Names of the Pilots in the 22 Hunter Loop
 

This was being asked in another thread. Here is the definitive list:

Pilots were 111 Sqn unless otherwise annotated:

XG194 SqnLdr Roger Topp
XG170 FltLT "Oakie" Oakford
XG200 FlGOff "Oscar" Wild
XF515 FltLt Alan Brindle
XG201 FltLt Paddy Hine
XG171 FlTLT Brian Mercer
XG592 FLTLT George Ord
XE563 FlTLT Matthew Kemp
XJ715 Fg Off Ron Smith
XG189 FltLt Bob Smith
XF416 FltLt Bob Barcilon
XF424 FlgOff Roger Hymans 43 Sqn
XE616 FlgOff Peter Jennings 263 Sqn
XG190 FltLt Les Swart
XE656 FlgOff Norman Lamb 1 Sqn
XE584 FltLt "Will" Scarlett 1 Sqn
XG193 FlgOff "CJ" Clayton-Jones
XJ687 FltLt "Chas" Boyer 66 Sqn
XG266 FltLt Frank Travers-Smith 66 Sqn
XG160 FltLt Mike Thurley
XF506 FlgOff Tony Aldridge
XG191 FltLt David Edmondston 19 Sqn

Airborne Spares
FltLt "Chan" Biss 1 Sqn
FlgOff Barry Vaughan 56 Sqn

Extra pilots
FltLT Les Elgey
FltLt Fred Hartley

Sweet nostalgia... Farnborough has never been the same.

52 years ago.

Anyone still flying ?

Dunno. but one will soon be Captain of the R & A.

Might be then. Here he is

Patrick Hine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roger Topp is 87 years young. Even guys like Brian Mercer are in their 80's. I doubt anyone is flying in any serious manner.

Where are they now?
 

Speaking of which, if anyone can fill in the gaps about the later histories of these pilots, it would come in very useful for a project underway about the achievements of the Black Arrows. PM me if you need to ... thank you in advance...

Was Flt Lt George Ord in your list actually George Aird - of Hatfield Lightning ejection fame and later British Aersopace 125 Test Pilot (and Mossie RR299 display pilot).

I'm pretty sure he took part in the 22 ship formation

cheers

AS

Did they ever?

I'll check with my source about George Aird... but it looks like you are correct.

George Aird was an original Black Arrow, but was posted out before 1958. George Ord is the correct name.

I stand corrected Capt K - but thank's for clarifying my fading memory:ok:

Brian Mercer was instructing airline pilots at Burgess Hill about 14 years ago, i had the pleasure to meet him there and he was so knowledgeable...and still very interested by warbirds !!

"Oscar" Wild - Lightnings OCU early 70s
George Ord - Flt Cdr at the Towers? 65
Bob Barcilon - Lightnings 5 Sqn ?
Les Swart - Lightnings OC .. Sqn ?
Tony Aldridge - Lightnings 23 Sqn 67
Les Elgey - Lightnings ?

I believe Les ( Ed ? ) Swart was OC 111 Wattisham, mid / late `60s.

Gosh, that stirs some memories, I can remember lying in the grass as a young 'erk' in '61 or maybe '62 ( one of those sunny summer evenings) at Cottesmore and seeing this loop, am sure we counted 22 Hunters, just the one loop then a long stream of them landing one after the other.

Could MoD afford the fuel today...?

(QUOTE)Gosh, that stirs some memories, I can remember lying in the grass as a young 'erk' in '61 or maybe '62 ( one of those sunny summer evenings) at Cottesmore and seeing this loop, am sure we counted 22 Hunters, just the one loop then a long stream of them landing one after the other.(UNQUOTE)

I doubt it, as the Black Arrows disbanded in December 1960. You may have seen the subsequent Blue Diamonds that flew during 1961-62, but the most they flew was 18 Hunters.

Names of Pilots in 22 Hunter Loop
 

At the risk of being pedantic, the Black Arrows officially stood down on 3 November 1960 following the presentation of the Rolls-Royce trophy to acknowledge the achievements of the team, which was followed by an evening display by nine Hunters.

I stand to be corrected, but I believe that a 'Diamond Sixteen' was the maximum number of Hunters flown by the 92 Squadron team during its routines and was first flown on 18 July 1961, in readiness for the forthcoming SBAC Show.

Hello Dave, good to see you pop up and hope you are now fully recovered. Well your official disbandment date may be correct, but I have a photo of the team lined up at Bruggen in December 1960. Of course, they may well have just been operating as a regular squadron, but their Hunters were still all black!
Of course I won't dispute the numbers that the Blue Diamonds achieved, as you're quite correct, so totally dispels 'bluesafari's memory of seeing "22 Hunters looping in 1961 or 62" The facts would be "16 Blue Diamonds Hunters"!

Names of the pilots in the 22 Hunter Loop
 

Brian Mercer, one of the Black Arrows in the loop was also the Leader of the 92Sqn Blue Diamonds, the successor to the Black Arrows. Brian now lives in Perth, Australia.

The Blue Diamonds operated a 16 Hunter team, but also had two spares that could slot in either on the left or right hand side, so it is concievable that at some stage they looped 18 aircraft. Certainly some of the manoeuvres they did carry out warrant comment, particularly the 7 A/C line abreast loop with a diamond 9 behind. I have never seen that manoeuver performed elsewhere.

Brian points out that the Blue Diamonds never received the recognition that the Black Arrows received, in fact many of the iconic photos of the Black Arrows are actually the Blue Diamonds. The following Newsreel is proof of the that phenomenon.

WITH THE BLACK ARROWS - Colour - British Pathe

It is an excellent clip showing the aforementioned loop plus Lightnings of 74 Sqn. Many former Black Arrows can also be seen walking out to dispersal.

Another Pathe newsreel, this time correctly labelled.

BLACK ARROWS LAST SHOW - British Pathe

The Pathe site has a wealth of clips for aviation buffs.

I find it irritating that even well-respected aviation magazines mis-identify the Blue Diamonds and caption them as the 'Black Arrows' in b/w photos. The Blue Diamonds can easily be identified in b/w photos, as their Hunters had white wingtips and a white lightning flash down the fuselage.
Misidentifying colour footage can only be put down to colour blindness!!:=

Names of Pilots in 22 Hunter Loop
 

I spoke to Brian this morning and this is his response regarding the 18 aircraft formation at Farnborough:

Farnborough 1962 -

I am searching for amateur still photographs and film footage of No. 111 Squadron between 1955 and 1961, in particular of The Black Arrows. I'm interested in ground activity, aerial shots, ground-to air shots and people.

If anyone can help please PM me for further details.

(I am a newcomer to these forums and I should point out that I have checked with the mod (Rob) that this request is OK to post).

By the way, George Aird (who, as has been pointed out, didn't fly the 22 loop) is still flying! I met and interviewed him last week at his home. Lovely man and very modest about his achievements. Regarding the Lightning incident, he was more upset that he had lost an aircraft than pleased to have been on the front cover of many magazines at the time. Today he flies from Blackpool with a friend who is several years older than him. He is obliged to fly with someone else who can land the aircraft.

I have met many of the surviving pilots from the 22 loop (sadly quite a few are no longer with us) and one of my questions is 'do you still fly'. No-one else has said yes other than Roger Hymans, who flies RC models and Peter Latham, who I believe goes up with a friend in a glider once in a while.

At Leuchars a month or so ago, Ross Colwill (who was in the team for the 59 and 60 seasons) flew in a T.7 as part of a four ship which then formated on the Vulcan for a flypast. A wonderful sight. He then rolled, looped and landed the Hunter himself. He last sat in a Hunter cockpit fifty years ago this month. Not bad, eh?

New Black Arrows video due out soon.

I think you'll find ther new DVD(not video) has been out since 1st November,as I have received my copy. A little disappointing as nearly all the footage has been seen before. Once again, they show b/w footage of the "Blue Diamonds" whilst talking about the "Black Arrows" (what is the matter with these peoples' eyesight!:ugh:. Later on there is actual mention of the "Blue Diamonds" where they show the correct footage, followed by the "Firebirds" Lightnings and then the "Yellowjacks" Gnats, but instead of showing footage of them, they show just some regular 4 FTS Gnats. Ho hum! Hope Ian's DVD will be better!

I do sympathise with anyone producing documentaries such as this. For any project there is obviously only a finite quantity of relevant archive footage and what is available is often charged at exorbitant rates by people like Pathe, ITN etc. In my case I was badly let down at the last minute by one source that change their minds and decided they wanted to charge me £12 per second. For a DVD that is only realistically (should I say 'hopefully'?!) going to sell a hundred or so copies this just isn't viable.

However, at the risk of being accused of promotion, the DVD I am producing focuses more on interviews with the surviving UK-resident team members (I shot more than 20 hours and interviewed almost all of them including both leaders and a number of ground crew) rather than being a collection of archive clips (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I have, thankfully, since found an alternative and less costly source of the same (and more) archive material, but anyone with more than a passing interest in the subject will almost certainly have seen it before. What I can offer, that is unlikely to have been seen publicly before now, is a good deal of home (cine) footage taken by the pilots and groundcrew themselves. This may not be of the highest quality but it's different! Add to that a good number of still photographs from the team's private collections and hopefully there will be enough new material to hold interest.

What I promise to do my best to avoid, of course, is incorrectly identifying the magnificent Blue Diamonds as the sensational Black Arrows! I wish I could find more footage of the Blue Diamonds as that would make a great story as well.

'The Story of the Black Arrows - in their own words' has been delayed because of the archive footage debacle and is now due for release at the end of January (1/11 - I thought that was rather appropriate). Sorry to anyone who wanted a copy for Christmas. Believe me, I'm as disappointed as you!

Hope this isn't seen as being too self-promoting. Fully understood if parts are edited.

Merry Christmas to all.

Another one gone.
 

Apparently Les Swart died recently....

Yes, Air Commodore Swart died on 7th February. I was very sad that he didn't get to see the film, which includes my interview with him.

One of many interesting things I learned about him is that he had been lined up to be one of the early TSR-2 pilots before it was cancelled.

Les Swart - I'm sure he was my DS on leadership Camp in Cyprus in 1963

Not that I knew him well, but Les Elgey was OC C Flt of 20 Sqn at Tengah in 68-69, flying Single Pioneers on FAC tasks. I have a photo of him somewhere with some young fg off called Pete Squire who was getting his S-Pin 'Op Pot' at Gemas airstrip in Malaya. ;)

Oh, and the Stn Cdr was Peter Latham.

FltLt "Will" Scarlett 1 Sqn

In the mid 70s I flew with an ex airforce pilot called Will Scarlett on F27s with Air Anglia, I wonder if this is the same person?

New Black Arrows documentary finally ready for release!
 

I hope it's OK to mention my film again (I did check with the mod, Rob, last time).

Finally, after two years in production and a whole raft of copyright issues from grasping archive media libraries, The Story of The Black Arrows is about to be released.

It's finished, it's been approved by the surviving pilots and it's about to be duplicated ready for sale after 5th September.

The film is just shy of two hours - as Flt Lt George Aird wrote "It might be a tad long for the plebs but for the aficionados, and there are many, it will be a piece of aviation history to treasure". Let's hope so. I make no secret of the fact that a lot of the archive material is from the pilots' and ground crews' personal collections, so while the quality of that footage might be questionable, its 'previously unseen' status is not. Other than the voiceover in the trailer, the only dialogue you will hear in the entire film is that spoken by the pilots and ground crew making this the story of the Black Arrows in their own words and their words only.

Here's the trailer, which is also the opening couple of minutes of the film. I hope you enjoy it and welcome any constructive criticism.

That looks like an excellent movie - looking forward to the release date!

I only did a couple of trips in XG194 (Summer 1976, RAF Brawdy) and never knew what a famous aeroplane she was!

Ian - hooray at long last! I was beginning to think you had given up on this. Can't wait til September 5th!! :D

Thank you Mr Keeto!

No, I had never given up on it, just had a horrible experience with large media organisations that wanted to gouge me. This film is entirely self funded and I have already sunk waaaay more time and money into it than is really sensible! There was a good chance that it would have been buried through a lack of funds to buy sufficient archive material, but then thanks to the now defunct COI I got a new source at a sensible price (free). Thank heavens also for the footage that the pilots and ground crew dug out of their lofts!

Quite how other production companies can afford to make films such as this using paid licensed archive material is beyond me. I was very conscious of the criticism that very often these films use material that everyone has seen before - and there is a good deal of that in my film - so I wanted to make every effort to use as much previously unseen material as possible. I will no doubt now fall fould of the criticism that the footage quality is poor. Can't win :ugh:

I have also had a ridiculously busy 18 months with the 'real' job, which is making business to business films. And now, believe it or not I am about to spend a month at the Edinburgh Fringe in a one man comedy show. No rest . . .

Thanks again for hanging in there!

Ian: In your research did you ever come across former Flying Officer R P D Sands? He wrote that little book on 111 published in the 60s and he hailed from my home village. Have always wondered if he was still around.

Black Arrows DVD now available to order
 

More delays. Sigh . . . it's been like banging my head against a wall. That said, the DVD is available to order now and the first copies will be despatched on Monday 8th. If anyone is interested in taking a look it is available at Classic Machine Films.