Nice to see some pictures from a different part of the world for a change. Thanks for posting them.

I believe the protesters were known as Peace Protestors as opposed to Green Peace Protestors. The missiles were housed in silos and were to be taken out into the countryside in times of tension as opposed to being fired from the base itself. In addition to the serials mentioned by T-21, I logged a few of interest (outside the airshows)

252 Atlantic 3rd Aug 83 Dutch
10878 C-9 15th Aug 83
60166 C141B 14th Nov 83 Bringing first Cruise missiles
80216 C5 15th Nov 83 Bringing Cruise missiles
80223 C5 19th Nov 83 More Cruise missiles
80228 C5 27th Aug 84
40064 C21 17th Aug 86
CCCP86488 IL62 21st July 88 Arrival of First Russian Inspectors –
during their visit, they were taken to a
‘Typical English Pub’ in Woolhampton.
CCCP65717 TU134 31st Oct 88 Russian inspection visit
20283 C40 21st Jan 89
24125?? C135/137? 28th Jan 89 Not sure of serial but a/c was military
variant of B707
N8973U DC 8 30th May 89 Hawaiianair – discharged troops
CCCP85534 TU154 16th Aug 89 Russian inspection visit
67950 C141 13th May 90
CCCP85572 TU154 23rd May 90 Russian inspection visit
CCCP?? TU154 1st Half April 92 Russian inspection visit
CCCP85566 TU154 16th April 92 Russian inspection visit

My ex mother in law was a head teacher at a primary school and she told me that a large part of the problem was the old methods of phonetics (or phonics as it is referred to now in the teaching profession) and learning by rote was done away with for being ‘right wing’. Unfortunately, it was replaced with a method which is mainly responsible for the reading and writing problems encountered by universities and employers. When they are learning to read, the children are given the first letter and last letter of a word and have to guess what the word means from that. Many schools are now going back to phonics or phonetics – unfortunately, more than one generation of children has now been let down by trendy teaching methods.
I attended a Jesuit school in Ireland. Each night we were given ten words to learn and in the morning we were tested on them. Anyone who got less than seven correct was sent out into the corridor to await a patrolling Priest who would administer five cuts of a ruler across your hand. It sounds rather brutal and I would not have wished it on my children but my whole class were very good at spelling.

I checked my log book on hearing it was G-YMMM and found I flew on her LHR-Larnaca-Jeddah on 13th March 2003 occupying seat 29A. It certainly could have been a hell of a lot worse considering how built up it is around Heathrow.

I recall an RAF Phantom failing to come out of a loop practicng for the BoB airday the following day at RAF Abingdon. I also saw a horrific sequence of photos of a Mig 23 or Mig 27 at a Hungarian airshow where the plane hit the ground in flames but became airborne again because of the flying characteristics of the plane.

Another superb report and pictures.

The Valkyrie