Greetings Danny. Congratulations on all your magnificent contributions to reach this milestone of 10000 posts in this thread.
A few pages ago #9438 you reminded us that you [QUOTE]Never flew the Spitfire Mk. IX - reckoned to be the best of the Merlin Spits - but had a few hundred hours on the Mk. XVI - the exact same thing, but with the Packard Merlin replacing the Rolls-Royce. Couldn't tell the difference.
At Valley, 20 Sqdn, 1950-51. Happy days !
I was there Danny !!! Imagine 6 year old FG on the beach and in the sandhills at Rhosneigr watching you and hooked on aviation for life ! From then on it was the Vampires T11s, a school visit to Valley, model aircraft including my own Keil Kraft Spitfire, magazines and books etc etc. Later CCF ATC (first flight in an Anson at Cottesmore) and from school to an apprenticeship and a career working on VC10, TSR2 (2 weeks before they cancelled it), BAC 1-11, Tornado, Hawk, Typhoon….
Reading through your posts I was delighted to find a mutual acquaintance I met W/Cdr Alex Hindley in India when posted to work on Jaguar. It’s a small world.
This and other PPRuNe threads have been a great help in understanding the world that both my father and my father-in-law lived in WW2 Both passed by the Gateway of India in Bombay in 1942, my father as a Lt RNVR at HMS Sheba, Aden and my wife's father as a Sgt, 565th Field Security Section (Intelligence), RA attached to 33rd Indian Corps. Troop ships, convoys, Indian railways, dress, sickness are all in the threads.
So now I've retired I am back in my late fathers home …under the flightpath to Valley. Thanks Danny