Unexpected encounters with aircraft

sometime in the 90’s I was driving my bus round a housing estate here in Stoke on Trent, nice warm sunny day, heard a loud noise, stopped said bus, pocked head out of cab window, BBMF lanc, spit and hurri overhead!!! lovely sight and sound, day went a bit quicker after that!. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, BBMF Dakota over Burslem, also Lancaster over Hanley, even Spitfire over Hanley.Best one is though, when I was on a rememberance parade, would be 1990, parade just marched off after service, thoughts of vets and regulars etc on the pub after end parade, Spitfire low and fast probably 10′ above the trees following the road!!! (a few missed steps!!!)

One of the best for me was being in the middle of Grafham water – a reservoir.I was buying a kayak from the council who run the sailing and kayaking school there and they sell off some stock.I took the opportunity to have a lesson and get a bronze award at the same time.The young lad who was instructing me and helping try out the different kayaks and i were right in the middle of the reservoir when i heard a familiar rumble.
I looked up and saw the TFC ‘s old B25 “Grumpy” fitted with what looked like long range tanks just before she was sold.
This lad was open mouthed and in awe at the sight and sound of a low B25 over open water rattling around us several times ,oh to have had a waterproof camera with me. Wonderful 🙂

July 1994. I was driving round the top of Lake Huron. Somewhere near Manatoulin Island I stopped for a break at a pretty lakeside picnic spot, and sat at the one picnic table idly mulling over the artistic photographic possibilities of the view before me (trees, lake, more trees, boat, more trees…) Another car stopped and an old man got out and joined me at the table. We chatted for a few minutes as fellow travellers do, then I heard the sound of turbine engines. I whipped open the camera bag, changed lenses and fired off three photos as a Candian Air Force Hercules thundered over us.[ATTACH=CONFIG]250465[/ATTACH] This is the best of them. I have always regretted that I wasn’t able to take a picture of the astonishment on the old boy’s face at what had just happened on the table in front of him!

May 1990 – flying my Libelle 201b,my gliding log book states 4h 18m, 189K, ‘censored’/Hungerford/Shrivenham/ ‘censored’ and appended – ”tricky day” ”very marginal final glide”
My base airfield had a more or less east/west rwy and I had been away sampling the better thermals north of the M4,of course long before a useable GPS/sat nav for a glider pilot,so I did not have a groundspeed readout.Anyway flying final glide southward towards ‘censored’ I eventually realised that a sea breeze effect had given me a fairly strong headwind and I was lower than I should be at my distance from ‘home’ (confirmed by the horizontal windsock at the model aircraft flying ground at a local army camp) but there were no safe landable fields north of ‘home’ so I pushed on until visual with the airfield.At that time the Power circuit was to the north and Glider circuit was to the south of the airfield,so I decided my safest course of action was to cross the power rwy at 90 deg heading south but keeping close to the downwind end of the rwy.
There was 1 a/c on the rwy so I kept a close eye on him and of course he was doing circuits so in the end I had to push the nose down (100kt) to cross safely below him and then do a lazy ‘270’ to join the glider circuit to land. I had plenty of height/energy to do this manoevre and nobody was in any danger – but it was unusual and as soon as I had parked the Libelle I drove round and apologised to the Flying Instructor who had been teaching the power student circuits – he was laughing about it and said he had just been saying to his student ‘The glider pilots here are really good and never conflict with us’ when I swanned into view 😀 – ‘of course you always need to keep a good lookout in the circuit’.I had watched him all the way round but whoever was flying the ‘spamcan’ had an ‘Unexpected encounter with a very pretty little glider’ ; )

I was sat in my office in the City of London on the phone to a colleague downstairs who was also interested in aircraft. Heard a strange noise outside, looked up then said to my colleague “I’ve juist seen a Sunderland flying over”. She didn’t believe me, then it came over again so I told her I’d seen it again and it was definitely a Sunderland. She started to come upstairs but she was too late for the fourth and final viewing. On my way home I walked over London Bridge and there was G-BJHS parked in the pool of London. Must have been circling making sure there was enough room to land (water?). It was there for a few days, you could go round her if you were willing to use the small boat from the river bank.

Years before that, 1968 I think, I was on one of those school cruises and we went through Lisbon docks. There in a compound was a heap of Harvards that we were told were from the Biafran Airforce.

Now a follow on to the FW190 episode. I was only 10 so memory is not wonderful, but this also occurred on a Sunday just after or just before.

We lived in a bungalow facing directly to the hillside from where we had seen the 190, my mother, my uncle and us three boys were sat round the table having breakfast directly in front of the large window. Suddenly there were a rapid series of loud explosions and the noise of aircraft zooming over the roof. When the confusion smoke and dust had died down we discovered the place had been hit by three cannon shells. Construction was cavity brickwork and each shell had penetrated the outer layer and pitted the inner one, leaving a hole about a foot across in the outer. One had struck just below the window, one beside it and the third the chimney stack, so we had been lucky.

My middle brother and myself were straight out in the garden scouring for anything interesting without too much luck, so after a while my mother allowed the youngest, just three years old, to join us. He came rushing back indoors after a few minutes very excited “I have found a bigger bit of shrapnel than the old boys” he told my mother and showed her a complete live Jerry 20mm cannon shell. This she prevailed upon us to present to an unhappy village policeman.

Happy days.

In 1952 I was posted out to Kabrit which stands on the southern edge of the Great Bitter Lake, which forms part of the Suez Canal. Round the corner was RAF Fanara through which Sunderlands staged on their runs out to the Far East. I remember flying over one as it was taking off on the lake, they took about a mile to get airbourne and left a large wake.

😀
The first was when Charles Blair flew a Sandringham over to blighty in the late 70’s and did a low pass down the main apron/ramp at Brawdy (late 70’s).
rgds baz

In the late 70’s I was driving south on the M5 – round about W-S-M or Bridgwater – when I saw what I first thought was a C-130 Hercules passing low over the motorway ahead of me – so he was side on, some miles away.

I then realised that the tall tail and rear upward-swept underside was in fact a…………….. Sunderland!!

So – maybe the same Sandringham heading for Brawdy ???

I also went aboard a Sunderland – in Hong Kong harbour, next to RAF Kai Tak in 1958 – it had flown up from Singapore.

I was only 11 at the time – much excitement – also saw Martin Marlins in the bay.

Ken

Only a vague memory but I do remember seeing Sunderlands fly at RAF Calshot in 1952. Attended my first air show, an “open day” at the base. We were in a caravan on Lepe beach just along the coast from Calshot. I was seven at the time. Remember seeing the SARO Princess at the same time.

It kept on coming and I cursed the lack of camera as the beautiful flying machine whispered over the runway centreline at about 100 feet. The instructor in the Jet Provost which had just landed was not impressed and complained”What the hell was that”
Some people are never happy, I was on cloud nine, the only time I ever saw the Sunderland flying.

😀

Hi Scotavia – I was lucky enough to see a sunderlandish twice,both unexpectedly LOL

The first was when Charles Blair flew a Sandringham over to blighty in the late 70’s and did a low pass down the main apron/ramp at Brawdy (late 70’s).

The second would have been 1993,I was driving north up the A283 in sussex when I noticed a large fat slow flying a/c in my mirror,I pulled over and there was the sunderland rumbling majestically by – heading north.I am not sure if it was a test flight or the last flight (I would guess at test/shakedown flight).

rgds baz

Scary account Peter, I suppose youngsters think of souvenirs first and taking cover second!

my latest unexpected encounter which has just emerged from the memory cells…

I was half way thru my shift in the runway caravan at Linton On Ouse, pretty normal day with Jet Provosts coming and going, scanning them as they lined up checking for any problems, making sure they had gear down on final approach,being very careful about this because sometimes the instructors would then retract the gear and keep descending to check we were paying attention, once below a certain height we fired off a red very flare and they overshot.
My radio was tuned to local tower frequency and a few miles out on approach i saw a strange shape getting larger, the week before I had seen the same shape resting on Lake Windermere, it was Sunderland GBJHS heading back to base down South.No radio call from the Sunderland as he stayed on approach frequency.

It kept on coming and I cursed the lack of camera as the beautiful flying machine whispered over the runway centreline at about 100 feet. The instructor in the Jet Provost which had just landed was not impressed and complained”What the hell was that”
Some people are never happy, I was on cloud nine, the only time I ever saw the Sunderland flying.

Far too PC, why can’t I at least start a word with an EFF

Walking with a group of friends one Sunday afternoon along the hill above our village, our attention was suddenly attracted to the snarl of a powerful aircraft engine. a small aircraft flew down into the valley and turned towards us, when it had drawn level it opened fire with 20mm cannon at an engine and tender parked under a bridge just outside the village. We were about 400 yards away and raced down to the next field where we knew we would find his ejected cases. One of the boys struck lucky and picked up 7 live rounds still in linked together.

One of the shells had struck a lineside telegraph pole and had chewed a semicircular chunk out, when we got to the bridge we could see onr of the granite coping stones had a depression gouged out. Luckily for the army, whose engine it was, the tender had taken any shots that had found a target.

This was our introduction to the *******awolf 190.

A few decades ago whilst visiting Europe’s largest underground lake at Hinterbruhl in the Austrian hills, I was surprised to come across the fuselage and other bits of a Heinkel He 162, one of many built in this dark and eerie place by slave labour during the latter part of WWII. A rather disturbing memory.

Thanks for the link. She does look good.

Here you are Tim. http://derbosoft.proboards.com/thread/20647/el-berriel-gran-canaria-28

I´ve just happened upon a DC7 on Gran Canaria. So unexpected as we drove past in a taxi that I didn´t have time to take a photo. Looks to have a fairly fresh coat of paint.

When I was a wee lad, in the 1980s, went camping and fossicking for gold in the Victorian bush, as you do in Australia. Far away from everything, going over the mullock heaps of a ghost town, digging up bits of bottles. Looking at the ground. Suddenly there was an earthquake roar and two Mirages flew over a tree top height. Unexpected, jaw dropping, thrilling.

Sitting on the beach, the smell of sea and sunblock, watching RAAF Macchis sweep low offshore, showing off, pilots looking for bikinis. Every summer in the 1980’s, it seemed.

When I was a little older, got pissed at a B&S in the middle of the country, then woke up in the hay to see a Harvard-Wirraway doing aerobatics. Pulled my mate by the legs off the front seat of his gold Kingswood, and set off after the plane. Found him at an airfield where they were preparing for a country air show. Pilot saw me staring and came over for a chat.
“Would I like a ride?”
“Um, YES!”
“Do I mind if it’s a practice routine?”
“Um, no.”
“Would be some inverted flying, OK with that”
“Um, yes.”

And there I was, watching the fabric flapping against the insides, looking down the wing as saliva came out of the corner of my mouth and dripped onto the side of the canopy, sky-ground-sky-ground-hold yer mixed spirits-beer-wine in- sky-ground. Fabulous!

Driving through the rice lands, irrigation country, a straight road, an endless blue horizon, a hot day of thermals, then the sudden appearance of a yellow crop duster, dancing across rice paddies, darting down then sweeping up just before the powerlines, winging over, doing it again. Surely a dance of death, skillful, past the envelope, reckless, joyous, fascinating to watch. One day his great, great, great grandson would drop the the only missile to successfully penetrate the Death Star and send Darth Vader spinning into oblivion, and save us all. So I keep my censure to myself.

Then the sound of an Iroquois, whump-whump-whump, disturbing the careless, trivial flurry of the suburbs below, bringing monochrome images of troopers jumping into paddy fields, the beating of old war drums, creasing a frown on the upturned face of the middle aged sales executive who once carried an SLR, and the Vietnamese refugee, now in his restaurant kitchen, bringing him terrible thoughts. And you would conjure all of this, emotions out of the sound, standing there, holding your garden rake, stilled.

Great thread this –

Oct 1978 – I was a rigger at RAF Brandy (Brawdy) – I was ‘volunteered’ to support a planned VVIP Hawk flight,the only good thing about it was that I got a fair bit of Hawk flying out of it 🙂
One day I was flying with one of our QFI/QWI’s (who later became well known flying historic a/c) – anyway there we were at 420kt @ 250 feet on a low level route through wales en route to Coltishall.
Suddenly a Gnat goes whoosh a few feet over our cockpit heading in the opposite direction,it was a solo student Gnat from valley and he slightly overstressed the Gnat pulling up and over us,our ‘Headlight’ probably saved the day as otherwise we probably would have been almost invisible head on.
Closing speed was prob approx 780kt !
It took a good 5 mins for the heart rate to normalise I can tell you 🙂

Circa 1957 I was cycling toward St Albans past Radlett airfield and happened on this very strange looking aircraft with central fin and tri u/c.

I could not identify it in any of the recognition books I had.

Later I was able to get up closer to it when the airfield was opened for a model aircraft display and competition. I was able to creep round the inside of the perimeter of the airfield without getting stopped…quite a hike.

Mark

The mystery aircraft is basically a Halifax (propped up horizontally) and fitted with a Herald fin. It was used, I believe, for testing aerial installations