Air Display 'C*ck Ups'
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Location: Rockytop, Tennessee, USA
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Airbubba's 4,3,2,1,...0 story may have had it's origins in an incident at a display at RAF St Eval in the very early 50's when a Coastal Command Lancaster did almost that. In this case, however, the recovery was successful, albeit below cliff height ,and the Lancaster exited at low level over the sea.
My last trip in the FunBus before CFS-lobotomy was a sunset ceremony flypast at Brize....
We'd been given absolute assurance by the band that they'd play for exactly the stated length of time, plus or minus a few seconds. So the plan was to have a mate ('Sumo' - more polite than his other nickname 'Hiumper') on the roof of the OM in UHF contact to give us a call as we left the holding orbit somewhere south of Faringdon for the run in, adjusting speed against time to go in order to get the ToT spot on.
Mistake 1 was to trust the band. As we turned South in the hold, Sumo called to say that the event was running a whole minute early. Fast thinking Welsh nav (Keith R, sadly now RIP) did some quick calcs, we accelerated to as fast as was allowed-ish and came racing in. Time was catching up nicely as we passed my visual time check points at the Faringdon folly, Clanfield Tavern and finally at the Horse and Groom, Black Bourton we went to idle and adjusted to the run-in height.
But it all looked rather low (the 'K didn't have a rad alt) when approaching the planned height. In fact I could only just see the top of the OM over the trees, so eased it up a bit and went over the parade at idle thrust - I can still remember seeing Sumo taking cover as we whizzed overhead.
To those on the ground it looked rather good though. It was a flat calm balmy summer evening, the Parade Commander was standing at the salute knowing the band had cocked up and hoping for the best, when from behind the trees emerged a silent FunBus going rather well, shortly followed by the vortices causing rather a ghostly shaking and rustling of the trees in front of the parade. The photographer was taken totally by surprise and hadn't managed a single shot.
Fortunately the Stn Cdr thought it was great and never asked why we'd been so low as he plied us with beers at the after event party!
Mistake No.2? I realised some time later what that was - I'd forgotten QFE and was still using the Cotswold RPS. As 289' elevation and a briefed 300' msd rather indicated!
We'd been given absolute assurance by the band that they'd play for exactly the stated length of time, plus or minus a few seconds. So the plan was to have a mate ('Sumo' - more polite than his other nickname 'Hiumper') on the roof of the OM in UHF contact to give us a call as we left the holding orbit somewhere south of Faringdon for the run in, adjusting speed against time to go in order to get the ToT spot on.
Mistake 1 was to trust the band. As we turned South in the hold, Sumo called to say that the event was running a whole minute early. Fast thinking Welsh nav (Keith R, sadly now RIP) did some quick calcs, we accelerated to as fast as was allowed-ish and came racing in. Time was catching up nicely as we passed my visual time check points at the Faringdon folly, Clanfield Tavern and finally at the Horse and Groom, Black Bourton we went to idle and adjusted to the run-in height.
But it all looked rather low (the 'K didn't have a rad alt) when approaching the planned height. In fact I could only just see the top of the OM over the trees, so eased it up a bit and went over the parade at idle thrust - I can still remember seeing Sumo taking cover as we whizzed overhead.
To those on the ground it looked rather good though. It was a flat calm balmy summer evening, the Parade Commander was standing at the salute knowing the band had cocked up and hoping for the best, when from behind the trees emerged a silent FunBus going rather well, shortly followed by the vortices causing rather a ghostly shaking and rustling of the trees in front of the parade. The photographer was taken totally by surprise and hadn't managed a single shot.
Fortunately the Stn Cdr thought it was great and never asked why we'd been so low as he plied us with beers at the after event party!
Mistake No.2? I realised some time later what that was - I'd forgotten QFE and was still using the Cotswold RPS. As 289' elevation and a briefed 300' msd rather indicated!
Last edited by BEagle; 29th Jun 2017 at 14:29.
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I was once told a lovely story by my Granddad many moons ago who was a Vampire and Meteor pilot in the 50s/60s. The hard facts I'm sure have distorted with time so if anyone can shed further light it would be nice to hear......
I cannot remember where but on one of the practice days to a weekends display an unknown Meteor pilot was strutting his stuff. When on one of the passes he duely shutdown or idled (not familiar on type) one of the engines and opened the fuel valve trailing vast quantities of the stuff before entering a slow roll. On completion opened the taps to climb away thus relighting the engine and the 100ft plus fuel trail down the display line......(Granddad starts chuckling away) .....I seem to recall he mentioned the pilot was Polish if that rings any bells.
The convosation with the OC after went something like this....."what the bl**dy hell do you call that?" ....the response being a "paraffin roll sir!" OC barks in return "There be no **** paraffin rolls tomorrow!"
I'm not sure how accurate that is but I would imagine today even the thought of such a manoeuvre would telepathically give health and safety and heart attack unless conducted above FL300!
I cannot remember where but on one of the practice days to a weekends display an unknown Meteor pilot was strutting his stuff. When on one of the passes he duely shutdown or idled (not familiar on type) one of the engines and opened the fuel valve trailing vast quantities of the stuff before entering a slow roll. On completion opened the taps to climb away thus relighting the engine and the 100ft plus fuel trail down the display line......(Granddad starts chuckling away) .....I seem to recall he mentioned the pilot was Polish if that rings any bells.
The convosation with the OC after went something like this....."what the bl**dy hell do you call that?" ....the response being a "paraffin roll sir!" OC barks in return "There be no **** paraffin rolls tomorrow!"
I'm not sure how accurate that is but I would imagine today even the thought of such a manoeuvre would telepathically give health and safety and heart attack unless conducted above FL300!
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I flew up the Mall piloting one of 4 Vulcans on the Queen's birthday in 1973 and 75. I was told that the 1974 flypast flew up Piccadilly. Anyone know anything about that?
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I saw it as a kid but, being from USA on vacation, I'm not really sure where piccadilly is.
Dad, who is a skyraider pilot (flew #577 in Nam) chuckled and said "I'm not sure that was in the briefing".....but he had a big smile on his face.
I do remember it being super impressive..............as if large manta rays glided over me .................of which a real manta ray had actually glided over me a couple of weeks earlier as I snorkeled around biscayne bay.
Funny thing is that I saw "the incredible Mr. Limpet" starring Don Knotts just a few days before and there was a scene where manta rays were gliding over.
A couple weeks later, I was at church and a guy drove up in a "manta ray" corvette conversion.
It seems odd now, but living on key biscayne in the early 70s had super rare cars abounding and guys like Grover Loening, Eddie Rickenbacker and some other aviation company founders as neighbors
For an 11 year old kid, that was enough for me to declare the summer to be a "manta ray summer" and I actually found a "manta ray" show car trading card at dulles airport along with the super rare orange flavor "big buddy bubble gum" which was a foot long piece of gum.
Dulles airport shops always had candy variations that I could not find living in miami.
A day or so later, we were at "shuttleworth collection" to walk the museum but there was also a RC model fly-in going on with my favorite plane being a prop driven "me163" which was clearly the fastest and most capable plane there.
He eventually ran into some radio interference which caused it nose in.
Maybe he posts here.
With the great miami air race a few months earlier, this was the greatest summer ever.............for an 11 year old.
The only bad news that summer was eddie rickenbacker passing and not being able to see the unlimited hydroplane races at miami marine stadium............which had me bummed out about going to england..........until the vulcan flyby and the shuttleworth collection.
Back to topic.............I do remember dad saying "the vulcans will pass from that direction (pointing) and waiting for the approach to have them suddenly appear not from where he was pointing.
I still love the vulcan to this day because of that summer.........the Victor just plain scared me.
Dad, who is a skyraider pilot (flew #577 in Nam) chuckled and said "I'm not sure that was in the briefing".....but he had a big smile on his face.
I do remember it being super impressive..............as if large manta rays glided over me .................of which a real manta ray had actually glided over me a couple of weeks earlier as I snorkeled around biscayne bay.
Funny thing is that I saw "the incredible Mr. Limpet" starring Don Knotts just a few days before and there was a scene where manta rays were gliding over.
A couple weeks later, I was at church and a guy drove up in a "manta ray" corvette conversion.
It seems odd now, but living on key biscayne in the early 70s had super rare cars abounding and guys like Grover Loening, Eddie Rickenbacker and some other aviation company founders as neighbors
For an 11 year old kid, that was enough for me to declare the summer to be a "manta ray summer" and I actually found a "manta ray" show car trading card at dulles airport along with the super rare orange flavor "big buddy bubble gum" which was a foot long piece of gum.
Dulles airport shops always had candy variations that I could not find living in miami.
A day or so later, we were at "shuttleworth collection" to walk the museum but there was also a RC model fly-in going on with my favorite plane being a prop driven "me163" which was clearly the fastest and most capable plane there.
He eventually ran into some radio interference which caused it nose in.
Maybe he posts here.
With the great miami air race a few months earlier, this was the greatest summer ever.............for an 11 year old.
The only bad news that summer was eddie rickenbacker passing and not being able to see the unlimited hydroplane races at miami marine stadium............which had me bummed out about going to england..........until the vulcan flyby and the shuttleworth collection.
Back to topic.............I do remember dad saying "the vulcans will pass from that direction (pointing) and waiting for the approach to have them suddenly appear not from where he was pointing.
I still love the vulcan to this day because of that summer.........the Victor just plain scared me.
Last edited by IcePaq; 30th Jun 2017 at 13:53.
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Once, when an Admiral asked for a VIP flyover of the USS Enterprise, the Air Group was supposed to fly by the VIPs and then the F-4 Phantoms would light burner and accelerate ahead of the formation of Skyraiders. This was suppposed to demonstrate to the numerous VIPs the difference between old and modern aviation technology. At the appointed time, the F-4s entered afterburner, and the SkyRaider pilots, instead of maintaining their power setting, went to full military. Due to the spool up time on the jets, the stately old SkyRaiders kept up with the F-4s until they were well out of sight of the VIPs.
All of those involved said that the subsequent ass-chewing the SkyRaider pilots endured was well worth it.
All of those involved said that the subsequent ass-chewing the SkyRaider pilots endured was well worth it.
