Flt Lt Al Colesky
In 1970 the RAF still offered opportunities for fun, and after completing the Nav Course at Strad, four of us were sent to Linton to do a 4 week low-level navigation course on JP's. We were each allocated a pilot for the course and I was lucky enough to get Al Colesky who was a member of the Linton Gins (seen in Stevew62's picture, above, 2nd from right). Lesson one was aircraft famil and Al decided that as well as low level nav he ought to teach me to fly. Al reckoned that the boring stuff like straight and level could come later and talked me through a loop, which was literally the first manoeuvre I ever performed at the controls of an aircraft, and in a brand new JP5 with loads of power was something even I could manage. A great guy, a South African as I recall, hope he is still around and getting fun out of flying. I spent the rest of my flying career on Victor Tankers where anything below FL250 was considered low level, so the course wasnt a lot of use to me, but boy was it fun.