27mm, I do indeed recall it! It was indeed quite tricky leading that formation with all that cloud and one of the F3s kept getting between us and the MiG 29s, making the job of the journos more difficult. We had BBC, ITN, UPI, AP, Flight, Aviation Leak and TASS all taking turns to squeeze behind me to get their piccies. Janice wriggling into position was rather nice though!
Whilst we were trying to get Anatoly and his buddy to follow us through the frequency changes, we were fighting off London on the other box - we must have caused mayhem in that sector!
But the journos got their photos and the TV crews got their video onto the 6 o'clock news! DCO!!
The sneaky-beakies had a ploy to work out the fuel consumption of the MiG 29 - a Canberra with IR cameras flew over Farnborough not long after the formation had landed to see how much was in the tanks. Then every day they kept a log of how much had been supplied after each flying display... But the Sovs obviously knew of their plan as the final fuel for the trip back to the Rodina was supplied from their own source!
Re. the handshake, DB confirmed that it was indeed a bone-crusher!