On the A30 In Hampshire there is a roundabout with a nameplate 'Spitfire Bridge', so named after a pilot flying under the bridge in WW2 ( successfully ); I read that the aircraft in question was in fact a P-40, but to Joe Public watching I suppose everything was a Spitfire...

Well remembered Double Zero, although the bridge was actually over what was then A33, the Winchester bypass, now greatly widened to accommodate the M3 between J9 and J10.

The following link, which shows the bridge as it was until the early 1980s, confirms both that it was indeed a Tomahawk, and that the deed, like the subsequent return to base, was not completely successful .....

http://tinyurl.com/6hhgz6

As someone else said, a bit too late to rename that bridge, although I gather that there was a plan to rename a bridge in Southampton "Spitfire Bridge" in view of the local connections, but it didn't come to fruition.

Jack

PS

More up to date bridge flying, when I worked at the Lazy B I was told that the usual last flight for a retiring A-6 driver from NAS Whidbey Island was under the Deception Pass Bridge - now that's low!

No - that's high, at least compared with the other bridges so far, about 180 feet or so depending on the tide, which for comparitive purposes is about ten feet more than the deepwater channel arch of the Forth Bridge - about which there must be some similar stories

Re. the Hunter and Tower Bridge, I actually had a good view of the event in central London. I was working as a site engineer supervising building of a block of flats near Vauxhall Bridge, in early April 1968. While checking the steel reinforcement of the highest floor slab before concreting, with my eye level about 50 feet above ground level, the Hunter roared past travelling downriver approximately 300 yards away.

I saw it pass over Vauxhall and Westminster Bridges, and very close to the then-new Vickers Millbank tower block. Anyone on the upper floors would definitely have been looking down onto it, and from my own vantage point I saw its full side view! Other tallish buildings then blocked my view of it as it swept towards Tower Bridge, so I didn't see it passing between the lower road deck and the upper pedestrian deck level, but the news media were full of it afterwards.

The newspaper accounts next day claimed that the pilot was due to leave the RAF quite soon anyway, and that he and colleagues were very dissatisfied with the half-hearted way in which the service was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its formation on 1st April 1918. He had accordingly decided to mark the occasion in a more robust and appropriate manner!

One has it on good authority that the low level route in the Blue Max as well as the aircraft going under the bridge was first pioneered by a certain Sgt Sean Tracey flying a Magister out of Baldonnel in the 40s.

Info provided by the guy who followed him!

Lars, from memory of watching the film (I've lent my copy to someone, so can't check!) the first pass is through the main span of the bridge which probably easily accommodated a Maggie.

The second and third passes are through a narrower arch to the left of the main span. I suspect if a Maggie got through that one it was with some considerable bank on! :}

I think Derek Piggott flew the Triplane through the narrow arch some twenty times!

I wonder if anyone can find a pic of it on the web - I've had a quick google but no luck and I'd better do some work!

A great film which kicks CGI firmly into touch in my opinion. A shame that much of the final sequence flown by Piggott in the Morane 230 was left out of the film.

I'd love to have seen that Hunter through Tower Bridge (or Chris Draper and his Orster).

Cheers

Treadders

Chris Draper (who was not a boastful man) reckoned he could have taken a formation of three Austers under most of the bridges on his second trip!

I think you are right; or at least your memory coincides with mine!

The guy who followed the Maggie and recounted the story of following Sean Tracey, was me Dad!

Tower Bridge fly-through.

Flt. Lt. Alan Richard Pollock the pilot of the Hunter that flew through Tower Bridge in April 1968 wrote an article " Why I Flew my Hunter Through Tower Bridge - 5th April 1968" for "Flypast" magazine.

His article can be seen here: http://www.rafjever.org/4sqnper004.htm


I rather liked the cartoon that appears towards the end of his account!

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...ge-Cartoon.jpg

Warmtoast: Thank you so much for that posting! It's great to have frail memory corroborated so resoundingly by such a comprehensive article.

Wonderful video, spoilt by the editing and the "script", two star appearances though, the Spit and Mr Hanna. Oh for the rest of the footage from the camera on the Spit.

Is Merlin-addiction a recognised medical complaint?

If it isn't, it ought to be. My daughter gave me a presentation pack of "Spitfire" ale for Xmas - it came with a chapel-key widget that plays the sound of a Spitfire flypast each time a bottle is opened. I've drunk an awful lot of beer as a result.......

One character that I thought would get a mention is the guy in the early '50s who flew under I think it was 9 bridges on the Thames. I was at a rowing club just upriver of Hammersmith Bridge, getting into an eight after school and heard this plane roar past. Not sure but it may have been a Tiger. (I hadn't discovered aviation at that time)!

It was in all the papers the next day and I think he earned the nickname 'The Mad Major' - just before they pulled his licence. (Wonder if he's any relation to Maurice Kirk)?

Roj, read posts 24 and 25 - the Mad Major was Chris Draper as mentioned, he missed out Tower Bridge as he'd already been through it before the war!

If you search PPRuNe for "Christopher Draper" you'll find quite a thread on the subject as I recall. :ok:

Don't give Maurice ideas! The UK Psychiatric systems is already creaking at the seams... :E

Cheers

Treadders

Clifton Suspension & Kiel Canal Bridges.
 

Reference posts 4 and 6 above :-
An ex C.O. of mine told me that he was on the Court of Inquiry about the Clifton Suspension Bridge accident. He mentioned the corporals evidence, exactly as stated above.
However ... he said that the stupid idea to hold "Farewell/Closing down" parties the night before the RAF Auxiliaries had their final (Nationwide) local Formation Flypasts was asking for trouble. The one at Filton had some participants celebrating ALL night !! The pilot was only noticed to be wearing a Dinner Jacket by the corporal when he, having started the engine undetected, jumped out to push the trolleyacc away. The corporal rushed over & tried to heave a chock under a wheel of the, now, taxying Vampire - without success, which continued across the grass until it reached the runway & took off. His hood was open & his straps were flapping outside against the fuselage.
He also said that the pilot had previously made a phone call home to his mother & told her to be on the bridge with his fiancee at 9 o´clock - when they would see something special. Apparently they saw him swoop down & under the bridge & attempt to do a Barrel Roll which "mushed" into a cliff face.

Another bridge (over the Southern end of the Kiel Canal in Northern Germany) was a very popular challenge - (but not much of one - at, I believe, 43 metres clearance above water level) for those of us in 2TAF in the ´50´s.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/luffers79/SELD4...144/img106.jpg

In fact we were not made "operational" on my squadron until we had (Unofficially !!) flown under it. Only then were we presented with our squadron tie -which was almost immediately dunked in the squadrons special brew - Pimms 79. Great days !! :ok:.

PS.
It was not Bill Pegg that put the Britannia down on the River Severn mud flats but his deputy Cyril/Cecil (?) Gibb. I was on a high level dual cross country exercise from Finningley to Chivenor that day in a Meteor 7 & we decided to have a look at it (from about 30, 000 ft.). I think every aircraft in the UK had also gone to have a look (civil & military !!). All the way down aircraft were orbitting - reminded me of water swirling out of a bath !!

I beg to differ. On 31st May 1954 Walter Gibb was at the controls of a prototype Britannia that suffered a flap malfunction and considerable height loss before recovery, but it was Bill Pegg who put GALRX down on the Severn mud flats on the 4th February 1954.

Sydney Harbour Bridge
 

My father in 1948 flew a Beaufighter under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The flight went from Richmond Air Force Base along the Parramatta River, under the bridge then along the harbour to Manly, where he circled the Hospital (all trying to impress his future wife - my mother).

Today if you did that they would have scrambled a couple of F18's and shot you down.:rolleyes:

Why am I not surprised that a thread with a subject matter such as this can't be in existence for too long without Maurice Kirk's name creeping in? I wonder if his veterinary practice was as dull as his flying career. If not then I'm glad that I was not born a sheep!

How about Mike Bondesio AFC in a shacking great f**kleton under the Lisbon Harbour Bridge, some years ago, some engines out.

Nothing matters very much, most things don't matter at all.

Not if you did it in an F18 which is after all the not quite natural descendant of the Beau.

WestonZoyland losses
 

DKenyon - this is a reply to your post way back in 2008. The two pilots killed that night were P/O Tilley and P/O Fry, both of whom were my students!!!! Although they had been briefed to climb to FL 20 and do a QGH at Merryfield, for some unknown reason they tried to do it VFR at night. I agonised over this for some considerable time but cannot explain their action. I also know the Clifton Suspension Bridge VERY well.

Welcome to PPRuNe, babil!

I well recall seeing, as a youngster of about 4 or 5 years old, the 'scrap aircraft' compound at Weston Zoyland piled high with silver painted wreckage bearing RAF markings.