Last Flight of XV752-8/10/90
XV752 last flew on the 8/10/90 on a low level training sortie from RAF Leeming to RAF Cosford and I was the pilot who flew it. In fact I flew XV752 on it's final 4 flights. The aircraft was serving with 4 (AC) SQN at Gutersloh and by October 1990 the SQN had already started reiquipping with the GR7 Harrier. Half the SQN were flying the new aircraft while the other half would continue to fly the GR3 until mid January 1991.
I flew the aircraft on the 5/10/90 from Gutersloh to RAF Scampton where I stayed for the weekend and then on the morning of the 8/10/90 I flew her to RAF Leeming where 5 other Harriers had deployed that morning from Gutersloh for a 2 day detachment to conduct low flying training in the UK, we had at this time stopped low flying over Germany.
I flew her at midday on a 4 v 2 low level attack sortie landing back at Leeming and then in the afternoon I flew XV752 on her last flight, again at low level, with the final landing at RAF Cosford. I had about 10 minutes of fuel on arrival at Cosford which I used mostly in jet borne flight.
I remember XV752 with affection probably mostly for the fact that I flew her
on her last flight but also due to the fact that she performed flawlessly for
those 4 sorties. I wanted to keep something from the aircraft and actually had
a multi tool on my person but there was no time to remove any keepsake as
a Gazele helicopter was waiting to whisk me to Shawbury where a T4 Harrier
was waiting to fly me back to RAF Leeming. Hope this helps.