Surely not?

[Regie Mental]

Rumour has it that the 56[R] Sqn F.3 crew did a display at Walton, some 3 miles to the north of Clacton where the airshow was being held. Surely some mistake, particularly bearing in mind the banter thrown in the direction of our US bretheren over the Farnborough incident. Tell me it's not true.

:confused:

[BATS]

Reggie

Sadly the F3 world has previous experience of doing a display in the wrong place......

RAF Bentley Priory Battle Of Britain Cocktail Party - 1999/2000? Spitfire equipped with map, compass and stopwatch arrives overhead the Priory exactly at the allotted time and completes display.

Assembled crowd then awaits F3 and notes minor whooshing from a distant dot conducting some eye catching manouevres over Harrow on the Hill.

The conversation between the AOC and OC xx Sqn was alledgedly rather candid !! Following year saw searchlights on the roof of the Priory to 'assist' the F3 to display over the correct building.

Rgds

BATS

[Boy_From_Brazil]

I remember a Belgian F16, a few years back, doing a low level pass over Kenley aerodrome and frightening the cr@p out of some air cadet glider pilots. He should have been at the Biggin Hill Air Show, several miles away.

BFB

[Maple 01]

There is a historical precedent, in the late eighties Lightning mates were to conduct low level flyby of (ex) secret radar base somewhere in Norfolk. Show was especially appreciated by ATC at Bacton 10 miles away who were in the process of conducting helli ops in support of the gas fields when said fast jets beat-up the area.

Believe involved winged Gods (but navigational idiots) were asked to explain themselves at their earliest opportunity to distressed Air Traffickers

[pshakey]

Marham, 1993, RAF's 75th.........F3s lead massive (practice) flypast, a good half a mile clear of the intended target.

(Before any F3 mates get out of their prams, the actual flypast was canned for bad wx).

Anyway, back to the subject, what did happen at Clacton/ Walton?;)

[soddim]

Would not be the first time the AD boys have stuffed up in relating the green writing to the real earth - obviously some of them are well selected for their specialist role where navigational skills are not so important.

[allan907]

pshakey I was in that flypast and as far as I was concerned everyone was perfectly lined up on the flypast. I can definitely vouch for that because I have video of it taken from the m/u turret of PA474 showing the rotary boys in front and the rest of the stream behind. Pity the flypast was cancelled on the big day. Absolutely persisted down all day!

Hopefully still alive and kicking and get an invitation to the 100th:ok:

[Spot 4]

F1-11s from Upper Heyford did a fantastic airfield attack on Manchester Ringway in 1976 whilst Air Show crowd at Woodford waited in anticipation.

F15 landed at Wyton in 77 and asked Alconbury which way to vacate the runway.

HS748 opened up Langford Lodge to civilian traffic after many years of dormant ops. Nowadays the ATIS at BFS warns of L/Lodge confirming that Aldergrove is "lighted"; still not sure if that is actually an English word.

[whowhenwhy]

Some years back now, French Mirages coming to visit Colt elected to attempt a landing at Norwich airport, rather than a more conventional one at Colt. Scared the bejeezus out of a number of our civvy brethren!

[Groundgripper]

Seem to remember in the early 80s the USAF's European F-16 display pilot doing his bit for the Clophill Village fete over another village about three miles to the south east. At least being on a hill we could see it. It didn't have quite the same impact as the (US?) Phantom driver who misread his 250 ft minimum altitude clearance as 50 ft and nearly blew the marquees over. I think some of the participants in the dog show are still running!

GG

[Krystal n chips]

Gaydon, 67 / 68 ? Open Day. Lots of puff on the PA about the new navigation trainer ( Dominie) etc ------followed by a very subdued " and the Dominie has missed the Airfield"--which it had to the crowds amusement !.

82 / 83 ? Sat in yet another traffic jam on the A6 in Stockport and heard a familiar engine note. Looked on, along with many others, as two Luftwaffe F-104's travelling West to East up the Mersey Valley merrily flew over the town at about 300ft ! and a great rate of knots. Probably the only person in the jam who was happy at that point !.

[West Coast]

Well isn't this choice after all the crap thrown at the Yanks for same.

[Greenleader]

WC
Shouldn't have joined if you can't take a joke! Long live the Banter God!

[West Coast]

I can take a joke with the best of 'em. I simply enjoy seeing it thrown back in to the face of a number of limeys who went to town on the buff crew as if her majesty's finest would never do the same thing. At least the buff had to fly 10,000 miles to an airport they were not familiar with to hose up.
Read the thread about the buff screw up, there is a lot more than banter.

Well Beagle, was this:

Tornado incident is utterly unforgiveable. Stupid amateur effort

Words sound familiar?

I guess your lads were at the same nav class the now boatless royal marines gave for the buff crew.

[Flying_Anorak]

"At least the buff had to fly 10,000 miles to an airport they were not familiar with to hose up."

W.C, hate to correct you old boy but the BUFF crew in question flew a lot less than 10K miles to miss Farnborough - the B52s, B1B and F117 all operated out of Fairford in Gloucestershire that week. I know, cause I was there!

[West Coast]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14445446&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=b52-trip-s-a-bomber-name_page.html

They seem to think he crossed the pond. We do have a fair number of those left still. Okay, only 3000 miles. What's that, about the length of the UK times 10 or so?

[Maple 01]

Quoting the Mirror as a source? I'd rather use the National Enquirer!

[West Coast]

No matter the origin, the F3 bubba's screwed the pooch just as bad as the B52 guys. I wonder if we will see 8 plus pages of limey insults or will the usual yank bashers keep their mouths shut the way they have so far? All full of apologists over there now it seems. Heaven forbid another US aircraft goes to the wrong airshow then all the dingbats who have never flown a mil (or likely any aircraft) will again pass judgement.

[Spugford]

Oo err... handbags!!

[West Coast]

Handbags...with who? None of the regulars have the nerve to come out and take their medicine the way they hypocritically dished it out.

Not surprising given the limey double standard that exists on the prune. Hard to slam the yanks using phrases that condemn the whole US mil now that after this and the RM. screw up on the waterway shows the Brit mil does the same thing. Something long known but not admitted by the stodgy ego's here.

I Must admit I enjoy seeing the usuals who yank bash have to stifle the holier than thou mentality towards those on this side.

I don't think its time to send out the search party yet. A news blurb about the US mil boffing something up will have them crawling out of the holes they are hiding in with.

[Background Noise]

Agree with West Coast's basic point here. There are a lot of people here who can dish out the banter but who can't take it.

The other lesson to learn, again, is not to slag someone off cos you'll only fall flat on your face when you get it wrong next time.

[Maple 01]

Are you not being a little over-sensative West Coast? After all, just about all of NATO have been held up to ridicule on this thread.

The B52 incident didn't even get a mention until the UK AD boys got several slaggings

Score so far

RAF 5
USAF 5
FAF 2
GAF 1
BAF 1
Civil 1

Do you want to give a link to where there was some outragous Yank bashing?

[BEagle]

Did it really happen? Probably had the Spam exchange officer in the back 'navigating'....:E

[West Coast]

Well there you are Beagle

I knew if I trolled long enough with the proper amount of bait I could lure you out.

[HalesAndPace]

Does this (http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/afm151.htm) count as a "fair" bait then, albeit slightly off-thread.......?

[Scud-U-Like]

Hales

That all depends on whether you buy the "faulty targeting" story. There was much speculation this may have been a cover story and that the Chinese Embassy was indeed the correct target, because they were carrying out support operations for Belgrade.

People in glass houses......We manage to keep an MOD office and an RAF Police team fully occupied, dealing with flying complaints. They can't all be bogus claims and serial whingers, so someone is flying where they shouldn't be.

West Coast

Beags was displaying a rare spark of irony. Don't spoil it!

[BEagle]

Yup- hook. line and sinker! Predictably!!

Of course if any so-called display crew can't find the right display site, then it's a pretty pi$$ poor performance. Whether from a B-52 bristling with navigation aids and a brace of navigators which still managed to miss an international air display - or from a fast jet crew who managed to find the wrong village. Rank amateur performance whether Brit, US, Russian or Martian!

[threepointonefour]

javascript:smilie(':mad:')

BEegull. Whatever. You're an idiot.

People make mistakes.

The unmentioned F3 crew work bloody hard to provide flawless displays around Europe and sometimes as far away as South America, whilst doing their day job training F3 crews.

They get about 1 day off a week to provide airshow spectators with a quality display, and on the day in question, they make one (non-critical) mistake you pPrats jump all over them. And mostly, the pPrats in question have no notion, no idea and no experience of display flying.

I'd love to see the F5000s of some of these contributors .... I'm sure there are some interesting mistakes to be found in the anals of your old reports.

Nobodu here has managed to put some perspective on this incident. Funny, yes. But not worthy of such "rank amateur" comments. Worse things happen. Let's not forget that Douglas Bader lost his legs because he screwed up. And from reading the Mail on Sunday a couple of weeks ago it seems as though he may actually have been the victim of a "blue-on-blue".:mad:

[BEagle]

Nope. If it's true, then they screwed up. Sorry if you don't like that being stated.

Re. Duggie B - that was over 70 years ago, so hardly merits comparison.

I understand that some mate called Icarus also cocked up when he exceeded his authorised clearance somewhat earlier still. Perhaps you think that equally relevant....

[ORAC]

Yeah, but he lost his wings for it.........

[threepointonefour]

" Re. Duggie B - that was over 70 years ago, so hardly merits comparison. "


Why not? He screwed up too. Was he a "rank amatuer" - after all he was doing a (poorly executed) low-level aerobatic maneouvre at the time. At what point in history do we stop making comparisons? 2 weeks ago? 2 years? 25 years? All screw ups are relevant. Only an idiot wouldn't acknowledge them and learn from them.

That said, anyone with the time to make over 3000 posts on a rumour website must surely learn this one fact; that the rest of us are out in the big wide world, living our lives and making mistakes.



" If it's true, then they screwed up. Sorry if you don't like that being stated. "

I believe I stated that myself. But here it is again for the hard of reading; if it happened as reported, then yes they made a mistake.

[Fox_4]

Just out of interest, when did you last do a display season Beagle?

How about you cut the guys some slack. Everyone is working bl00dy hard, not least all the different display crews. If its not flight safety critical then so what if they missed the display line by a fair bit. Its their pride thats dented, not yours!!


Anyway the F3 display rocks.
More burner = more of the sound of freedom

:cool:

[Red Line Entry]

ORAC - you bu99er! You made me spill my coffee with that quip!

[threepointonefour]

Sorry for the typo ...

" Was he a "rank amatuer" - after ... "

Amateur.


My MISTAKE.

[BEagle]

Roughly Pi, ammachewer performance or not, 'twas hardly flawless IF the story was true.

And Fox_4, the ac I flew didn't do displays. But having grown up in the school of "long bomb reports" meaning that a missed target even in V-bumbler training was a serious event, I made certain that all the flypasts I was tasked to do in the Vickers FunBus were planned and executed with precision, flown with a good crew, on time - and at the right place ;)! Honour was at stake! The 'sunset flypast' one at the covert Oxonian aerodrome in 1989 is still remembered by many.....

The 'rocking' that the F3 display does, according to you, would that be wing rock? Saw an F-111 nearly buy the farm pulling up in mega wing rock with the wrong wing angle at the last Alconbury Airshow - the next day he flew the same pass with lots more wing!

I will certainly agree though that Jet Noise IS the Sound of Freedom - and to hell with the greenies!