainee teacher!

[Captain Canada]

Some great memories there guys ! I have too many.....

Walking out of a corner store in Borden in 1982 and seeing a Voodoo coming straight down at me.....wow.

Hercs on ops. disgorging lots of paras both day and night

Herc JATO take offs

All tose flights offshore in an S-61. It was Sea King enough for me !

[scooter]

Sussex (NJ) Airshow, the last time I went had a FAC/CAS and Recovery demo.  O-1 Bird Dog, O-2, and a Skyraider with butane jets in the gunports.  It was glorious...and scared the SWMBO MkI something fierce, especially when they lit the far side of the field for the simulated napalm run.

They did something similar back in 93 at Grand Forks AFB's Friends and Neighbors day...just with NDANG's F-16s and one off the 319th BWs Bones.  Saw the Snowbirds there too. 

[PR19_Kit]

At the Jubilee Air Display at RAF Finningly in '76 or so with the 'soon-to-be' Mrs_PR19 in tow (it was her first air show....) the RAAF F-111 pilot did the amazing 'Dump & Burn', something that I'd only seen in magazines before, and the USAFE F-111s based in UK NEVER did that!
The RAAF pilot got lower and lower on each successive pass and on the last of three he kept the burn going as he turned away and climbed out, with the result that he set the grass on fire! We had a live fire suppression demo by the crash crew as a result.  

Mrs_PR19 had taken cover behind me by the time the 'Vark came by on its second pass too.  

[Pellson]

Oooh, this is sooo fun! A trip down memory lane.. 

When I was a kid, and really young, me ad dad was at our summerhouse on the east coast archipelago of southern Sweden. It was about this time of the year, perhaps a few weeks later and most leaves had fallen off the trees and we were as far as I remember closing down for the winter. Now, our cottage is perched on a rock some 10 m above sea level just by a cove, and I was playing (with a recently aquired metallic blue Corgi minatures metal F4U Corsair, I believe) on the cliff in front of the house when very suddenly a dark dart swooshed by over the water BELOW me with a bang. Deafened and scared beyond belief, I was immediately comforted by my dad who unknowingly to me had been standing just some ten feet behind me. He was pretty mad, also as a few windows in the house were broken by the sound from the recce Draken fighter as it flew by us, hugging terrain.

Anyway, he had noted the wing number on the nose of the jet as well as its tactical number on the fin and being a naval officer, he knew his ways and immediately called the wing commander demanding new windows - which three hour later, actually were installed by a small team of rather embarrassed airmen from the no 11 Wing at Nyköping.

I still remember seeing the roundels on the camouflaged wing upper surfaces from my vantage point.. 

[Librarian]

Both of my favourite early memories of military aircraft were F-4s. Coming to stay in England in the early Seventies we would sit on the beach in Aldeburgh, Suffolk (where my Grandparents lived) and watch the F-4s coming into land at Bentwaters/Woodbridge. The sound was hypnotic. Nothing comes close to that beautiful grumble/whine. If the wind was right you'd occassionaly get a whiff too. If my Dad was around he would drive us over to the end of the runways where we could get a really good look and pinch the farmer's carrots .

The other was in Madrid where we were living, on the thirteenth floor of a block of flats, when General Franco died. Fearing a civil war its seems there was a CAP over the city. My memory may have exaggerated it but we were given a superb low altitude fly-by of F-4s and F-104s (I think) over a couple of days. I still rememeber the patio doors rattling. I will never forget that.

Later, as a teenager, I was on a ferry in Greece, crossing from the mainland to somewhere or other, when witout any warning two ultra low level f-4s, I suspect just subsonic, went straight over us at almost masthead height. You could count the rivets. I had goosebumps all day.