I’ve always liked the look of the Brigand as it looks very purposeful and must have sounded great with two Centauraus’ roaring away.

I understand there were major issues with the gun ports but does anyone know what other faults / failings the aircraft had? My father was in the RAF in the 50’s and raised his eyes to the heavens if the Brigand was mentioned.

Another dramatic aircraft. I had the unexpected pleasure of seeing an Israeli Airforce one (4X-FAT I think) land at Luton in the mid 70’s. It was certainly different from the 1-11’s, Britannias and 737’s which were based there.

This one perhaps? Depends where your school was of course! 🙂

68-0024 crashed Jan 11, 1973 near North Crawley, Bucks, UK shortly after
takeoff from Upper Heyford due to inoperative rudder.

Taken from http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/1968.html

Also listed on the ejection-history site too.

That would be the one as I’m in Bedfordshire, about 8 miles from North Crawley, thanks for your speedy answer! I remember being in the school playground as the two F1-11s flew over and thought they were a bit close together. Low flying military planes were fairly common in the skies above the school with RAF Thurleigh close by but we all knew that this was a bit different from the norm. Of course news coverage then wasnt as in your face and sensationalist as it is these days but I think it made the national news. it certainly featured on the Look East part of Nationwide! (showing my age!)

Notice the Convair 880 above?
Must be the ex-USN example.

Not many B-1s, the first retired (as a money saving move) were very early examples that lacked some commonality.

Those B-52s are pretty much gone…pity.

Absolutely fascinating! I think I could take / waste many hours looking at Google Earth. I noticed that some the images are from 2005 so I’m guessing that some of the aircraft shown are probably ‘dead’ by now, although I was suprised to see plenty of older types, B-57’s, Convairs, Trackers, Tracers and lots of Phantoms.

Wonderful… trying to find that KC97 🙂

A photo taken in the early 1970’s at either RAF Benson or RAF Abingdon, apologies about the quality of the image.

a href=”http://s972.photobucket.com/albums/ae210/leginlb/?action=view&current=s…” target=”_blank”>

It was presented by Julian Tutt, Simon Calder and Hazel Irvine, among others, who now does the sports programmes on the BBC. She is currently covering the Winter Olympics.

The girl taking her PPL was Fenella George and her progress was followed on the show.

The Air Show

Martin

Having checked a few film / TV databases, its seems we are both right! 🙂

This from Helen Youngs page on the BBC Weather Website:-

Helen was one of the main presenters on The Weather Show and has also presented two series of Strange Weather Days for Radio 4, a weather series for the children’s programme Zig-Zag and the 2000 Today millennium programme.

She was also a presenter on BBC2 Airshow where she had to show off her flying skills. She has written a children’s book on weather, which was published in both France, Poland and America.

Helen is married to a British Airways pilot and they live in Surrey with their 2 children. In 1992, she completed the London Marathon, raising £5,000 for the Guillain Barre Syndrome (a disease of the peripheral nervous system) Support Group, and in 1999 she was part of a BBC Weather Centre team that ran the Great North Run.

I thought KC-97 at first, but looking at google, I would appear to be a C-46.

Late mark Spitfire heading to Leighton Buzzard for the RAF Stanbridge closing ceremony. Theres supposed to be a Hunter display later, according to local news as there used to be an F4 (I think) on the gate.