XS 186

I was at Manby 1972/3 before we moved to Leeming in November. XS 186 was not on the inventory of Manby or Leeming at that time. I left Leeming in December 1975. Sorry I can’t help

TSR2’s

I was an apprentice at the then Hawker aircraft factory at Ham, near Kingston when the TSR2 programme was stopped. All the centre fuselage jigs were parked at the back of the hangers and protected with lanolin grease.Some time later the “the men from the ministry” came down to witness the jigs being cut up. Thereby avoiding any later,embarrassing, resurrection of the programme should a different government get into power. That would have been in the early 60’s

B767

Not quite as low as some,but good fun!

B767

This was taken from the Tower in Brunei as i flew down the taxiway

Swords

Gulp ! I had more hair in those days.
The number 4 was Dick Thomas who sadly died in a Hawker Hunter in, I think, South America.

Macaws sequence

Macaws fairweather sequence was :-
1.Run in from behind the crowd in wide line abreast to a join up loop in box.
2. Barrel roll right in box,wing over right into card four.
3.Loop in card four.
4.Wing over right into box loop changing to swan.
5.Barrel roll right in swan
6.Loop swan into box.
7.Half loop in box into inverted flypast and pushing out at the end to rejoin for
8. Loop in finger four
9. Wing over left into line abreast, loop in line abreast and wing over right into card four.
10. Barrel roll left changing into box.
11.Half loop and roll into bomb burst break from the down vertical.
Land and make straight for the beer tent!!!
Hope that all makes sense.
During the loop to the invert the leader would call ” stand by to push,pushing now” and that would be the signal to operate the ailerons in the reverse sense. Quite difficult to learn really given what we are all told about forget the horizon just formate !!!

Swords Aerobatic team 1974

This is the brochure (leaflet) for the 1974 Swords team. We were partly sponsored by the Wilkinson Sword company which i believe was the first time a civilian company had been allowed to sponsor an RAF team.

Macaws etc

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I have tried to attach a picture of the ’73 Macaws brochure but it says i have exceeeded the allowable size.I will have to do it in two goes.
Displays in 1973 included all the usual UK venues plus Cologne ,Auf Dem Dumpel, Friedrichschafen,(Konstanz) and Bamberg. When i find my logbooks i will find the others