ChoxPagen is quite right in that the Canberras were based on both sides of the runway. What has always been a bit unclear is when (or why) they moved en-masse to the south side. As I said previously, they were definitely in residence on the south pan by summer 1977 so I’m guessing the move was made in 76 sometime.
As for the mysterious “City of Truro” aircraft, it is indeed true that WJ715 was also named at one stage – I’d simply forgotten about that but I have seen references to this before (but not an actual photo, strangely enough). So there must have been three Canberras which wore the inscription/coat of arms at different times.
The other bit of SM which always interested me was the old Victor ORP up near Spitfireman’s house. I’ve only ever seen one photo of Victors actually on it, plus the well-known PR shots of the OCU Nimrods when they did their first press call. The only other aircraft I ever saw on there were 19 Squadron’s Phantoms when they deployed to SM one summer (about 77-78 I seem to recall?). Anyone remember seeing any other aircraft over on those dispersals (excluding Nimrods during the air days of course!)?
Does anyone remember the Sunday afternoon when six Dutch Atlantics and eight French Atlantics all arrived and lined themselves up along the north dispersals? That was quite a sight – and a surprise!
ChoxThink my best and worst ones apply to Phantoms. Worst one (I think) was battling round Cumbria in the snow in an F-4J (plus three others from 74 Sqn) in a scrap with a gaggle of Tornado F3’s. Started off fine but I wasn’t well that day and by the time they’d done I was moaning “can we go home now” – and puking my guts up. All I could see was hills and snow either side of me and the smell of rubber, oil and sweat was enough to ruin my day. The only time I ever threw-up in an aeroplane and I’d like to hope it remains so!
Best one though was probably with 111 Sqn courtesy of Archie Liggot, taking a Phantom out over the North Sea to do a supersonic run and then a demonstration of just how agile the FG1 could be if you were brutal enough with the controls. Wings flapping, intakes banging, just brilliant. Thanks to a top-up from a VC10 there was fuel to spare so I asked if we could go back to Leuchars and do a few overshoots and rollers. Sounds pretty tame but I was always impressed by the thrill of popping the burners in and just feeling that big old brute accelerate. They don’t make ’em like that any more.
ChoxI take it that this means it’s a morning thing?
Maybe I won’t bother then:D
ChoxI knew an ex 7sqn techie who says they were based at Carnanton until at least ’78
Sounds about right. I spent a week’s holiday nearby in August 77 and the Canberras were definitely on the south side by then as I remember they were night flying one evening – couple of T4’s and a T19 and they were all on the south pan. The Squadron’s admin, crew room and flying clothing etc., was all in a building directly behind the Nimrod hangar by 1981 for certain. Those T19’s were just magnificent! They were probably complete piles of junk by then but they sure looked mighty fine!
ChoxBruce Bull was a guy that I was very grateful to even though I never met him! He sent me a well-known b&w photo of a 7 Sqn Canberra (which he was flying) and kindly arranged for me to go and photograph their Canberras. While I was there I asked if there was any chance of getting a ride in one and Bruce arranged it although he was on leave at the time of my visit, so I never met him. I must have been only 18 or so at the time so it was like a dream come true – the afore-mentioned WJ715 before it was named “City of Truro” (Think WJ639 was the other one?).
Wonder when 7 Squadron moved their Canberras over to the south pan? I seem to recall that the first time I visited St.Mawgan was 1976 and they were already based on the south pan by then, so they must have only been over near the woods for a few years. I used to spend so many days sat up at the end of the runway at Tregurrian with the Nimrod pan over in the distance in front of me… waiting for the infamous “pssst…pssst” from the south pan and then a short wait until a Canberra popped out from behind the control tower!
ChoxThink I might pop over too – sounds fun!
ChoxI’ll leave the “gay thing” then if people are bored with it. I’m not on a crusade, I just thought we were having an interesting debate about the subject but fair enough, we’ve probably exhausted it in any case!
PS Monsun, I suspect Damien did like my last book/s and presumably bought them, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to write-up his hilarious “reviews”!:p
ChoxI remember wandering round the Atlantic one day in XV244 – some guy called Tom McLean (I think?) – he’d sailed across the pond in the smallest-ever vessel. Anyway we found him eventually – boat looked about the same size as a fridge and he sure looked happy to see a Nimrod!
ChoxClarkson is only saying what the vast majority of us are thinking
Ah but that’s the point – you might think it but you have sufficient respect for others that you don’t say it. That’s the difference between you and Clarkson (and the salary I suspect?) :p
ChoxWell indeed, political correctness can go way too far. But the problem is being able (or willing) to differentiate between what is a harmless joke and what might have wider effects. Most of the gags in Carry On films are of course just typical British seaside postcard humour. Admittedly there are some lines which might be considered racist now, but overall it’s just harmless fun (I’ve got a boxed set of the whole lot!).
But it’s like I was saying before – the jokes are fine provided that they don’t feed the implication that being gay is some sort of crime, somehow wrong, or makes the person somehow inferior to anybody else. Same applies with jokes about black people or anybody else. It’s fine to make a joke which simply refers to the colour of someone’s skin, but not if there’s an implication that this then means the person is somehow inferior. That’s the distinction and some people are just incapable of the right sort of judgement.
As I said before, it obviously doesn’t matter to us grown-ups who have heard it all before and can either look at someone’s comments as either being ill-advised, or even intentionally offensive, but ignore them either way. The problem is with young people who look towards older people and their peers to make judgements and form an attitude. Mr.May’s seemingly harmless comment was no better than some of the stuff that Clarkson spews-out… on the face of it a funny line, but still implying that it is therefore either funny or wrong to be gay. The result? Kids believe it, hence the endless bullying, suicides, beatings and all the rest. Things have got so bad that the term “gay” is now used by youngsters to actually mean “bad” …
I hate political correctness as much as anyone else. The problem is that the PC Brigade often seem incapable of making any judgement as to what actions/words are either simply ill-advised, or potentially poisonous. Thing is, I don’t any problem with May, Clarkson, Moyles or anyone else making cheap gags (funny or otherwise) about gay people. What I do object to is the use of gratuitous comments like the one made by Mr.May which his production team (if not the man himself) should have identified as being both unnecessary and potentially harmful. For example, he could have got-away with it if he’d simply said “…and this is James May – my partner… not not my boyfriend – my partner… oh good grief” or something like that. What he actually said was that it “sounded like my gay lover” the implication being that this was somehow an awful prospect (which it might well be for him – don’t know – don’t care!). You see what I’m getting-at.
Okay, it’s a fuss over a very small comment but it was made on a very popular TV programme which will have been seen by millions of kids. It is, therefore, wrong. Substitute the word “gay” for “black” and you see how offensive it sounds.
It’s only a week or so since a police officer was beaten almost to death on a street in Liverpool by a bunch of lads who thought it was somehow acceptable or funny, because the poor lad happened to be gay. You have to ask where people get this kind of attitude from and you have to conclude that it comes from stupid and ill-conceived comments from people who should know better (like May) and big-mouthed fatheads like Clarkson. It’s not necessary and it certainly ain’t funny!
ChoxMH’s photo bring back fond memories. I was at that show and I went to look inside the hangar display… I heard a piston flying outside and I assumed it was a Dakota – oops, missed the Sunderland!! 😡
ChoxThing is with Jeremy, he is quite amusing and making gay innuendo gags is fine, but it’s just the way he does it sometimes. It goes back to my gripe about Mr.May’s comments. If he made jokes that were simply good-natured then fine, but he has this nasty habit of basing a lot of his jokes on the premise that being gay is somehow bad or wrong, and that is therefore the basis of the joke. That’s what I (and lots of others) find offensive. It’s not offensive for us folks who really don’t care what random idiots say, but they forget that kids hear these things and it becomes a sort of accepted wisdom – so that we still have kids growing up with bullying and misery, all because people like them perpetuate this 70’s-esque rubbish.
People think it’s just us poofs being sensitive but it’s not (I’d be inclined to say that most of us have better senses of humour than most – we have to!)… it’s just that we see the wider picture and the way that seemingly harmless throw-away comments can be pretty poisonous. I used to give dear Jeremy the benefit of the doubt and put it down to his care-free use of humour, but when you read some of the stuff he’s said, you have to conclude that he’s basically just a shameless bigot. Shame really as I’d be disposed towards liking a guy who evidently loves planes and even had a Lightning in his garden… but you can only endure so much from him before the humour wears off! As for Mr.May, I’d like to think that he isn’t, and that his comment on the Beeb2 programme was just a little ill-advised. If anything, it’s his production team that ought to have thought twice before leaving it in.
I know – it’s sad when you feel compelled to pick-up on seemingly innocent remarks, but believe me, these things do have consequences. I guess the basic problem with people like Messrs. May and Clarkson is that they don’t really grasp the true potential power of television. Soppy Will Young might think it’s really cool to be on Top Gear and go-along with Jeremy’s humour, and shrug his shoulders when Chris Moyles makes jokes at his expense but Will’s in a nice little celebrity bubble – he’s very good at saying that he doesn’t want to be a “gay spokeman” (thank God!) but at the same time, he also fails to grasp how letting people peddle this kind of adolescent humour does have an effect on people. Like I said before, if these people had kids getting beaten-up on the streets or at school because children think it’s right to look at being gay as being funny or bad, then they’d probably think (and act) very differently!
ChoxAbout half-a-dozen at one time
This gets better and better! Stop it now, this is just wrong on so many levels! 😀
ChoxIf we’re looking for a vaguely serious answer to a distinctly hypothetical question, I guess the result would have been cheap off-the-shelf purchases (from the US) to make-up for the vast amounts of money which would have been poured into our contribution, until somebody had the guts to say “enough” and pull out.
Hmm… sounds awfully familiar…
Vietnam showed was that being a bigest bully on the block doesn’t mean you will have your own way
That sounds vaguely familiar too!
ChoxBet you had Action Man as well?
I thought we’d finished with all the gay slurs? 😀
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