Did my "night" conversion with Bruce Latton - got St Elmo's Fire on the cockpit arch one night. Was he the guy that hit you on the helmet with a nav ruler from the back seat?

Not in my day - I was just about his very first student and I enjoyed flying with him - we both learned a lot but I never saw a nav ruler!

Sometimes a Valley Gnat could be seen in interesting company...

http://www.kmercerphotography.co.uk/...1_crop_850.jpg

A Valley gnat, or a red one, when the Reds were in their prime?

IIRC, a 4FTS one as part of the static display for a Valley Open Day ('75?). The Reds did carry out a display and I remember thinking at the time that if only I had nipped up one of the pan floodlight towers I could have photographed them from above...

There was not an instructor that I flew with at Valley from whom I did not learn an awful lot, some of them lessons that would save my life at some time, and none whom I did not like and enjoy flying with.

Wonderful little aeroplane. Did the second gnat course with great instructors like Lee Jones, Tony Doyle,Gerry Ranscombe and others who my advancing years can't remember. "Trim & unlock" has remained in my deep sub - conscious ever since !

Speed, trim, unlock I think! The whole thing was STUPRE ISTR. Was this not Speed, Trim, Unlock, Pressure Release, Exhaust. If it was a practice failure it was necessary to make small fore/aft control movements to exhaust the remaining hyd pressure to leave the tailplane locked on the optimum position.It is a long time since I flew a Gnat or did my A2 with Al East!

STUPRECCC for HYD fail was:
Speed below 400/M0.85
Trim to the safe/ideal FTPI sector
Unlock elevators, check 2 clicks, white band and 'ELEV' caption on
Power cock OFF
Raise the Stby Trim guard
Exhaust the aileron accumulator and pitch accumulator with the TPI at 1½°-2½° nose-up (gear up) / 5½°-6½° (gear down)
Check control column response
Check TPI response to Stby Trim
Changeover Stby Trim to stick top using Mod 399 switches.

"Speed-Trim-Unlock-Power-Exhaust-Check-Check-Change"

CUBSTUNT for AC/DC fail was:
Cabin altimeter to 'Static'
UHF standby TRx ON
Boost pump OFF
Speed below 300/M0.7 (I think??)
Trim to the safe/ideal FTPI sector
Unlock elevators, check 2 clicks, white band and 'ELEV' caption on
Non-essential electrics OFF
Transponder to 7700

Looks like a Reds Gnat to me......

Same scheme as....

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...GNAT-XR537.jpg

At some point over the weekend I will post colour pictures from the Valley 1975 airshow.

I was at St Athan in 1988 and I recall a Gnat in grey/green camouflage parked (stored?) outside one of the hangars. What was that all about?

I would have loved a blat in a Gnat!

This always makes my day, and for some reason you get it twice, so your day will be twice as nice.

I knew it;)

Please can somebody answer the question, it's been bugging me for 23 years!

Piggies

this one maybe?
Warbird Depot - Jets > Steve Rosenberg's Folland Gnat T-1

No, it was grey/green like a Jaguar.

one for sale at Folland Gnat for sale by Raptor Aviation, LLC

$149,000 ONO


Piggies

then maybe a retired Finnish one like these?
Planepictures.net search: Aircraft: Folland Gnat F.1

Maybe.

It was definitely a two-seater and there were no Finnish markings. Did Finland send any jets back to the RAF?

US Navy carrier Gnats
Hot Shots! Trailer - IMDb

Piggies, that would have been Gnat T Mk 1 XR541.

After an incident and barrier engagement at RAF Mona on 7 Feb 1978, it was decided not to repair the aircraft as the Gnat was about to leave service. It was then stripped of any useful spares and sent to RAF St Athan as 8602M for ground instructional use.

The aircraft was used by a Painters and Finishers course for practice, being painted as 'PF179' - presumably 179 was their course number.

Now at Bruntingthorpe and hopefully to be restored to ground running condition. A Google Images search for PF179 will provide a recent photo.

Of course 6 camouflaged Gnat single seat fighters were operated by the UK in the 1960s - and a couple still survive. XK724 is at Cosford, but the most authentic is XK740 now at Solent Sky, Southampton.