Where Are They Now?Please feel free to post contact information here if you are looking for long lost friends or trying to find out what has happened to colleagues. Obituaries and condolences can be posted here too.
Sad news indeed. As for many others, Spud gave me my first 'airline job' & a grounding in aviation that has served me well. In those days the 'interview' was just 'one on one' & conducted with great humour. Aviation has lost both a great pilot & character! My thoughts with his family & many friends.
Dear Erica
I have only just come across your post, and am sorry to hear Spud has left us. When and where did he fly Meteors? I was in no1, and 92 Sqdns.
My one meeting with him was in 1958, when I flew a Taylorcraft Auster round UK into Radlet looking for a job interview with Handley Page He strongly impressed me as an extremely kind man but there was no room for another junior pilot. Then he had the courtesy to come outside in the drizzle and give me a hand swing on my propeller to start me on my way Vince Hallam
There are great legends about this man,and I was lucky to have heard most from those that had known him at Air Anglia and Air UK.I remember well the F27 G SPUD,but as BLFJ it was known as Fxxking Junk.We had another bitza in G STAN,known as" Stan Stan the Vibrating man".Both were hybrids with 100 fuselages and 200 wings as far as I remember,and had a tendency to fly sideways!!!I digress,as the point of this reply was a tale that sums the man up! It was told to me by an Handley Page Flight Test Observer, who claimed to be one of the few to have flown past Mach1 sitting backwards ,in a Victor, with Spud flying.However after his horrendous Victor accident,he lost his Flying Medical Cat,so to prove he was going to get it back,he is said to have staggered and crawled his way up the full length of Radlett's runway,after which no mean feat,he proved no matter what he was going to fly again!I seem to remember he had broken his back so a very remarkable man.RIP.
Memory can play tricks,but like Wellington Bombers with Dart Engines,the F27s were excellent fun,with the very best Training.The Suck Squeeze Bang Blow Job,and been" Fockered" ,were frequent topics of hilarity,which Spud's equally good Aviator successor,Dennis Brennan,carried on-Flying with just two fingers whilst having an excellent conversation with you on a Line Check!!!Very happy days.
Funny the things that stick in the memory. SPUD was the regular Humberside aircraft. One day I was sent to Leeds/Bradford at short notice to fly a -200. After take-off, I was happily setting 14,000rpm and tgt of 700+/-OAT/2, when the FO gently said "er, it's 14,200 and 730 on a -200." In its reincarnation as BLFJ, departure on 32 at LBA was a good one to concentrate the mind. "In the event of engine failure, we'll hang a left at the cemetary and fly down the valley" Fine old aeroplane.
