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Old 31st Oct 2011, 18:44
  #28 (permalink)  
skwinty
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Cape Town
Age: 70
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A bit of googling found this.

Top Ten Low Fly Pasts - Page 6


The very young Mushroom had just started at Cranwell at the time and saw the infamous flypast (albeit from a distance) in question which took place in Dec 86 for the graduation of 97 IOTC. It involved 2 x F-4, one of which went either side of the clock tower. The one who went over the parade was pulling stupid amounts of alpha (especially in an F-4) in full blower and did indeed blow several graduating cadets over with numerous others losing caps. I thought the idiot was going to stoof into the East Wing of College Hall Officers' Mess. The rear jet had a last minute sensible caption and went higher.

Upon landing at Coningsby, the pilot of the lower jet was met by his Stn Cdr and subsequently lost an already notified promotion. I've heard he also got a 2 year punishment tour in the Falklands.

The flypast was edited out of the official graduation video but is used on flt safety courses. Sadly, I've never seen it.

Regarding the B-52 pilot (who was the wing STANEVAL), this is also now used as a case history on Flying Supervisor courses. The guy was an arrogant idiot who felt he was above the law (as indeed his supervisory chain had allowed him to become). Even his wife had stated that her husband could 'do what he wants and nobody can stop him' to other wives.

The incident followed several years of progressively more irresponsible flying in progressively more public scenarios. On the course, I was shown another video of said pilot clearing a ridge on an Hawaian bombing range by 6 ft.

His arrogance - and the failure of his supervisory chain - is moot testement to Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. It's just a shame he took several others with him.

The C-135FR low flying video is probably just about the next most idiotic thing I've seen on video.

Regards,
MM
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