RE: Former Shuttleworth pilots

Don’t forget the late Neil Williams

Steve

A good memory for Me was the 1984 Fighter Meet.I started off by flying down from Seething airfield in Norfolk with My father in the Chipmunk G-AKDN (Hence My interest in its whereabouts) invited by the late John Watts who was one of the organisers of the event we were given flightline passes,so I managed to get into the cockpits of many aircraft including,
The Dutch Dakota Association DC-3
TFC P.51D Mustang Candyman, TFC F8F Bearcat
RNHF Hawker Sea Fury T.20 WG655, RNHF Swordfish
OFMC Pilatus P.2 G-BJAX, Vintage pair Gloster Meteor T.7
And last but most memorable, DH Mosquito RR299
My lucky day I think !!
later during the show Ray Hanna performed some amazing displays with the P.40 Sneak attack terrorising the press photographers who wandered out onto the grass between the crowd line and the runway,then on a coach to the visiting aircrew/groundcrew bar-b-q some guy says “Hey that guys got the p.40 flying again” he was an American, the late John Crocker ,turned out he had flown it over from America for the OFMC,what a weekend ,don’t get many like that!!!!!!

This is my first post ,so I hope you like it ,
It was June 1976 , I was 12 years old and attending the annual Seething air show in Norfolk where my father was a club member.
Amongst the participants was the Yak-11 G-AYAK based then at Booker, and displayed by the late Neil Williams ,and what a display he did with it, infact I can still visualise Neil taking off and only just clearing the end of the runway because of the take off run needed.I also managed to get Neils autograph,a real result for a then 12 year old .
The following year the Seething airshow was in May, my highlight was the arrival of TF956 with Pete Sheppard at the helm.
that display was awesome,I had seen TF956 at Duxford,but I had never seen a display like the one at Seething (maybe it was because it was such a small airfield) got some old polaroid pics somewhere i’ll post them if i can find them if anyone wants to see them.

Steve