Beagle
Glad to hear that my memory of the stories I heard all those years ago was essentially correct. The strange thing was that, because the Marquee was so vast and the numbers attending so huge, some people who were there missed out on most of the action and afterwards couldn't see what all the fuss was about. A bit rowdy perhaps but, according to them, nothing really out of the ordinary compared to other Dining-In Nights of that era. Other guys who were heavily involved in the 'activity' told completely different tales of general mayhem and drunken debauchery - it all depended where you were sitting.
With regards to the Vulcan crash at Heathrow, I had no intention of starting a debate on events that occurred over 40 years ago, rather my intention in mentioning the incident was to set the scene and explain why feelings were running so high.
With the greatest respect to the views of Cornish Jack, perhaps I should shed some further light on the incident and hopefully draw a line under the debate.
Firstly, my memory failed me and I was wrong to say that the 3* joined the crew for the final leg - he was with them from the outset. Here's roughly what happened:
Vulcan B1 XA897 was equipped with Green Satin, NBS, Blue Devil (T4 Bombsight), Gee Mk III, Marconi Radio Compass, Radio Altimeter, Air Mileage Unit, Periscope Sextant Mk II and ILS. The Aircraft departed Boscombe Down on 9 Sep 56 on Op Tasman Flight with a Sqn Ldr as Ac Capt, the 3*, 3 other Sqn Ldrs (one was also a fully qualified pilot) and an Avro rep. The aircraft routed via Aden, Singapore, Melbourne, and Adelaide to Christchurch in New Zealand. After appearing at various flying events, the aircraft routed back to UK via Brisbane, Darwin, Singapore, Ceylon and Aden. The aircraft left Aden on 1 Oct 56 for the final leg to UK. The plan was always for the aircraft to land at Heathrow where a VIP party would welcome the crew. As the aircraft began the approach the weather at Heathrow was about 1,100 yards visibility with 8/8ths cloud at 700 feet and 2/8ths cloud at 300 feet. The 3* left the decision whether or not to attempt a landing up to the Captain - the nominated diversion was Waddington where the weather was much better. The aircraft commenced a GCA approach - I don't think Heathrow was actually equipped with ILS in those days, but I may be wrong. The Captain had decided on a DH of 300 feet (1 mile). The talkdown provided by the GCA controller probably wasn't particularly good - he was probably more used to piston engined airliners and the speed of the Vulcan on final approach might well have caused in him problems, who knows. Either way, the final call from the controller was when the aircraft was at 3/4 of a mile from touchdown, when he notified the pilot that the aircraft was 80 feet above glidepath, in other words at the DH of 300 feet.
The aircraft struck the ground 1988 feet short of the runway and 250 feet North of the centre line taking off most of the undercarriage and severing most of the flying controls. The plane got airborne briefly, allowing the pilots to bang-out at 800 feet, but sadly giving insufficient time for the rear crew to exit through the door - the plane would have been to low for them to have had much chance of deploying a chute anyway. I think the presence of the 3* in the right hand seat, with all the additional pressure that entails, was cause for considerable comment - particularly as a more experienced pilot was in the back, but officially nothing more than that.
The RAF Court of Enquiry blamed the Heathrow GCA controller saying ' the failure of the controller to warn the captain that he was going below the glidepath was the principle cause of the accident'. A subsequent civil enquiry also determined that there was 'an error of judgement on the part of the pilot in selecting a break-off height of 300 feet and in going below it'. Readers may draw their own conclusions as to the actual cause. Either way the 3* is not in a position to defend himself, I saw his obit in 'The Daily Torygraph' some years back, and I suspect the Capt has also departed the fix. I think it best to let matters rest there. The above detail was obtained from 'V Bombers' by Tim Laming published by Patrick Stephens in 1997.
Anyway, back to the reply from Beagle. Bastard Bill and the 29(F) 'pink rabbit' Dining-In Night affair at Coningsby in the early 1980's. Was that the occasion when a demolition derby took place on the front lawn and was subsequently widely reported in the national papers? The 55 Sqn 'let's saw a table in half' Dining-In Night also sounds interesting -I think we need more details !!!!