Apologies in advance for the thread drift.
The RAF pilot who confused his weapons switches is presumably the same pilot who loosed off a Sidewinder on the ground ? Was he then a guest at the weddingof the soldier who got in the way of the missile?
And I'm sure his picture featured in a Pilot recruitment brochure of the time ?
Nope, the Sidewinders that hit the party of Welsh Guards at the end of the runway at Port Stanley came off a GR3 after the war and was caused by a techincal malfunction. The RAF Pilot who had problems with selecting Sidewinder was the late Flt Lt John Leeming who was trying to engage a CANA A-4Q that had just bombed HMS Ardent. When the winders failed to lock on because he had failed to select one switch, he selected guns and made a very close in gun attack which resulted in the Skyhawk exploding in front of him. Of course you could add that the topic of this thread also fired a winder by mistake when he was actually trying to drop a bomb during that war....Good thing his wing man was behind him.