Funniest Airshow Memory?

The airshow that never was

For a while I was the flight planning Corporal at RAF Lossiemouth. I compiled the daily Navigation Warning summary which was sent to every flying unit and ops/Air traffic on the base.

One sunny day I added a warning that the Hang gliding club would be practice flying from the roof of one of the grass covered hangars. In air traffic one of the american exchange crews was duty pilot until lunchtime, he handed over his duty and then borrowed a portable Storno radio. About 30 minutes later he called up air traffic asking for launch permission from the hangar roof. They could not understand why they could not find anyone on any of the hangar roofs,even looking carefully with binoculars. Only he had bothered to check the date on the nav warnings and understood its significance …..April 1st

The aftermath was that my boss the station navigation officer rushed around all the places which had copies of that particular nav summary and destroyed them.perhaps thats why I never got to be a SGT.

Junior Sergeants, Aircrew Sergeants – universally known to everyone at Finningley as Plastic Sergeants 😀 😀 😀

Brian

haha! Yes but everyone was in awe of us as we ran through camp everyday with our pine-poles, gym benches, or sand-filled 5Gal drums during training!

If it was that easy all the blunties would have applied:p

The only time I met real hostility was at Halton where they didn’t have incumbent SNCO Aircrew, they did not like us in the Mess.

Everywhere else there was the usual banter, with the exception of the occasional old hairy in the corner of the bar who took exception to the Air-cadet to Sergeant in 13 weeks promotion time-line

Unfortunately it only takes one visit to the crewman Leader’s office to then drop from Sergeant to Airman 🙁 😡 (see signature below…)

And yes he did have a shiny silver axe sat on his desk as I walked in….

Junior Sergeants, Aircrew Sergeants – universally known to everyone at Finningley as Plastic Sergeants 😀 😀 😀

Brian

1. Arrival day at Binbrook ’87, the Tonka F3, following a joint flyby with an 11sqn F6, tries to follow it into a vertical climb, wheezes rather asthmatically!

2.Finningley ’88, Junior Sergeants were given a car park each and a selection of walking cones from Swinderby basic training. They treated me like a god despite the fact that I was there myself only 3 months previously….never had so many people eager to please me! Hard work getting the cars in, even harder getting them all out at the same time!
Downside to the day was I was caught with 2 young ladies staying in my house (one was the daughter of a Lightning Pilot…she was the spitting image of Kylie;) ), the Aircrew Sergeants shared 3 to a MQ house on camp. Added to my downfall….:(

2000 (or was it 2002? I can’t recall) and last Baldonnell (Irish Air Corps HQ) Airshow in Dublin with a lot of visiting heavy metal flying in to show off (including the Swiss AF F/A18s – fabulous displays!).

Anyway, the aircraft would sashay in from the West and do their thang over the airbase and mosey off and then all was quiet for a while with just a JP tootling by to entertain the crowd. I was recording the flybys on Minidisc when all of a sudden out of the corner of my left eye I saw this grey shape hurtling towards us.

I swiftly turned and saw it was a tomcat in full wingback mode at just under the speed of sound and braced myself.

WHAMMMMM!!!!!!

No-one else was expecting this holy earsplitting sound accompanied by the grey streak and as a result there were cups of drink and plates of food flying everywhere with bodies hitting the deck and screams and…. you get the drift. Very funny! 😀 What was even better was the total silence as the grey dot disappeared in the distance rapidly… when eventually the commentator recovered his composure he said “Well, he won’t be invited back again!”.

I listened back to the F14 later on the MD and it had been so loud the recording was distorted to feck.

I know it’s an old topic but ..
Farnborough 88. Walking to the exit at the end of the last public day and in a near empty car park two to the airfields fire trucks were going around in circles soaking each other. When they had had enough of this they turned their hoses onto a poor WPC who was directing traffic. She was soaked to the skin 🙂

RIAT 94 or 95, We were sat by the car, finishing off the remnants of our picnic lunch in the evening, watching aircraft depart into the sunset. The traffic was stuck in the usual jam behind us. The commentator announces that just for the people in the jam he was going to play “always look on the bright side of life” from Monty Pythons Life of Brian. Unfortunately he has finger trouble with the CD player & selects a George Formby type tune that starts with the line “I’m a W*nker….” that blares across the airfield briefly to be followed by an enbarrassed silence. Nearly choked on my beer.

DocS that sounds exactly like a Barnowlism. Its the second of lying there when you think: “You’ve done it again, you plonker” that makes the occasion…
BARNOWL

I also overheard a kid (about 14 so still unforgiveable) asking why they didnt use F-18s in WW2 as they would have: “Kicked the Americans ass.” I hung my head in shame and walked on…

Farnborough. Late 70’s. School trip. Tried to vault over a railing, Foot got stuck. Landed face down in muddy puddle, directly infront of large crowd of onlookers who almost wet themselves (even more than I was).

DS

Planes of Fame airshow, sometime in the early ’90s. The commenators were generally viewed as a nuisance and the one at this show was particularly so. During the trainer fly-by portion of the show he proceeded to pick out a Navy tri-color painted SNJ on takeoff and gleefully announced that we were seeing the only flyable Dauntless in the world at that time. Some time later, he must have realized his mistake when the actual SBD did in fact get airborne. To prove he knew something about it he shared with the crowd that it was powered by a “Pratt and Whispy Watt” engine.

At the Phoenix 500 air races some years later a friend of a friend, a self proclaimed warbird expert, joined us at the airshow. Upon seeing a Spitfire fuselage on a trailer we walked over to inspect. He looked in through the wing root and, seeing some wood bracing, announced that Spitfires were “all wood”. This was, of course, a fiberglass mock-up with a few wooden supports stuck inside. I didn’t burst his bubble.

I’ve had quite a few gaffes told me, but the best was a while ago at Hendon. (Not exactly an airshow but bear with me.) Looking at the Napier Sabre engine thats next to the Typhoon, a youngish bloke/yobbo was coming to a completely incorrect conclusion about some part of it whilst ‘explaining’ it to his mate. My grand-dad (an Engine Technician in the 2nd TAF) reaches in to explain that he’s in fact totally wrong. The guy wheels round enraged and actually says:
“What would you know about it, grandpa? I’m a mechanic, so i know a little bit about engines!”
My Grand-dad points to the Typhoon and says:
“You must be a f*cking awful mechanic then, as i’m one of the buggers who fitted these engines to this aircraft, and i daresay that I could still take the bl*ody thing apart with my eyes shut. In fact im pretty sure that I could draw you a f*cking diagram.” It was more the image of this 87 year old veteren shouting abuse at this burburry coloured yob that set me off, and i didnt stop for days. He was correct, of course. That was proved when the curator came over! Absolute classic.
BARNOWL

I remember seeing a napier sabre on display at (iirc) Canadian Warplane Heritage and a guy in a suit insisting to his son that it was the engine from a Sabre jet. When someone pointed out that it said on the label that it was from a hawker Typhoon he said “Yeah, and the Sabre jet!”

He was so convinced!

One of the funniest moments was at Woodford in the 80s when after a fantastic build up about how good Col ??of the USAF (who else) was at recy flying he Missed the airfield at Woodford but a friend of mine who was flying from Manchester to Saudi that day was held up on the runway whilst an American F4 did a display along the runway there thinking it was Woodford. (their recognition was rubbish even then as well). The ATC were NOT AMUSED.

There was to time at mildenhall(sadly missed)late eighties i think, when a free fall display team landed off target, directly in the car park, some lovely size nines in a few escort bonnets about five jumpers muttering and carrying kit through hundreds of cars.

I’ve had quite a few gaffes told me, but the best was a while ago at Hendon. (Not exactly an airshow but bear with me.) Looking at the Napier Sabre engine thats next to the Typhoon, a youngish bloke/yobbo was coming to a completely incorrect conclusion about some part of it whilst ‘explaining’ it to his mate. My grand-dad (an Engine Technician in the 2nd TAF) reaches in to explain that he’s in fact totally wrong. The guy wheels round enraged and actually says:
“What would you know about it, grandpa? I’m a mechanic, so i know a little bit about engines!”
My Grand-dad points to the Typhoon and says:
“You must be a f*cking awful mechanic then, as i’m one of the buggers who fitted these engines to this aircraft, and i daresay that I could still take the bl*ody thing apart with my eyes shut. In fact im pretty sure that I could draw you a f*cking diagram.” It was more the image of this 87 year old veteren shouting abuse at this burburry coloured yob that set me off, and i didnt stop for days. He was correct, of course. That was proved when the curator came over! Absolute classic.
BARNOWL

Nice one! Haha wish i was there when that happened, i’d still be rolling around on the floor now!

I’ve had quite a few gaffes told me, but the best was a while ago at Hendon. (Not exactly an airshow but bear with me.) Looking at the Napier Sabre engine thats next to the Typhoon, a youngish bloke/yobbo was coming to a completely incorrect conclusion about some part of it whilst ‘explaining’ it to his mate. My grand-dad (an Engine Technician in the 2nd TAF) reaches in to explain that he’s in fact totally wrong. The guy wheels round enraged and actually says:
“What would you know about it, grandpa? I’m a mechanic, so i know a little bit about engines!”
My Grand-dad points to the Typhoon and says:
“You must be a f*cking awful mechanic then, as i’m one of the buggers who fitted these engines to this aircraft, and i daresay that I could still take the bl*ody thing apart with my eyes shut. In fact im pretty sure that I could draw you a f*cking diagram.” It was more the image of this 87 year old veteren shouting abuse at this burburry coloured yob that set me off, and i didnt stop for days. He was correct, of course. That was proved when the curator came over! Absolute classic.
BARNOWL

Smithy commentating for the Utt Butts at Duxford a few years ago.. complete class.

There was always the immortal commentator’s line at a 1970s Biggin Hill Air Fair.

“And Neil Williams has taken the Stampe behind the hangar (crump)….and left it there!”

Was anyone else at RAF Gaydon in 1962/63(?) when one of four Victors made a mess-up of a mock 4-minute scramble?

I think it was the second aircraft to move forward off the ORP (operational readiness platform) that carried on straight across the runway until the nosewheel ran off the far side and sank into the grass. How we laughed!!!

The RAF were extremely embarrassed but the laugh was on us, the audience, as the presence of a Handley Page Victor stuck partially across the end of the runway severely curtailled the rest of the flying programme.

I have to say though, other years when it worked as it should it was damned exciting.

Roger Smith.

I think a mate’s told me about that one. I’ll have a word with him later today.

Funny conversations:
#1: Howard Pardue being strapped into a plane at Dx & responding to everything with his usual grunts.
Guy helping him with the straps says “Yanno, for a guy worth 400million bucks you sure are a miserable old b***ard” 😮

#2: Air Commodore (as he was then) Johhny Allison signing in at some show (I think he was in the TFC P40) to get Officers Quarters & puts a/c Allison in the book. Sgt behind the desk bawls out ” OI! when did we start allowing air bloody crewman to stay in Officers Quarters? Bugger off!”
JA reaches into his bag & pulls out *the hat* with enough brass on it to sink a ship & says “Thats Air Commodore to you…. corporal” Sgt has his entire career flash before his eyes, JA turns & walks off, once out of earshot around a corner doubles up laughing. :diablo:

there was the f1-11 that thought barton was woodford (true), then there was the A40 mermaid that had 8 attempts at landing at woodford in 1994, the guy couldnt speak english and anatoli the su27 pilot was in the pub having a few jars had to be borught in to talk him down after he had gone past manchester, barton and even hawarden. The conversation on the radio was quite funny.