fast jet over london

[GodisMyCopilot]

just heard what sounded like a fast jet over london, i'm in oxford street anyone else see it? also saw a spitfire going into northalt last night most impresive!!

[Britney Spears]

That'll be Tony Blair sending in GR4s to take out the Yokels of Mass Disruption at the Houses of Parliament yesterday.

'I got a brand new combine harvester,
and my wife got a thousand pounder"

Doesn't quite scan!

[jimgriff]

London -----Smuldon

Over my office yesterday I saw:

3x gazelles
6x F15 Eagles (went round and round a few times)
2 x Tucanos
Loads of Hawks
2x Tornadoes
1x Long ranger civvie helo
1 x herc
1x Bo 105
1x A190 Police helo
2 x Harriers

Welcome to the Mid Wales free airshow..

And that was a quiet day:D

[Sarria]

Saw 1 x Jaguar.

May have been flying over Westminster/ Buckingham Palace

[the_flying_cop]

jimgriff, thats a whole lot of planes you can see. is that just a one off or all the time.

where do you work, in the middle of a field in a welsh valley????

the last military beast i saw was an AWACS or E-3 Sentry doing a touch and go at manchester.

i wanna work in jim griff's field, not that im a spotter or anythin.

im fact i tell i lie, i was driving down through leicestershire and a tornado gr.4 went over my car so low and so fast it burn the paint off my roof. loved it !!!!

[pr00ne]

"im fact i tell i lie, i was driving down through leicestershire and a tornado gr.4 went over my car so low and so fast it burn the paint off my roof. loved it !!!!"



Er, somehow I don't think so. I think your memory is about as reliable as your grammar skills are wanting.

[Gainesy]

In answer to the original question, maybe it was something to do with yesterday being Battle of Britain Day?

All we get hereabouts are LGW grockle tubes and the occasional Chinook to spice things up.:(

My house needs "re-wiring", maybe a PM to Max on t'other thread?:cool:

[BEagle]

You know Pr00ne we were just saying yesterday how, 10 years or so ago if you drove from somewhere like Swindon to Finningley during the mid-week you could guarantee to see plenty of military low flying. FJs of various types, Finningley JPs, the odd Bulldog even.

But now - nothing.

Way back when I was a CCF cadet (grunt) at school, our Exmoor camp was right underneath the V-force Main Route. Vulcans thundering overhead at 300 ft made a lasting impression!!

[Tarnished]

Aah, nostalgia not quite what it used to be.........

[jimgriff]

I live on the coast in the middle of Wild West Wales. On one side we have the LFA and the other side the biggest missile range in NATO outside White Sands , New Mexico. (Aberporth) Great for spotters.

Great memories of the Vulcan missile trials during the Malvinas conflict.... They used to stooge around the coast line until cleared by range control into the Bardsey gate to play on the range. I was almost driven to tears to see the Vulcan at low level just loitering in the valleys around here. I never could work out how they stayed in the air. They seemed so slow ....

Remember the last MPC for the Lightning force. They must have fired every firestreak / redtop in the inventory prior to the Lightning retiring...We went up a local hill with a scanner and watched the fireworks out to sea for a few evenings...Brill!! Lost a few Jinderviks during that lot if I remember correctly ("Opps , dropkicked the playmate"!!).

The low flying in the valleys around here is ace as well! We get to look down on the "games" quite often.

Yesterdays tally was almost normal. There are days when it is a little more hectic. You know when the fun is about to start when the RAF start putting the rubber tanks in the valleys. We then go and take "supplies" to the RAF regt Rapier A/A missile batteries stuck on nearby hilltops. They even let us play with the things(they are not live I hasten to add) Got some ace pics of A10 in the sights !!:E

[BEagle]

The good old TA once used to let me do the same thing with their Bofors guns at Merryfield about half-a-century ago. Tracked a Victor on departure from Yeovilton - and later thrilled to attacks from Sea Hawks and Sea Venoms 'strafing' the gun sites!

[jimgriff]

The RAF regt do more for public relations by allowing this than a lot of things the RAF do.

The Reds and Falcons at Llanidloes (small village smack in middle of the LFA) is another good example.

Best airshow me seen. (and I've been to a few)

Rumour has it that anything flying checks in with the ground controller (FAC) and gets given a "slot".

It prolly is a little stricter now but that is how it was done until recently.

I remember seeing a USAF F-111 dripping with snakeeyes on every hardpoint on his way to wainfleet go over the crowd at maybe 100'. You dont get to see that too often in a propoer airshow!!:oh:

[Wycombe]

Was in West Wales myself about a month ago (by the sea between Pembrey & Pendine). Loads of Hawks weaponeering during the day, and a couple of LL Jags for good measure.

Night-time brought Albert flying v. close to the valley side :cool:

[whowhenwhy]

Definately agree with the sentiments about less low flying. When I was a young man living near what used to be a WW2 bomber stn and became a very large RRE establishment (BEagle may even have flown his Vulcan out of there) there used to be shed loads of ac. At least twice a day there would be the hi-level pair of F111s. Once, just after Uncle Ron bombed the Libyan colonel, was treated to a hawk and a jp in a rather low (400'?) tail chase over my school. I seem to remember that the hawk was fairly well tied onto the Jps 6! Anyway, getting back to the thread. Don't know whether the FJ over London would have been for anything special but a number of Jag mates have managed to workout that you can fly SVFR (I think) down the heli routes in London. They know who to talk to to sort it out and all that. It's probably just for a jolly, but I seem to remember that the guys used to do it and then go low level with Northolt or BZN. If you're allowed to do something then do it and take advantage.

[BEagle]

If that was P'shaw, that's where I did my Gnat IRT in 1975 - and astonished everyone by passing at the first attempt!

[Wycombe]

WWW - reminds me of an RT exchange I heard in Jersey last year, as HMFC's finest were leaving the Island the day after the Airshow.

ATC to Jag: "what type of departure northbound?"
Jag: "SVFR please till outside the zone" (Jersey being Class A of course)
ATC to Jag: "what level for the transit?"
Jag: "Oh, about 300 feet should do it" !!

Good sport chaps :cool:

[BEagle]

Meaning that the Pussy Cat wouldn't actually be able to make anything more than 300 ft before the zone boundary, perhaps?

[2 Liter Peter]

Fast Jet over London

Anyone else remember the Hunter of 1 (F) Sqn that beat up the Houses of Parliament and then went through the middlle of Tower Bridge on 1st April 1968 ?

It was the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Air Force - government of socialist leaning had denied permission for a celebration fly-past - so a 1 Sqn jock took it upon himself to do his own celebration.

Great excitement at the time. Unmistakeable roar of Avon engine over the city. Phones ringing wildly minutes later at the MoD press desk.

Anyone know what happened to the pilot ? Any more information ?

[PPRuNe Pop]

If you do a search on AH&N you will find a thread that dealt with this at length. And I might say it was very interesting too. Much more than the press were able to say about it.

I suggest your name input would be either Hunter, 1 Sqdn or Tower Bridge.

[Wholigan]

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=97214&highlight=Hunter+Tower+Bridge

I was on 1 Sqn at Raynham when Al did this, and was fortunate to be in Gibraltar at the time --- or I'm sure the Staish would have blamed me! :E

[stuk]

Whislt definitely having no liking for socialist gits whether in power or not I think the comments about no fly past for the RAF 50th birthday are wrong.
What was the 18 Sqn Wessex from Acklington, deployed to Odiham, doing a fly past at Abingdon for?
By the way believe Betty was watching.

[whowhenwhy]

BEagle, you are correct. But how come you were doing your gnat IRT there in 75? I was under the impression that the place closed for flying in 74, apart from the odd wokka wokka or herc making what I guessed were deliveries of some kind. I think it was a buc in raspberry ripple that made the last sortie out. Anyone able to confirm or deny?

[jimgriff]

At 1303 today two pairs of F-15 went over this town.

Did the lead of the second pair waggle his wings because he knew I watch the skies?


Nice one F-15 mate!!:ok:

[Gainesy]

How come these seemingly random ":mad:mad" things are popping up in people's writing? The Gibson thread has become littered with them since this morning.
:confused:

[jimgriff]

Please explain Gainsey!!

[Gainesy]

Yesterday afternoon a lot of threads suddenly had:mad: :mad: popping up at random, not just on mil forum. Must have been some sort of glitch as they seem to have mostly gone now.

And no, I had not had a long liquid lunch.:)

[Zoom]

It's :mad: ing obvious, Gainesy. Some :mad: er doesn't like what we're :mad: ing writing and is :mad: ing censoring us! Well :mad: it, I say!

[airborne_artist]

Zoom

You'd best change your moniker - it's now obvious that you are in fact Ozzy Osbourne.

[pr00ne]

Whowhenwhy,

RRE stopped flying from Pershore in 1977.

[Jackonicko]

The Tower Bridge Hunter bloke was Alan Pollock. The story was extensively written up in an early Flypast magazine (September 1982?), including his own take on why he did it......

2LP,

Can you PM me with some contact details? Have an urgent question or two.

Couldn\'t find much on the web:

"In 1968 it was the RAF\'s 50th birthday, yet the top brass did not se fit to mark this with any flypast, choosing instead for mere parades on the ground. Many RAF personnel were less than impressed and one Flt Lt Alan Pollock of 1(F) Squadron decided to mark the occasion in style - first with toilet-roll bombing missions against rival squadrons, and then on April 5th, while suffering from the beginnings of pneumonia which no doubt had some affect on his decision making processes, he flew his Hunter over London and at the last second decided to fly under the top span of Tower Bridge! Knowing of the consequences of his unauthorised trip, he proceeded to beat up several airfields and landed to meet his fate. It would be the end of his RAF career (he went on to run a successful exporting company), with political influences making sure he was treated incredibly unfairly - thrown out of the RAF with no right to appeal, no court martial at which he could present his case, medical evidence ignored, unable to meet with his superiors, etc. It took until 1982 for his case to be fully heard, and only then was he exonerated."