Two He111’s, about half a dozen Buchons and the same number of Spitfires and a Mitchel camera ship over Romney Marsh in 1968, I was about 9 years old. I also witnessed a 3rd scale Spitfire being dropped from a Helecopter, the Spit was on fire and the wings came off just before it crashed onto Dungerness beach. The wreckage was there for years after, it had a huge concreat weight in the nose.
My Dad took me to Hawkinge aerodrome (now a housing estate) where there were loads of Spitfires and Hurricains lined up, also some replicas for blowing up. A few days later I saw Spitfire MH434 being displayed at Lydd by the late Neil Williams, I have been hooked ever sinse!

Did you see the Harvard Formation team’s tribute to Martin Sargeant at Woodchurch a few years back, one of the most moving scenes I have ever experienced.

God Bless you Martin.

Hi Yak 11 Fan,

The Harvard Formation Team is in fact an evolved version of the original. At previous Woodchurch shows some of the original members, ie Martin Sargeant, Anthony Hutton & Gary Numan have flown as part of the team.

Rather like the Red Arrows really…………….. 😉

Steve

Hmm, a difficult one, about 25-ish types in the book, mostly spammers. The only noteworthey ones are Harvards, Wiraway, Jet Provost, Yak 52’s, a Victa Airtourer, various Cubs and a Tiger moth.

I least enjoyed the Airtourer, nothing againsed the type, but this one was a heap. The Harvards are great, the Wiraway was too, I was a million miles behind the JP for ages, but my favourit has to be the Tiger, you do need to use your feet alot, but what a lovely experience. It is a ‘balmy summers evening’ type of aircraft, or in my case, my intro onto the Tiger was in Austraila, dont get many chances to fly one on the UK any more.

‘Balmy summers evenings’ are also reserved for sailing my boat, but I guess tha’s a different forum……… 😮

Its the event of the year for me, I havn’t missed one yet! I used to live down that ‘neck of the woods’ & moved away nine years ago. In those days I used to fly-in long distance from Lydd! Ah, nostalga aint what it used to be…..

If you’ve never been to Woodchurch, do it this year, you will not be dissapointed.

Stefan flew Hunters for the RAF & for the Sultan of Oman. I believe his Father was a Fighter Pilot in WW11.

My first memory of Stefan would be at one of the Great Warbird shows at West Malling in Stephev Grey’s Bearcat – awsome.

Speaking of West Malling, I dropped by there last weekend to see if the control tower was still there, well it is, although it looks a bit sad with building & development going on around it, it has been fenced off though, does anyone know anything ‘concrete’ about it?

If you are including more recent Fleet Air Arm pilots, then Prince Andrew saw action in the Falkland Islands conflict.

And Andrews Father, Prince Phillip was an RAF Pilot. I have an Air to Air photo somwhere of his first solo in a Harvard, taken in the mid fifties.

Its a good thread this…………………… 🙂