I’ve had one over my head below 50ft transonic........
Sometime in 1984 at Staxton Wold and the mayoress of Scarborough was paying a visit. Sqn Ldr Ops asks if we can arrange a flypast and, as luck would have it, we had a singleton Lightning whose playmate had cancelled. So I asked if he could do a pass in about 15 minutes.
“Who for?”, he asked - “gold chain job from Scarborough”, says I. “OK”,says he.
So I let the boss know, tell him is clear in at his own discretion VFR and I am going off frequency to watch and rush out of R12 down into the grass in the middle of the site.
OC and Sqn Ldr Ops (Taff Leyland) along with mayoress join me and we watch the sky to the east and a dot comes into sight, silent and dropping.
“He’s fast”, I say to Taff. “About 450kts?”, says Taff. “No, fast”, says I.
He dropped over the fence, about 10ft high, at the front of the site with shock waves over the wing and rotated about 50yds in front of use. All of us went flying across the grass from the pressure wave, as did all the dustbins, fire extinguishers and everything else loose on the site - and we lay there watching him do twinkle rolls as he shot skywards.
The mayoress thought it was brilliant......