Originally Posted by
treadigraph
Pobjoy, David Perrin in the RF-5? I recall now, it was written up in Pilot (I was given a stack of old copies) and there was a pic of the RF-5 passing by TC members as they prepared to launch. Probably '74 or '75.
I'm reminded of Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic: "Those days are gone now, over a long time ago..."
Thread drift I know, but darn it, it's interesting!
As I recall the 5 came in before we had started and we were all furiously swinging our very cold engines. The ground was white with frost and the W80 and 100 oil was like syrup. The driver of the 5 was Brian Stevens who was one of the Sportair managers. The length of the 5's wing and it's pencil like fuse made it a very graceful yet impressive sight as he rolled, and he was very low. After it was all over and we returned back to RH I looked down upon row after row of parked machines and wondered if we had enough food to cope with it all, but our girls managed to get in some local extra supplies and and it was a fantastic effort by all.
Of course it was only possible because Michael Jones who ran the Tiger Club allowed it to happen under the auspices of the local PFA strut thereby ensuring a 'blame trail' did not exist (you could not write the script), and Gatwick ATC were very laid back by it all.