621 Andy

There were indeed 5 Air Cadet Swallows

XS650 - Now BGA3823 active at Lasham.
XS651 - Became R99 with the RAFGSA at Kingsfield. Now stored and I have attempted to buy it to no avail.
XS652 - Now BGA1107 based at Chipping.
XS859 - Now BGA1136 stored at Pocklington.
XT653 - Now BGA3469 resides in Wiltshire.

Perhaps you have some photos of XA310 at WSM hidden away?

Apologies - I did solo in a Cadet Mk III (WT919) at Kirton Lindsey in 1960, but couldn't afford a camera then!

I do indeed have some pics of 310:ok: It was always oue favourite of the fleet(apart from 991, the Barge of course!). Something to do with the rigging I think, but always seemed nicer to fly.

Didn't Robin Birch have this a/c? I sent him some bits and pieces, and the gliding instructor manual etc.

310 lives at Keevil and will be on holiday with 621 Vintage Flt at Hullavington this year. Please try and post a photo from when she was a government servant!

More pics!
 

A bit more of the action, as promised by me a while back:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...nthetoybox.jpg

Opening the toybox...


http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...1917hangar.jpg

Sun coming up over the 1917 hangar. (Since pulled down, alas :ugh:)


http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...gforacable.jpg

Waiting for a cable



http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...RfortheMk3.jpg

They'd 've had to re-write VFR for Mk3s!!


http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...c9/Baseleg.jpg

Base leg



http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...c9/Onfinal.jpg

On final



http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...getoutwalk.jpg

You could almost get out and walk!

WE992- Certainly will, and I'll post it on ABPIC as well;) I'll have to drop in at 621 again...fridays are vintage days I think?

Kevmusic-Great pics...but hardstandings?....and a hangar that doesn't blow away in a storm:yuk::* Bet you had electric as well:}

The glory that was Manston! :{

Anyone got any pictures from Swanton Morley. I did my BGT in 1985 slightly early as there had been a faff (:}) with my birthdate on joining! The Venture was great fun if bit hot in the summer! Started me in aviation some 23 years ago! Now fly something rather bigger and with four jets!

Halesland again
 

I recently found my old gliding logbook for my advanced course at Halesland in March '67. My instructors included the F/L Hobkirk, PO House, FO Dodd, S/L Courage, FO Stride and - of course the perennial OC, S/L Robinson. I spent most of the week soaring T21s but it was too windy to solo there, so we went back to Weston and I completed the 15 T31 solos for the advenced certificate. On 1 April '67 I see that I flew 13 circuits in XA308 - three check flights then ten solos. - total 39 minutes!

Re post 52

WT867 hanging upside down in the hangar, flew in that one twice on 10/4/82 at 626VGS RNAS Predannack, happy days indeed:ok:

Swanton Morley Pics.
 

Hueymeister asked for pictures of RAF Swanton Morley, I was based there for a few years in the late 60's and have many photos of that era, although mostly civvi stuff. Attached however is one of the ATC fleet at rest in the hangar.

QuePee

http://i40.tinypic.com/2z9bejd.jpg

I should havve mentioned that the date was sometime in 1968.

Eyesfront- You'll be amazed to know Brian House is still flying! Retired from his life as a vet, but last I heard, still going strong:ok:

John Stride was a really really nice chap 100% committed to ATC gliding, and an excellent Instructor. He was the senior gentleman on sundays for what seemed like hundreds of years! A bit supersticious(?), He would never talk about mishaps and accidents until the hangar doors were laced up(!), but then he had some stories;)
His son Andy, became a good mate of mine, and was also a G1 with me, before leaving to join the RAF. Had some great nights out with him too! A very good pilot as well! Anyone know his whereabouts?

As to 308, those numbers appear in my logbook many times:ok:

It's very frustrating sitting here without my photo albums and logbooks:{:*...can't wait to get home in month or so;) Though the next problem will be buying a negative/print scanner without breaking the bank, oh, and finding the time to scan them all:rolleyes:

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/b...chippy/115.jpg

Sedburghs and TMk3s at 662 VGS, HMS Condor, Arbroath in 1979. WB775 was the glider featured in the Squadron Print. I still have mine somewhere, signed by the 662 CFI. Lovatt Fraser who sent me solo in Mk3 WT919.

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/b...chippy/114.jpg

Segburgh winch launching. Air Cadet gliding started me on a flying career - which is still going!

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/b...chippy/119.jpg

Not a glider! A Chippy at RAF Newton. I later became an RAF Pilot and did Air Experience Fling in Chippys myself. I also became a QFI on Chipmunks at the RAF EFTS. One day, I was being checked by our Standards pilot, sitting in the back and I mentioned to him that my first flight was in a Chippy, sitting in the back. I told him I remembered the pilot had a 6 Sqn 'Flying Canopener's badge on the back of his helmet. I turned out that it was him, fifteen years earlier!

My sons are both now in the RAF section of their school CCF. Long may the organsiation continue!

Ah - a Chippy at Newton. Those were the days. Remember always trying to get a sighting on the National Watersports Centre at Holme Pierrepoint to get my bearings back towards the airfield...

Also had several trips gliding from one or two places - Scampton definitely, and I'm sure also Lindholme - always in Sedberghs.

Wish I could find my old 3822...

Top thread! :D

thanks fo the memory
 

I got my gliding licence in the 1960's at RAF Sealand lift from the cooling towers at the steel mill to be an ATC cadet again what a thought

I used to fly with Humber Gliding Club when they were at Lindholm in 1980 then we were moved in 1982 to RAF Scampton.
There was an Air cadet unit based on the same airfield as us & i did manage to blag a few flights in the "Barge" for the open cockpit experience, that was great fun. Although we did call them Space Cadets due to the flying helmets & goggles they used to wear.:):)

Some great photo's on here & great memories of proper Gliding, not the wimpy stuff they do now with the windmills on the front! Thats not gliding!!

Trev

G-BU: I wish I could find my 3822! I remember other T21s at Sealand were WB993 (the first one I ever flew) and XN157. We only had one T31, which i never flew. A Swallow single-seater appeared for a week or two and was strictly for the instructors amusement.

They certainly were happy days. I remember rounding up sheep in a Land Rover before flying could start each day. The gliders lived overnight in an enormous hanger, which apart from the space left at the end by sliding the doors for the gliders was full to the roof with crated Canberra wings. There was a black-painted Sea Hawk outside the hanger, and at the North Camp a rather sorry-looking Spitfire.

Security was non-existent. One day it was drizzling when a few of us arrived before the instructors: we pushed a hanger door open far enough for the smallest cadet to squeeze inside and find the big cranking handle which operated the hander door mechanism. We then waited inside the control caravan parked in the hanger until an instructor "officially" opened up the hanger and then we quietly appeared, mingling with the now rather wet cadets who had waited outside!

I think my longest flight was about thirty minutes, thermalling over the John Summers steel works with an instructor called Tyson. Other instructors I remember were Westaway (my own instructor), Chaplin (as already recalled in earlier posts) and the CO I think was called Stanford-Smith, who sometimes flew with his Jack Russell terrier. I was sent solo by the CO: I seem to remember that there had been a halt to solo flights for some time after an accident at another school and I was the first to solo after the ban was lifted.

I feel oddly privileged to have enjoyed flying in the early seventies (and at the RAF's expense) exactly the same aeroplanes (T21, T31, Chipmunk) that cadets would have been flying in the early fifties, well before I was born. And of course those same planes carried on well into the eighties (and nineties, in the case of the Chipmunk).

How lucky we were!

I'm going to have a dig around in my puics as well see what I can find from West Malling days...................

Arc

pics that should be........

Arc

Not strictly in line with the title of the thread but I thought people might like this photo of WB981. http://www.rcawsey.co.uk/bga3238.jpgBuilt Built by Martin Hearn Ltd in 1949. Awaiting collection 30/12/49. Allocated to 42GS, Bramcote, later Cosford, 3/01/50. Declared cat 4R following accident, 4/09/50. To Slingsby for repair 20/09/50. Allocated to 9MU RAF Cosford. 13/12/50. 125GS, Langley, 6/06/51. Cat 4R after flying accident, 20/06/52. To Slingsby 3/07/52. Gliding Instructors School RAF Detling 20/10/52. Declared cat 4R after accident 8/02/53. Returned to Slingsby 20/03/53. Allocated to 9MU RAF Cosford 25/05/53. Transferred to 10 MU, RAF Brize Norton, 2/01/56. to Gliding Instructors School Hawkinge 19/03/58. 1GC Swnton Morley 8/12/61. 611GS Swanton Morley 8/08/77. 635GS Burtonwood 24/04/78. Sold 7/01/86.