I’m going tomorrow. I won’t be going to RIAT; too many compulsory attendances there previously and, like several others on this forum, I sadly have not the time or money to go to all of them. I think Duxford is the best but that is my opinion of course.

Hi all – a couple of photos taken of the 2 lunchtime departures on Tuesday . .

Many thanks for posting. I didn’t have my camera with me and I was too busy (supposed to be working you see) but the familiar sound of the vipers brought me out for a quick look!

Newly Historic Jets – Dominie

I was suddenly reminded of earlier times when today, at Cranwell, the noise of 2 vipers, which has been absent for some months, suddenly caught my ear and an RAF Dominie got airborne and departed. I was aware that most of these aircraft were still at CRN, only 1 having been flown out fairly recently for preservation (to Cosford). Where was today’s aircraft going? (I suppose I could ring Ops Wg tomorrow but someone on this forum may already know).;)

The meteors both belong to Martin Baker. I presume they are modified Mark 8s or modified T7s. (I can’t remember but someone on the forum will know and I forgot to ask my colleagues!) The Gloster FSM was in the hangar.

So do we know if any of them have gone to the Med this week ? It wouldn’t surprise me if they had. Just the kind of situation that the R1 was made for.

Indeed, when we had the capability but those days are largely gone now. Others will now do our defence business for us. (I hope!)

Think it was just the one aircraft at Boscombe Down on acceptance trials that was painted silver/dayglow orange, n’est ce pas? Beautiful colour scheme though, I agree.

The early Dominie paint scheme featured a thin line of Light Aircraft Grey above the red fuselage stripe, but this disappeared in the 1970s. Then the Grey nose disappeared (post modification), and finally the ghastly black paint arrived. Surely the most colourful examples were the Cranwell machines with their blue fin bands?

I hope that the preserved examples lose that awful black paint scheme – it seems so inappropriate for an aircraft that served for decades painted red and white! Then again, if Cosford are to acquire a Dominie, why can’t they have one of the examples from the ground school? These are painted in “proper” colours and are also “proper” T1 aircraft with the original shorter nose. Give them a black machine and transfer one of the “real” Dominies to the museum, say I!

Did the final formation pass over Manby or Strubby? I would hope that these sites weren’t forgotten but then Stradishall was ignored…

Ahh, happy days, watching Dominies roar into the sky at Strubby while the Varsities squealed round the perimeter track. I seem to remember speeding through the old V-Bomber low level corridor with a navigator in the back of a Dominie, who is now better known for his connections with Key Publishing… Hate to think how long ago that was!

I do hope NAM get a Dominie. That would be astonishing if the dear ol’ Dominie didn’t find a place in NAM’s collection. Then again, you’d think Aeroventure at Doncaster really ought to have one too. Personally, if I lived in the beautifully-restored control tower at Strubby, I’d have to get a Dominie to park outside… there’s enough runway left to fly one in too (just!).

I agree, I do hope NAM get a Dominie too as they have pretty well every other training type that flew at Cranwell! I would also happily chip in a (small-unfortunately) donation to a fund if one was set up. I quite like the “Skunk” scheme but it does look better on a sunny day! However, a Dominie in the red, white and grey is the scheme I remember with most affection. I remember a Dominie trip to Norway one winter’s day (as ballast!) to Stavanger from Finningley and back. It was a grand day out. One of the pilots was John Peters.

Dominie bows out on Thu 20 Jan 11

Further to the post from last month, I saw an e-mail today that the Dominie will indeed end its distinguished service with the RAF this month (20 Jan to be exact).
As you probably all know, the Dominie has served the RAF well as a rear-crew training aircraft which, for many years, has provided crews to a number of front-line aircraft; WSOs/Navs, FW and Rotary Loadies, and ISTAR platform Sensor Ops. To commemorate its retirement, the Dominies’ operator (55 (R) Sqn) will carry out a number of flypasts at locations around the UK during the coming week, in recognition of its 45 years of military service. These flypasts will culminate in a final flypast at RAF Cranwell on Thu 20 Jan 2011. Whilst the Dominie has been due for a replacement for some time, the MFTS contract development has meant that the aircraft has been in service for longer than perhaps some of us expected. It has been part of the training “scene” for a long time and, whilst its demise is not premature, I’ll still miss it when its gone! I don’t know any details about the flypasts but I’m sure someone with the “gen” will post on here soon!

Sad but not surprising. I echo a lot of the sentiments on here, but have to say that this has been coming for the last 15 years. MOD wigs have wasted such insane inordinate ammounts of money in the last 15 years, on incompetent badly thought out, and bungled procurement programs, it was only a matter of time before a government was forced to make such sacrifice. the crunch has come for MOD

it’s MOD’s fault, rather than a question of short sighted MP’s. As an organisation, it has resisted change or any efforts to make it more efficient and less wasteful for the last 20 years, putting it in the sitiuation it is in now. It’s easy to target defence cuts as the culprit, but how can a badly run, old fashioned organisation expect to continue to write off £8-12 billion every year on complete c0ck ups, and then baulk when huge culls like this take place?!. I’m no politician fan, but seems to me its easy to blame them and private industry, when fury should be directed at the top floors within MOD. We only get to see the end reasult, ie Harrier and Nimrod cancellations, but just look at every sigle procurement deal in the last 15 years, and it makes for astonishing reading!. The incompetency and wasteage within MOD really is absolutely incredible..and it has now come up against a roothless government that is prepared to do what ever is necessary to deal with it. Read the Dispatches papers on MOD procurement for the last 15 years, its a real eye opener!!

poor Harrier! 🙁

What he said! Its ironic (I suppose) that my entire military life, from being an air cadet (yes, in 1969!), through 8 years in the Senior Service and 24 years in the Light Blue until retirement in 2010 almost matches the service of this wonderful aircraft. However, unlike me, the Harrier made a difference and the public loved it, but we can’t afford it. Endex! (Doesn’t make it right though!)