Mid-air Collisions
'KF was then trucked back to Marshalls at Cambridge and re-built and returned to use at the Cambridge Aero Club.
Interestingly, Marshalls used to do 'majors' on the Oakington Varsities and Neville (Whittaker) was listed as an authorised test pilot for them along with the other 2 instructors John Page (CFI) and Bob Smythe.
I was also tower controller at Farnborough many years later when a passing C152 from Blackbushe collided with an RAE gliding club glider. We weren't aware it had been a mid air until the ambulance driver the told us the glider pilot was getting hysterical and saying 'that light aircraft knocked my tail off' as the message from the gliding club caravan was merely that 'one of our gliders has broken up in mid air and the pilot has parachuted out'.
It was only when I questioned them after the message from the ambulance that they agreed they had seen a 'high wing Cessna' turn overhead and head towards Blackbushe.
I admit I wasn't looking out of the window at the time as bizjets had finished for the day and s.o.p. was when this happened or when there was a significant gap in bizjet movements, we handed the ATZ over to the gliding club as we weren't staffed to open LARS at weekends in those days.
Last edited by chevvron; 7th Oct 2016 at 09:59.
Join Date: Oct 2006
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My father, who has just celebrated his 95th birthday, had a mid air collision in cloud with a Spitfire. At the time he was flying a twin engined aircraft (Hampden? Wellington?).
He managed to land in a potato field but they had to dig 30 ft to find the Spitfire pilot.
He managed to land in a potato field but they had to dig 30 ft to find the Spitfire pilot.
If you know the (approximate) date, it should be fairly easy to find out what the other aircraft was.
