treadders-
ooops!, not the best way to remember a display, I like to recall Phantoms blasting through and rocket climbing into the blue (or more typically 8/8!) surrounded by a halo of vapour! - awesome.
RAF flew the Phantom until Autumn '92 (Good God - just realised that was 11 years ago!!), no solo in '91 for some reason but 74 had the honour of performing the last UK Phantom displays during the '92 season using 2 a/c with joint 56 & 74 sqn markings. This season was'nt without mishaps however as the AAR probe door fell off whilst practising at Mildenhall- landed in someones back garden -ouch! From then on the dirty barrel roll was replaced with level fly bys - much more photogenic and less stressfull on the old girls.
RP/CK-
thanx for the info - I'm sure I've seen Abingdon mentioned somewhere - I'll do some more digging.
Apparantly 4 Phantoms were lost in '78- 2 FG1s (May & Nov) and 2 FGR2s- (July & August) Presume the Naval one you refer to would be XT868, 12 May.