Originally Posted by
ShyTorque
At Linton-on-Ouse, RAF BFTS graduation days used to be allowed a traditional "ring around the operational squadrons in UK and get what you can get to fly by" airshow.
Not surprisingly, these began to get a bit extreme as pilots all tried to outdo the previous one in whatever way they could.
During my time there in the late 1970s, the Chief Instructor, a Wing Commander, had his office on the first floor at the front of the hangar facing ATC, looking out over the airfield. On the morning of a graduation, a Buccaneer flew past his window at such a low altitude, at almost 90 degrees AOB as it pulled around the corner of the hangar, all the Wingco saw was the tops of the crew's helmets. The left wingtip must have been almost scraping the peri track! The CI's PA (Sgt Gunn?) was just bringing in a tray of coffees and he said he was so surprised by the sight and noise of the Bucc that he almost threw the lot over the CI.
Unofficial graduation flybys were banned from that moment; in reflection probably a very good thing!
One of my course mates at Shawbs was ex-Tonka GR1 and he managed to get a couple of his mates to go very low with reheat plugged in over our grad. Shock waves like that produce a lovely feeling deep in the stomach!