RAF Auxiliary Squadrons
 

Reading the fascinating posts on the Meteor thread elsewhere has reminded me of the good old days when there were several squadrons of Vampires and Meteors flown by weekend pilots.

As an ATC cadet I used to spend occasional weekends helping to refuel the 15 or so FB5 Vampires and one Meteor T7 operated by 614 Squadron at Llandow, near St Athan. They also had one Mk8 Meteor but I never saw it fly, they reckoned that the pilots were frightened of the ejector seat.

I also remember the last day of these squadrons when one of the members of the Bristol squadron tried unsuccessfully to fly under the Clifton suspension bridge in a Vampire.

I guess that any pilots from that era might be getting a bit old now but I wondered if anyone had any good stories from those days.

P1

I was doing an apprenticeship with Fairey Aviation in Hayes from 47 to 52 and joined 604 Sqn County of Middlesex as an airframe fitter at Hendon. We had Spitfire 16s then and used to commute from Hayes to Hendon every weekend on my BSA 350.

The Spits were replaced by Vampire F3s from Germany and we had to move with 601 Sqn to North Weald. I still have a scar on my thumb where a glass L-tube broke when I was fitting a drop tank to a Vamp 3. Joined full time as an airframe driver in Jan 52, but I still attend the 604 annual lunches at the RAF club.