Wow, comprehensive answer.
I do remember as clear as day trainspotting at our local railway bridge at Wollaton, Nottingham one late afternoon/evening in the late 50’s and seeing one of those things fly over quite low heading north in the direction of Hucknall aerodrome, whether he landed there or not was never discovered. Where would they have been based in relation to Nottingham, Bruntingthorpe?

Unlike the RAF, the USSR never had the assets to carry out a prolonged bombing campaign against Germany, which I consider had a great delaying effect on reducing the Luftwaffe’s capacity to develop advanced aircraft or missiles, and the nations capacity to develop a nuclear weapon, which was always a possibility.
Without any military pressures elsewhere and Hitler allowing the real military tacticians to run the show, I think that the USSR would have been defeated quite easily, producing an infinite amount of slave labour and then the s*** would really have hit the fan for the remains of the free world, including Japan.
When exactly was the B-36 concieved, was it after the US had entered the war or earlier.

There was a brief mention of his passing on Anglia News last night with a photo, perhaps there will be more on either Anglia in 25 minutes or more likely on BBC Look East at 6:30. I trawlled the digital news channels over the weekend but nothing was mentioned.
Presumably MH434 will be readied to fly at his funeral, maybe even the Reds.
I remember entering a competition at North Weald during the 80’s to fly with Ray in the P-40. The competition was won by a rather rotund gentleman in his 50’s.
I hung around at the end of the show to watch the proceedings, Ray gave him a safety chat and strapped him in, the poor bloke looked very nervous.
The take off was very gentle and straight and level, eventually the plane was looped then rolled, but then someone flew down the runway in a Buchon, possibly Mark, and all hell let lose, Ray rolling over to dive onto and intercept the Buchon, eventually flying a close formation.
When the P-40 eventually landed and taxied in the poor bloke had to be helped out of the cockpit by Ray and he looked extremely shaky, but didn’t throw up, bless him, what an experience.
Must go now and put on the news.

This makes me feel very old, I remember watching the Flying Bedstead experiments at Hucknall in the 50’s which led on to the Harrier, I can’t even remember the first time I saw one of these fly, must have been during the 70’s. Seeing them as mangled airframes at paintball sites is very sad.

It seems that alot of my heroes have passed on recently, John Peel, my old man, Roger Freeman and now George Best and Ray Hanna within a week, it’s fitting that I should be writing this while Besties funeral is being shown on Sky news.
John Peel I met having gate crashed the Lincoln Rock Festival in 1972 and got backstage, George Best I saw play 3 times during his heyday and score 2 stunning goals against Forest, Roger Freeman wrote to me in connection with an enquiry and I cherish his letter.
Ray Hanna though, what a pilot, I must have seen him so many times during my airshow visits going back 50 years. Probably unknown to me he did solo displays during the 50’s and 60’s while serving with the RAF and I saw him when he was performing and leading the Red Arrows.
I never actually spoke to the man, out of shyness and awe, but brushed passed him many times around the OFMC hangar, particularly that door, and even on the DX flightline.
My most memorable bit of flying was during a West Malling display in the 80’s when he was flying MH434 and Stephen Grey was in ‘Moose’, taking on a motley collection of Pilatus and BF108’s. Moose flew low over the front of the crowd line but Ray flew so low and fast underneath him that we almost threw ourselves on the ground, but then you never thought that Ray would ever make a mistake during one of his displays.
I’m honoured that I managed to watch that last display in October, I was looking forward to the great Spitfire show next year, but all DX displays will never be the same again.
I don’t know what the cause of death was, was it due to the strain of flying all these years, I suppose the loss of Mark was a terrible blow which he must have found hard to cope with.
Perhaps he should have taken MH434 with him, he could have given George Best flying lessons in exchange for dribbling skills.
Farewell Ray Hanna, you will be missed by everyone.

I remember going to North Weald for the Flypast Fly-in when Diamond Lil was supposed to appear and my son and I hoisted ourselves into the B-25, which was in a terrible state internally, think I have this on video somewhere. Similarly we were able to walk round bits of the Lincoln which were very overgrown.
Wasn’t the front section of the Lincoln, ie cockpit area, originally from a Lancaster and aquired by Charles Church for his destroyed Lancaster project, and, come to think of it, what happened to the bits of Lancaster.
I remember that day at North Weald, in his hurry to answer a phone call, Gary Numan knocked my son to the floor, of course he was very apologetic, however when there would normally have been tears, young Jack thought it was the best thing that could have happened to him that day, apart from those wonderful burgers in the Clubhouse, never did see Diamond Lil though.

At this time of year I would definately go to Madingley at dusk and watch the flag being lowered combined with a trip to the side chapel at Kings College to see the original copy of Rupert Brookes famous poem ‘If I should die on some far foreign field etc’, hand written on War Dept notepaper.
The last time I tried this, one of the vergers chucked me out on the pretext that the place was closing. When I pointed to the well healed and well scrubbed Japanese tourists swarming all over the place he decided to pick an argument.
I came to the conclusion that he didn’t like the idea of a bloke in jeans and tatty A-2 flying jacket accompanied by a young kid with runny nose entering the hallowed chapel, so I told him what to do with it.
I haven’t been back since.
On the other hand it only takes about 20 mins to drive from DX to Mildenhall/Lakenheath for a bit of afternoons noisy entertainment.