[QUOTE=Pete Truman;1335607]Can anyone confirm this, I was present at the BoB 50th anniversay flypast at Buckingham Palace in September 1990, only a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait, and the first aircraft in the leading diamond nine was wearing this particular ‘pink’ camouflage scheme, I don’t recall whether it was a Jaguar or a Tornado, QUOTE]

It was indeed a pink Jag in that formation. Also in the formation, one of the Jag drivers was a German on exchange, quite apt as it was the BoB 50th anniversary!

The black blotches scheme was applied only to a handful of RAF Chinooks for “covert” duties. As said, the US forces did not change any camo although certainly an A6 and A7 received a 2 tone desert scheme, if only for the trip home and a part in the film “flight of the Intruder”. Thr French already had many a desert schemed jet from Chad and Djibouti service.

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Further to other posts,
1)I saw the 104 Starfighter crash at Yeovilton. It was making a very low and tight final turn to line up for a fast flybye and just slipped sideways into the ground about 1/4 mile from the runway.

4)A fatal accidental zero ejection from a static Harrier (I think). Can’t remember the airfield.

1- The ‘104 was turning finals to land and stalled.
4 – If it was the same one I saw, it too was Yeovilton, Air day 6 Sept 1975. The display aircraft, a GR3 from 233 OCU was taxying back to dispersal (by the old tower), shut down and as the pilot exited the seat (still have’nt found who the poor soul was) the seat fired sending him and seat skyward. An awful scene for a young lad to witness….

I think you might be thinking of a fatal Turbulent crash at a display at Sleap, Shropshire. I witnessed it but the details are pretty vague after all these years.

It may have been late 1960s, if not then early 1970s. The act was a formation of three Turbulents, tied together by cord. One piece of cord broke and jammed an aileron of one of the Turbulents, causing the fatal crash. I’m guessing that the formation came from the Tiger Club, but I could well be wrong.

I can’t really add much more. I tried googling with some of the keywords but it doesn’t seem to find a match.

Ahh, Sleap would be much more likely, we did go there quite a few times- thanks! I too have googled to no avail, I may try the local papers archives, its one of those incidents that you feel you need closure on!

I saw Halfpenny Green mentioned earlier, I was one of the 30000 that witnessed Prince William of Gloucester and passenger perish there on 29 August 1972. He had taken off in his Cherokee at the start of the annual Goodyear air race held at the air show, and hit a tree, losing a wing and crashing near a farm house.

My first air show memory is Gaydon BoB 1969 and have airshowed ever since and thinking back I’ve seen quite a few airshow accidents & incidents.

Sorry to have caused confusion JB (it’s something I’m good at) My meaning was that the Vulcan was the only V-bomber they did it with to the best of my knowledge. I certainly had no intention of implying that it wasn’t done with other types as I am well aware that it was. My sincere apologies for any misunderstanding caused.

I’ve seen Farnborough footage from the ’60s of both Victor and Vulcan performing simulated LABS manouveres, both service machines.

This thread prompted me to watch again my VHS copy of “Where the big birds fly” -a Yorkshire TV production from 1973 IIRC. It follows the crew (including a very dry and straight faced John Porter as captain and the only other named individual – Radar Nav Robbie Stewart) and Vulcan XM600 during low level training from Goose Bay. Some spectacular images of a Vulcan down on the deck, but one of the final sequences, seemingly shot from a boat or island in the middle of a lake clearly shows ‘600 approaching at low level then pulling up extremely steeply and beginning to go onto its back as it were. Annoyingly, the camera cuts away then and the follow thru’/roll out is not covered. It does definitely illustrate a LABS manouvere though.

Very nice. ‘696 being the solo display jet (first F3 -previoulsy F1/F1As had been used) for 1974 ,flown by FLT LT Chapman who went on to win the solo jet trophy at the IAT, Greenham Common.
This machine was the spare..

Have been doing some more digging on Vulcan’s painted in the wrap scheme and have updated the list to include XL318 and XL359….

XH561, XL318, XL359, XL389, XL425, XL426, XL427, XL444, XL445, XM575, XM605, XM648, XM652 & XM657 (plus XH558 in gloss display scheme)

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Just to emphasise that ‘558s paint job was very much a one off designed to give a long lasting finish in a spurious wrap over scheme. The grey used was light a/c grey, so inaccurate in many ways. So when (if)you see the old girl at airshows in the future, turn away in disgust as its not a representative cold war Vulcan which was a requiremnet of lottery funding!!

[QUOTE=David Burke;1221278]The programme was ‘entertainment’ – i.e not everything you see on television is real .QUOTE]

😮 Really?!! 😎 There are many reasons why I just cant get on with the bloke- hes a dinosaur. But I did change my mind slightly when I saw the effort “he put in” to have the Lightning preserved. To find out it was just a sham, well that really annoys me, especially as hes made a fair wage for his love of “mean machines” and his apparent passion for them. 😡 I know I’m not alone when I say I’d kill for the space, time, funds etc etc to have a lightning in my back garden yet here he has just turned it into another pile of crap tv making him look good.