View Full Version : When Airshows ruled the Earth!
Finningley Boy
9th May 2020, 10:43
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Qp6C2QRhU
Hi I promise I won't post anymore yesteryear airshow flicks but this one is a gem! Featuring, at least, Farnborough, Chivenor and St Mawgan. 1960s and 1970s.
FB
LOONRAT
11th May 2020, 08:50
GEMINI AEROBATIC TEAM
Many thanks for the video which brings back happy memories of my military display days in the 70's. I led the Gemini Aetobatic team in 1973 with Dusty Miller as my No 2. I think the video showing the team was prior to 1973 as the aircraft do not apear to be painted in the 1973 paint scheme. (Photo below) At 22.00 onwards the video shows the team performing the mirror flypast, As leader when inverted during the mirror flypast
if you kept it too long the engine would flame out which could be very entertaining !!!
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/540x408/gemini_1973_lake_garda_mirror_bf5d06f62f676c14991bba3d474190 1920fef62e.jpg
https://youtu.be/zoyt7gOxSPE
pr00ne
11th May 2020, 09:33
If you come any closer I'll scream!
What a wonderfully evocative old video, thanks for posting ORAC.
NutLoose
11th May 2020, 11:21
Ahh yes, remember dragging these out for ground runs for the BBC and them running at Saints B of B at home airshows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAcgUPjb16Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oaJghobb1M
Except when they were run when I ws there, it was 76 and glorious sunshine...
NutLoose
11th May 2020, 11:24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm62mdzzKgM
pr00ne
11th May 2020, 11:25
There's only one RAF St.Athan.
BEagle
11th May 2020, 19:59
Ah yes, St Athan BoB in the Summer of '76. What a great time that was!
3 Sep 76, 40 min LL Nav around Wales in Hunter F6A XK149. I'd expected to be allocated a pristine FGA9 for the static display, but some idiot put it U/S with a radar ranging fault. So I had to take a really grubby jet instead. The flight was great, culminating in a 480KIAS arrival at idle thrust and a little below 250 ft, to create a glorious blue note!
The Hunter display pilot arrived a little later in his jet from Brawdy. But when they parked his aircraft in the hangar, someone thought that the black and yellow handle marked 'Canopy Jettison' was a handbrake. It wasn't...and it did! So he flew my old jet the next day instead and I was free to wander about to enjoy myself.
Flew back on Monday 6th in 20 minutes. Then a SAP trip later in the day in FGA9 XK137. But that was the day the music died for me; as I pulled the throttle through the gate to HP Off and timed the run down, I realised that I'd never fly a single seat Hunter ever again as I was posted to Buccs - waddapissa!
44 years ago nearly - and yet it feels like yesterday!
Finningley Boy
11th May 2020, 22:27
Ah yes, St Athan BoB in the Summer of '76. What a great time that was!
3 Sep 76, 40 min LL Nav around Wales in Hunter F6A XK149. I'd expected to be allocated a pristine FGA9 for the static display, but some idiot put it U/S with a radar ranging fault. So I had to take a really grubby jet instead. The flight was great, culminating in a 480KIAS arrival at idle thrust and a little below 250 ft, to create a glorious blue note!
The Hunter display pilot arrived a little later in his jet from Brawdy. But when they parked his aircraft in the hangar, someone thought that the black and yellow handle marked 'Canopy Jettison' was a handbrake. It wasn't...and it did! So he flew my old jet the next day instead and I was free to wander about to enjoy myself.
Flew back on Monday 6th in 20 minutes. Then a SAP trip later in the day in FGA9 XK137. But that was the day the music died for me; as I pulled the throttle through the gate to HP Off and timed the run down, I realised that I'd never fly a single seat Hunter ever again as I was posted to Buccs - waddapissa!
44 years ago nearly - and yet it feels like yesterday!
What went on backstage indeed! I'll bet, as it was 1976, even for September and even for St Athan, it was a proverbial scorcher. Although Jim Callaghan had just appointed his very first "Minister for Drought" Denis Howell, which turned out to be the only way to switch the rain back on!
FB
treadigraph
12th May 2020, 08:46
3 Sep 76
4th September '76 I went to Biggin Hill Battle of Britain Display for my first airshow there (first UK air display was Greenham a month earlier - plus a coupe of shows at Nairobi Wilson in 70/71/72)... Lightning arriving at about the same time as its noise plus most other major types in the RAF inventory, Neil Williams doing things that made my head hurt in a Pitts, our own Pobjoy tearing up the airfield in his little dear, Tiger Club antics, Peter Phillips looping the Defender demonstrator, Rothmans, Patrouille de France solos so close together at a time when social distancing meant a tradesman's entrance, several warbirds and pilots that are no longer with us, I forgot what else but it was a great end to the summer holiday...