My last trip in the FunBus before CFS-lobotomy was a sunset ceremony flypast at Brize....
We'd been given absolute assurance by the band that they'd play for exactly the stated length of time, plus or minus a few seconds. So the plan was to have a mate ('Sumo' - more polite than his other nickname 'Hiumper') on the roof of the OM in UHF contact to give us a call as we left the holding orbit somewhere south of Faringdon for the run in, adjusting speed against time to go in order to get the ToT spot on.
Mistake 1 was to trust the band. As we turned South in the hold, Sumo called to say that the event was running a whole minute early. Fast thinking Welsh nav (Keith R, sadly now RIP) did some quick calcs, we accelerated to as fast as was allowed-ish and came racing in. Time was catching up nicely as we passed my visual time check points at the Faringdon folly, Clanfield Tavern and finally at the Horse and Groom, Black Bourton we went to idle and adjusted to the run-in height.
But it all looked rather low (the 'K didn't have a rad alt) when approaching the planned height. In fact I could only just see the top of the OM over the trees, so eased it up a bit and went over the parade at idle thrust - I can still remember seeing Sumo taking cover as we whizzed overhead.
To those on the ground it looked rather good though. It was a flat calm balmy summer evening, the Parade Commander was standing at the salute knowing the band had cocked up and hoping for the best, when from behind the trees emerged a silent FunBus going rather well, shortly followed by the vortices causing rather a ghostly shaking and rustling of the trees in front of the parade. The photographer was taken totally by surprise and hadn't managed a single shot.
Fortunately the Stn Cdr thought it was great and never asked why we'd been so low as he plied us with beers at the after event party!
Mistake No.2? I realised some time later what that was - I'd forgotten QFE and was still using the Cotswold RPS. As 289' elevation and a briefed 300' msd rather indicated!
Last edited by BEagle; 29th Jun 2017 at 14:29.