My main memory was when the RAF finally quitted Mildenhall. There was a vast Officers Mess Dining Night. Lots of Very Senior Officers from the past were present – some a bit doddery!!!. A good time was had by (from all accounts) all. All the historical Mess Silver was on display.
A few days afterwards the RAF Sgts Mess held its Final Guest Night. The CMC had managed to wangle the retention at Mildenhall of the 3 Grp Silver for the Sgts Mess Formal Night. We invited all the Very Senior USAF SNCOs (Chf Top Mstr Sgts, etc, etc, – USAF NCO ranks have always confused me!). We had an excellent meal. The CMC had to stop some of our US colleagues from smoking between courses! After The Loyal Toast we toasted The President of The United States. Our US colleagues were gobsmacked at that, and at the traditional formality of the occasion. Their Top Man, in reply, said that he had lost count of the WW2 epics master-minded from these buildings. He then surveyed his colleagues and told them “This is a training course. This is how we will do it from now on!”. A few days later they did!!! I can only relate that on both occasions, the latter stages, were, as the report on the post-Falklands dinner on board one of the Carriers stated, “The conversation became relaxed!”. Contacts were made on those occasions that re-surfaced, in operational circumstances, many, many, years later. OK, two nations divided by a common language! We knew our bizz, and they knew their bizz. Good guys.
That’s my memory of Mildenhall. Not, perhaps, aviation orientated – but a memory that sticks. And as I type BBMF have just flown over the 2nd Test at Leeds in salute for TMS 50th anniversary! Not bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Resmoroh

For what it’s worth I don’t think those are hills. The cloud formation is 6/8 Cu (Type 2) as the lowest layer and 7+/8 high Sc or low thin As as the upper layer (strong, crisp, shadows). I think what can be seen beyond the trees to the left of the fin top are the tops of more Cu2 in the distance. The shot was taken somewhere around midday in the summer (a/c shadows almost directly under the wings – so the sun must have been high in the sky. That is also confirmed by the stage of development of the Cu2 on a normal summer’s day. The a/c appears to be pointing North (position of shadows). TE400 does not appear ever to have been on the strength of the THUM flight, or 5 CAACU.
HTH
Resmoroh.

I flew back from El Adem to Blackbush in G-AJBO in Oct 56 at the end of my Nat Svc. Eagle operated the Med-Air schedules at the time. As we flogged up across the Med I got (as a Met Man) to sit in Co’s seat for half an hour. As we entered a small Cu (Type 2) cloud the Skipper advised me to move my left knee slightly to the right. I asked why. 30 seconds after we entered the cloud water started to drip on to where my knee would have been. “We’ve been trying to find that leak, and fix it, for weeks” quothe the Skipper!
Those were the days when real aeroplanes had fans on the front and flew through the weather, not over it.
Peter Davies

Lion Rock, Hi,
Upavon is, fairly certainly, still in the same location as it was from the very beginning (but Lyffe will have to confirm this). See http://www.content-delivery.co.uk/aviation/airfields/Upavon.html.
Have no knowledge of the various Larkhill’s although the current(?) New Zealand Farm strip may be a contender.
HTH
Peter Davies

Interesting video. Shows a lot of the “front end” action quite well. But what has got to be remembered is that WE did not “win” the Falklands Campaign. THEY “lost” it. THEY made bigger and more important mistakes than WE did (and I was on Ascension long before the Task Force left UK, and arrived in Falkland just after the cease-fire) – and WE made plenty! What is needed is not to re-live the Tactics (and the euphoria) but to take a long, hard, look at the Strategy – using 20/20 hindsight as the Staff College lecturers will do (I would love to sit-in on some of their modern lectures on the Falklands Campaign!). A lot of, apparently un-committed, nations either assisted US – or did their best to negate what WE were trying to do. And I’m not just talking about the USA and/or the USSR.
There is a lot more about Op CORPORATE that needs to surface before we can draw any real conclusions. Did the UK Navy know it was their last throw of the dice to remain a Blue-Water Fleet? Did the RAF know that without BLACK BUCK they would have become mere “Truckies”? Would WE, as a consequence, have ended up with one, combined, military arm (viz the abortive Canadian experiment!). From a military point of view WE did what WE were best at. However, as we live in a democracy(?) the military are beholden to the politicians. And how many of them, now, have actual military experience – very, very, few! During the planning, and execution, of CORPORATE there were a large number of politicians (M Thatcher excepted!) who had had military experience. It showed.
Not now, I fear!
Rgds
Peter Davies

When I was mucking about with the V Force the Vulcan and Victor were described as very good V-Bombers – but a long time in the gestation. The Valiant was described as a relatively cheap ‘n nasty stop-gap measure which could be produced quite quickly. It was never meant, for example, to be parked outside. This meant that dust and grit blew onto the fuel-line expansion sleeves and with age the seals degraded. On a calm night, about my routine met observations, you could hear the fuel dripping out of the Valiants as they stood on the pans. Indeed, in the latter stages there were drip-cans placed under them to stop the leaking fuel from eating the asphalt away!
HTH
Peter Davies

Tony,
That London-Shannon leg by DC-3 and then across the Pond in something bigger makes sense. Except the original post says 3 hops! That must mean going by “The Pretty Route” (i.e. via Keflavik – Greenland – Newfoundland) and the bigger boys wouldn’t do all that nausea if they could make it across the Pond in one go? I would still like to know how far a DC-3/C-47 would go on full tanks until they became empty tanks! One source says 1400 nm. In which case all the legs (Stornoway-Keflavik 582 nm (or Shannon-Keflavik 798), Keflavik-Narssassuaq 650, Narssassuaq-Gander 795 (or Narssassuaq-Goose Bay 673)) would all have been well within the range capabilities of a DC-3/C-47 provided it was not battling into headwinds and airframe icing, and provided it’s payload was not too great!!!! The technical experts will, I hope, give their opinions!
I would be very interested to hear from any real DC-3/C-47 Drivers/Navs what they think of this theory. At roughly 8 hrs per leg in the thundering, rattling, ‘roach coach’ of a Dak must have been a very daunting undertaking. Rather them than me – and I’ve done more than a dozen Op CORPORATE ‘Herc’ Airbridges (either from ASI to Stanley, or t’other way round!).
This problem is beginning to intrigue me!
Peter Davies