Pete TrumanWasn’t the F100 brought over from Wethersfield slung under a helicopter when the last USAF personel pulled out,1991,and didn’t it originate from the French Airforce?
Pete TrumanPS: What happened to the camo Thud that used to be parked on the other side of the airfield,only visible from the heath at the back of Lakenheath village.
Pete TrumanRemember the model/American comic shop in Mildenhall with the link to Mildenhall tower,I happened to be in there one afternoon when they reported the first deployment of F117’s to Lakenheath,we shot over to the end of the runway and watched them taking off,luckily I had my video with me,sure enough at 17:00 while the Stars and Stripes was blasting out the tannoy,one of them made a slow pass across the setting sun,most impressive.
A few years later we went to a craft fair in one of the front hangars,there just happened to be a pair of Starfighters,Italian ?,parked nearby,unfortunately the armed guards wouldn’t let me photograph them and had no knowledge of why they were there,or even what they were.
We managed to sneak off round the main base and view the memorial garden,probably would get shot now.
Pete TrumanI have hair raising pictures of Sally B being flown at Duxford by Don Bullock at that time,were’nt the Imperial War Museum going to have Sally B removed because of this.
My pal and I always thought that he had some kind of deathwish,as I said in another thread,I saw him attempting the barrel roll at Mildenhall a week or so before the Biggin incident.
Incidentally,I first came across Duxford in 1975 and saw Sally B in metal finish parked next to the road,not having seen a B-17 before I cheekily went over the sad barbed wire fence and walked round it in wonder taking several colour slides that I am unable to reproduce here.
Pete TrumanIsn’t that Hanningfield Metals,was still there last year.
Does anyone know what happened to the Lincolns parked at Tollerton,Notts in the late 50’s,my brother has some photo’s of them with me in the cockpit,they were to be converted to “Lincolnians” to be used to ferry meat over the Andes,I think that 2 had been converted but some hadn’t,we were able to crawl all over them.
I recall that the scheme fell through,but what happened to the aircraft?
That day there was also a Brazilian airlines Constellation in the Truman Aviation Hanger (no relation).
Pete TrumanJust a comment,did anybody see the last Blue Angels display at Finningley,was the singleton high speed flyby a little close to the top of the big wheel,which was occupied at the time.
Pete TrumanReply to Kodak:-
The only airshow I’ve described from the outside was Duxford 2003,with regard to Mildenhall,we were routed in through the town and the south east crash gate taking us along the eastern end of the runway,very disconcerting as the KC-135 was about to roll,we were parked right at the eastern end of the airfield and by the time we sorted out all the usual gear , and my parents ,the mentor had started to display.
We were heading for the flightline when my wife and mother decided to go to the portaloo,at this point the plane crashed in a haze of fuel and dust right in front of us,within the airfield and in full view of several thousand people,my wife burst into tears and wanted to go home,but my father and I thought the flying we had seen was
not safe.
You are right about people not being aware as later on we were further up the crowd line and people were wondering what the wreckage was all about.
It was Wethersfield 88,we had just moved to Finchingfield,a hot day and a friend of mine from London was helping me wire the boiler,you could see the landing lights from the garden,the Starlifter made a startling appearance over the village while the Phantom circled over my house,my friend and I decided to walk to the airshow,the only time I’ve ever been able to do this,and we did pay to get in.
Wethersfield is now occupied by the MOD police and is a bit of a sad place although the local ATC still fly gliders at weekends,summer weekends can be a bit hairy with the gliders up,aircraft landing at Stansted and the Duxford warbirds roaring over in transit,last year we watched a spitfire cross only a few hundred feet below a Ryanair 737.
WebPilot:-
The Hucknall display was 1972,I had bought my first SLR,a Zenit of course and the shutter failed on the day so I have no photographic record,I remember the impressive take off by the Blue Angels when they went low level inverted over the M1.But don’t forget it was the first display by the Reds after a bad accident and they were determined to prove a point which they did impressively with some incredible low level manoevers.
Finally,back to the Firefly,There were a lot of people watching near the crash site as there are houses nearby,one of which does an airshow barbecue,I think that alot of the people in the houses just came out to help and were in a bit of a state of panic,usually their is a police barracade at this point but they were away patrolling the road,we were grilled by a policeman who had been an investigator at the P-36 accident.One bloke had a lucky escape as the aircraft went just over his head,he kept videoing though and the results were shown on BBC Look East,very scary.I recall the pilot doing a series of flick turns to try and recover,if he had gone down hill he may have recovered but he may have been aware of the number of people in the field down there.What was the results of the Firefly inquiry?
Pete TrumanHave been going to airshows since Newton in 1956 when Canadian sabres broke the sound barrier and have seen few accidents or dismal airshows.
I seem to recall a tiger moth at Hucknall in about 1963 losing it’s undercarriage while balloon bursting but he did an emaculate landing,incidentally I have a colour slide of a razorback P-47 at that airshow,what happened to it?
We used to go to Syerston in the 50’s but went to Cottesmore for a change and fortunately missed the Vulcan crash,was it 1958,we were stuck in a traffic jam at the time!
I remember an airshow at Cottesmore about 1960 when their were terrible thunderstorms and I recall cowering in a hangar and watching the Hunters of the Black Arrows doing their stuff at exceedingly low level.
The first fatal crash I saw was at Mildenhall in the early 80’s,it was the opening act and involved a US Navy T-34 turbo mentor,we thought at the time that some of his aerobatics were a bit low and he went in just in front of us nearly hitting a KC-135,the awful part was that the ground crew made no attempt to conceal their efforts at pulling out the bodies which were shovelled into body bags in front of us.
A weather affected airshow was Coltishall 1980,it was difficult getting in because of the traffic,then thick fog lingered all day,as the 40th anniversary of The Battle of Britain,every flyable spitfire was due to attend,but only the BBMF made it I think that the Rolls Royce spitfire got lost and had to abort.
Unfortunately it was to be the first public display by the prototype Tornado fighter variant,he tried,but my pictures reveal a foggy blur.It took 5 hours to get out of the airfield.
I think that some of the Mildenhall airshows of the late 80’s got a bit bland but were perked up by the first Gulf war.
During the same period I went to a Wethersfield airshow 1984? when I am sure that the RAF Phantom pilot lost it,he seemed to be oscilating badly on one of his turns,that was the year that a Starlifter got stuck in the mud while taxying also one of the resident gliders crashed on landing but everyone was OK.
We used to go to the West Malling shows in the 80’s when some of the flying was distinctly hairy,a particular sequence involving a mustang and spitfire and several pilautus,I won’t name the pilots,had us virtually diving for cover.
I was at Mildenhall in the 80’s when Don Bullock attempted the take off barrell roll in his Invader,much to the chagrin of the commentator,and us,a week later he did the same thing at Biggin Hill and we all know what happened then.
I was at Duxford the day before the Lightning incident,I have the same sequence of events on video,it did look a bit dodgy and it was coming staight for me.
I saw the Black 6 go down at Duxford,we all saw what looked like a stream of coolant coming out of the engine,then my battery ran out,he did a good job of avoiding the traffic on the M11,my nephew has a video of the incident.
With regard to the Firefly,that day I decided to watch the show from the field opposite,sometime it’s a pain to go into Duxford and have to put up with the people on step ladders as the Autumn airshow proved.
When he came down I thought he’d come down on the M11,however it was obvious he was down in the field,people up there were in a hell of a state,I rushed over to the crash site,but when I saw the state of the wreckage,I knew that they could not have survived,however the wheatfield was full of frantic people running about including kids,oblivious to the fact that the fuel could have gone up,one kid triumphantly waved the pilots helmet aloft,then someone found his body,fortunately the rescue crews arrived and cleared everyone out.
The next thing that happened was the arrival of Reuters with their sattelite link taking pictures,they were sick *******s and I told them so.
I was also at the last lightning show and it was grim weather,has anyone got any video footage to sell me?
Pete TrumanFilming of Memphis Belle
Was at Duxford nearly every day,even saw David Putman and got pally with the official film company stills photographer who got sick every time he flew.
Mother and Country blew a cylinder over Southwold,the cowlings were never found,it damaged the port rear wing and tail and landed on 2 engines trailling smoke,the P-51’s landed in a panic,one of the pilots told me what had happened,have loads of pictures though all on slides,best story was group of American vets arrived at Duxford,I was leaning on the fence next to Concorde as the 5 B17’s were taxying past,they had no idea what was taking place and just burst into tears,it was a very moving experience.
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