Des wasn't one for 'rushing' things and when he first flew the Fieldmaster from Sandown in December 1981, he had already arranged a 'rollout' ceremony; for Farnborough that same afternoon!
The weather was pretty grotty, cloud about 1,200 ft amd I didn't think he'd make it in to us.
First I heard was a faint burst of carrier wave accompanied by a d/f trace. I didn't think it was him because the d/f trace showed somewhere in the vicinity of Andover rather than from the expected direction of Sandown but I transmitted 'blind' to try to get 2-way with him and ended up getting him to fly along the railway line from Andover towards Farnborough.
I never asked him how he'd got where he was and didn't intend to, but eventually he got the airfield in sight and after landing they put the aircraft in 'A' Shed (which was next to the control tower) so that the groundcrew could 'ceremonialy' open the doors and wheel the aircraft out.
In 1982, or it could have been later, he flew it at the Farnborough Airshow, the one snag being he wasn't allowed to demonstrate it during the display as SBAC didn't want him dumping a load of water on the airfield.