My favourite Bulldog
I flew 553 as my first Bulldog flight on ULAS on 23 Nov 93 and went first solo in her on a few flights later on 21 Jan 94. During my 3 years on ULAS. I flew her more than any other of the fleet as she was 'owned' by Sqn Ldr Colin 'Santa' Sills who was my main instructor for the first few years. If I remember correctly when he did retire he was the last person serving who had done National Service.
What was great was that having flown aircraft as old as the Beverley there wasn't much us students could do that he hadn't seen or recovered from before. So I got to bring manoeuvres from my holidays to try in the Bulldog, it was never - no don't be stupid boy. It was, well let's go and see. Horizontal rolling loop in a Bulldog, well let's go and see. How far do you think we'll get? Well neither of us could get it beyond 1/3 of the way around but I suspect neither of us were actually at all practiced doing it!
Lovely aircraft. My favourite? In service certainly and looking through my log books I flew 12 different Dawgs. My favourite? Well that'll go to my good mates XX537 and mine, XX629: both now in civi reg but like you I'm sure still flying them hard (but not quite like we did when we didn't have to pay for it).
I'll check my photos but I've a feeling all my formation pics were taken from 553. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!