OK - Specsavers here I come............:uhoh:

Foul! We have two lightningmates/Lightning Mates on this forum!!

I can remember a Lightning display team in the 1960s displaying at Prestwick Airport, as a young impressionable lad it left an abiding love of all things Lightning!
The formation take off was, err, somewhat loud!
I was maybe a max of 9 years old at the time but I can't really remember what year it was.

I can remember "Raymond Baxter" in a newsreel film late 50's early 60s I think of Farnborough or some other air display where he referred to the 111 Lightnings as "Triple one Sqdn Black Diamonds".

I can also remember seeing several Lightnings taking off at Valley and going vertical until they disappeared into very high clouds I was stood in the dunes at Rhosnieger, it took years for my wife to find out the allure of the Rhosnieger Bay Hotel :D

Tony Doyle accidentally (!) went through the sound barrier over the airfield a year or so previously, causing a lot of damage both on camp and off. He also ejected at Exeter just prior to their Paris trip, IIRC all the jets had their engines changed, in very short order, as a result.

kaitakbowler,

Tony ejected because a main wheel would not extend and lock-down.

lm

LM

IR the 1965 Exeter crash was an engine problem. I was the comcen operator who Tx'd the accident report. Witnesses reported one of the engines disintegrating and a fire. As the cause was unknown, and Paris looming the decision was taken to change all the engines on the Sqn's jets.

kaitakbowler,

Apologies, you are correct. Guess I was mixing that event with some other!
Oh how the passage of time ruins the memory, and other things :O

lm

I've never forgotten a Battle of Britain day at Biggin Hill in the 60's. The Lightnings had done a bomb burst or similar manoeuvre and were reforming to the north - except that two of them had sneaked round to the south and came up the valley behind the crowd and came over the top of us at about 200 feet, probably with reheat because I can still picture blue flames coming from the jet pipes. No-one saw them coming, only going away, fast.

It was like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer! Made a lasting impression on a 12 year old lad.

Hi I believe my grandad used to be in the 111 Squardron
hes name used to be Frederick Le Grys aka Fred

I was on 92 as groundcrew when we were the 'Blue Diamonds' with the Hunter then the Mk2A Lightning. But on some of our Hunters there was black paint under the blue !