one beautiful , hot sunny afternoon in the late 80’s, i’m doing a see off on a tornado at honington, we’re waiting for another aircraft in the three-ship to have a snag fixed, so i’m sat on the powerset next to the aircraft, the crew are all finished doing their checks, so there was a bit of chat going on…then the pilot says “eyes right chiefy”….i turned my head just in time to see a very low level beat up by the flying cast of memphis belle, 3 B-17’S , mustangs and messeschmits…i could hear the rumble of their engines even though i was wearing a headset, and had a jet running next to me!
a few years earlier i was working on the visiting aircraft section at RAF valley, and we used to get a spitfire in every couple of months from france (from memory it was the last airworthy PR.22), as the pilot used to go game shooting nearby. it was near christmas and the pilot turned up at sunday lunchtime to go back to france, and very kindly gave us 3 bottles of champagne (1 for each shift) as a thankyou for looking after him. after he’d done his walkround we got chatting and my mate asked him if he’d do a beat up after he left….so he gave us a sly grin, and said ‘i’ll see what i can do’.
after he’d taxied out we wandered to the edge of the pan to watch him takeoff…and boy what a takeoff!……he just retracted his gear, and kept the aircraft very low, banked it round, and aimed straight for us, passing overhead at what must have been about 20ft!!!…the noise was glorious, the woosh hit us, and he pulled up, giving a gentle wiggle of his wings….a sight and sound i’ll never forget!
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