One flight from Chivenor sticks in my mind, with all you GCA experts discussing the equipment's technicalities.
A Hunter T7 needed an engine airtest and J/T Bloggs, a fitter, asked if he could come as he had worked on the aircraft. I was only too happy to have him along provided his boss agreed so off we soared into the wide blue yonder. I did the necessary test checks and having lots fuel remaining made a practice div to St Mawgan. The cloudbase was reported as 100ft and the active runway was, if my memory serves me correctly 12 or 13 so the sea fog was hitting the coast and rising to form stratus over the airfield. I did a QGH/GCA with the intention of descending to minimums then overshoot and back home. I was able to explain the procedure to Bloggs. After the "left a bit/up a bit" talkdown I carried on down to 150ft when low and behold the runway appeared right in front of us on which I did a "roller" then off home to Chivenor. My passenger was most impressed and couldn't stop talking about it. This would have been in 1968. In a later life it was possible to show various people on the jumpseat how an ILS approach happened. A pity it is no longer allowed.
In about 1957/8 Chivenor had a brilliant GCA controller called Jack Harrild who gave great confidence when his voice came over the R/T. He was a horse racing man and the final part of his patter was along the lines of "you're passing the six furlong post now". He'd be flogged for using non standard patter now, but real individuals who knew their job were a delight to work with.
Last edited by 26er; 18th Aug 2013 at 21:13.