Good grief – 30 years ago!

Wife and I were living in the Portsmouth area at the time, with relatives in Scunthorpe. Traveled up the day before via the ‘magic roundabout’ (M25) and it was so hot with no air con so was thankfull for the large trucks to shelter along side. But the happy memories were of the stream takeoff, the noise and the rain. Never have we been so wet, but we went any way. Oh Happy Days.
Mike

That’s it… rub it in.. and although I am nowadays a rigger as well, I think I would have rather been a fairy than a rigger then… in fact I would rather have worked in the mess potwashing than be a rigger, even if they got an extra 50P a day for emptying the bogs lol. :p

We took a Sherpa around what remained of Brooklands.. far more exciting. MT didn’t stand for Must Thrash / Trash for nothing you know.

Hi Tony T,

Ha ha ha, you should have been a rigger then! Even though the weather was crap it was a great show and the lightning take off thing was incredible. We took the Sherpa cruising the seafront at Cleethorpes in the evening and checked out the local watering facilities and some place on the pier, Pier 39 or something? Glad to know you were busy grafting and keeping the Orange forces at bay… 😉

Roobarb

Some footage on Youtube. Wish I’d been there (except for the weather!) –

Happy days 🙂

NO they weren’t, myself and a Sootie Sgt off my desk decided to go… one slight flaw, we were on nights, so after a hectic 12 hour night shift, we finished at 7.30am, got changed and set off from Brize at about 8.00 Am… we arrived and joined that damned queue…. hours and what seemed like 20 yards later we realised we were not going to get in or anywhere near, so reluctantly turned around to head back to Brize, talking to each other to keep us awake, and without seeing a thing.
We got back, got changed and turfed up at work late, 7.45pm ish for a 7.30pm start. All the way back Dave had been saying, don’t worry it will be a quiet night…. WELL………. It turned out there was a FCU change to do on a VC10 which was tasked in the morning, so while Dave I later found slept ( he did drive) I was outside at night in the freezing cold doing an FCU change which I finished at about 5am and got the ground runs completed… Boy was I shagged, 36 hours none stop. That’s what I remember of the last show at Binbrook.

Wow, 30 years ago!!!
Binbrook was a long-haul trip for me in those days but, despite the soaking, it was still well worth the effort.
Still one of the most memorable air shows I’ve attended.

I was there working as groundcrew for the 45 Sqn/TWCU Tornado GR.1. It was lovely and sunny on the Friday when we arrived and we had a great look around all of the Binbrook Hangars and took lots of photo’s out on the pan etc. Different story on the Saturday! Yuk. I was staying in probably the most derelict transit accommodation I ever encountered in the RAF, my room had a huge part of the floor with a massive hole in it! We were in huts that looked straight out of “The Great Escape” ( I think the hole was an escape tunnel!) . Great weekend though and the stories of traffic tailbacks as people tried to get in were legendary. Happy days 🙂

What a storm! The inside of my car was filthy for weeks after. I was plastered in mud helping other people get their cars off the local fields before it was my turn to leave. Thirty years eh. Is there a copy of Binbrook arfield site plan available? It can’t be secret any longer surely?