Before proceeding with the main question I'd like to ask why is John Farley's book not quite available at amazon.co.uk. It says it's out of stock which I thought it's a bit odd for a brand new book.
Had the pleasure of attending a lecture as a mechanical engineering student at the RAeS in about 1997-8 I believe by John Farley with a topic on VSTOL and vectored thrust.
Anyway my main question to Mr Farley is regarding 'the Hooligan' as detailed in Sharkey Ward's book on the SHAR in the Falklands. I believe he was Lt Cdr David Poole. I've always found the chapter on flying Phantom in Ward's book very interesting. At one point he says that when he was the senior pilot of 892Sqn Dave Poole returned to the squadron after his ETPS course (apparently that was in the early '70's) and he was able to beat Ward soundly in a fully developed slow speed scissors. Ward claims that Poole learned the tricks at ETPS. Was there an F-4K airframe at the time where one could experiment with slow speed maneouvring or was this just Poole's ability which Ward confused for ETPS trickery?
Given his disdain for test pilots I guess that the lesson from ETPS (if indeed Poole learned the tricks there) served the frontline well since Ward then instituted a low level ACM programme with these lessons being practised regularly. I've searched around and found an FG1 airframe (XT597?) with the A&AEE at Boscombe Down. Is that the aircraft in question?
Also wasn't the same pilot (Poole) involved in a SHAR crash in the middle of the Falklands war while testing it back in Britain?