December 1965: XD 815, a Valiant BK1 tanker is flying the race track on a flight refuelling training sortie for two Lightnings from Leconfield. One of them is quietly plugged in then allofasudden from the Nav Radar comes a cry that the hose is rocketing in, the fuel flow has gone off the clock, until the 15 ft. valve shuts it off.
One Lightning, complete with drogue and hose valve assembly from aforementioned refuelling hose stuck on his wing has just had on engine drowned in fuel and the other is not feeling very well.
He managed to get both stabilised a few thousand feet lower down and returned to Leconfield. There it had a problem because it has a fair bit of yaw as a result of the semi-aerodynamic drogue but he did get it down satisfactorily.
The Valiant, with yours truly sitting up front returned to Marham as Honington's runway was being resurfaced. XD815 never did return to Honington because that was the last Valiant tanker flight as the decision the scrap the fleet had been made whilst we were airborne.
There then followed forty two glorious years on helicopters.