bovingdon boy
To XV 490
regarding your request for photos etc. of Bovingdon during it's Operational days, perhaps I could help you.
I used to go flying from there regularly as a cadet in the ATC with several other pals. It is with great happiness that I look back on those days which I count as some of the happiest of my life.
My first flight was in an Anson navigational trainer and the pilot was an unforgettable character, Flight Sergeant Bob Sloane. He treated us all - I was 14 at the time - as "his boys". As well as the photographs I have many anecdotes of that halcyon period of my life.
Pics. include Hastings, Shackleton, Gemini, Lockheed T-33, Meteor T7, Hawker "Sea Hawk" which took off from there to break the London-Amsterdam speed record, Mosquito, Fairchild C-119 "Packet" and what I believe is the only Gruman Albatross to land at Bovingdon. There is also an American 'plane of which I'm not sure of it's type.
Several stories, such as the Wing Commander who crashed a Percival "Provost" which was I think a high speed conversion aircraft. The T-33 which ran out of runway and ended up with it's nose wheel between the main undercarrage legs. I could go on - it really was afabulous time and it saddens me deeply to see that state of the dear old place now.