Some stunning coldwar images of Lightnings etc
 

see

How the RAF has always been ready to face the Russians | Daily Mail Online

Pity the Censor attacked the stenciling on the Bloodhound Mk 1 Photo though.

More pics from Mr Proctor's collection can be found here ...

https://twitter.com/IanDProctor/media

:confused:Lovely pics, but not one photo of the kipper fleet where we were in daily contact with the Russians!

Excellent photos - from the days when Britain still had an air force predominantly equipped with British aircraft....

Beautiful pictures, reminds me of the time I found a photo of my grandfather's battalion on the NW Frontier in the 1920s. Had to raise a smile when I realised we'd both been on ops in the same part of the world but almost a century apart.

However, I do feel the article would be more accurate if re titled 'How the RAF was once ready to face the Russians'. Today, I'd give us a day or 2 against them tops, assuming we ever managed to get anything airborne after a 'cyber first strike' or sabotage of key locations and installations.

Wonder what the equivalent photos in 50 years will be of - Management Board meetings, a pile of business cases and a large hangar with a couple of cannibalised airframes in the corner?

Missing Kipper fleet!
 

To make up for it!Rumour is there will be a MK 2 flying again in a couple of yhttp://i61.tinypic.com/30mwxax.jpgears!

And of course, the other big kipper fleet news is.....

http://www.google.co.uk/url?url=http...nMHAiIfN0y6dsg

Some fabulous aircraft photos. The Victor B1 in anti-flash white was such an elegant aircraft! However the picture that grabbed my attention was the guys arriving at OCTU in 1964. I arrived there from the railway station in a similar bus (maybe that very one) in the same year, wearing a trilby just like that! Just realised, that's now further away in time than the beginning of the First World War was in 1964.

Depressing :(

Brings back memories for me also. I have a feeling the chap in the "winkle-pickers" in the middle is a regular on this forum !!

Thanks for reminding me of that Nutloose. Chances of getting a very good price on the Revell MR 3 with Aeroclub AEW 2 conversion and decal sheet in my loft on E-bay now about Zero.

MK2
 

Sorry to be pedantic but there were no MK 2s with the new style exhausts and a mid upper turret!!

The DM link in Post #1

Ahh - Feltwell. I arrived by car, a much nicer way of getting there. ISTR I was about the only single cadet there with a car, which somewhat enhanced my prospects with fellow cadets of the fair sex. :cool:

Now - the 4 white Vulcans aren't on the ORP at Waddington, because the Waddington ORP is on the east side of the runway. Same at Scampton. So, Spotters, where was that photo taken??

To the uninitiated, the juxtaposition of the image of the Victor navigator alongside the Bloodhound makes it look as though the poor chap is in the nose cone of the missile!

MPN11 ... I'll have a stab ... Wittering perchance :8

FY-RW21 before the var changes made it RW20?

I wish I hadn't asked now!!

Not:
Waddington/Scampton - ORP wrong side
Finningley - no trace of an ORP
Wittering - RW26
Marham - ORP wrong side
Gaydon - ORP wrong side, wrong orientation
Cottesmore - ditto
Honington - ditto
Coningsby - ditto

... eek! Who am I missing?

MPN11

According to Wiki...

Main bases : RAF Coningsby, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finningley, RAF Gaydon, RAF Honington, RAF Marham, RAF Scampton, RAF Waddington, RAF Wittering and RAF Wyton (the only one missing from your list).

Dispersal Bases : Prestwick, RAF Machrihanish, RAF Kinloss, RNAS Lossiemouth (later transferred to RAF), RAF Leuchars, RAF Ballykelly, RAE Bedford, A&AEE Boscombe Down, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Burtonwood, RAF Cranwell, RAF Coltishall, RAF Elvington, Filton, RAF Leconfield, RAF Leeming, RAF Lyneham, RAF Manston, RAF Middleton St. George, RRE Pershore (Royal Radar Establishment), RAF St Mawgan, RAF Tarrant Rushton, RAF Wattisham, RAF Wyton, RNAS Yeovilton, RAF Shawbury, RNAS Brawdy (later transferred to RAF), RAF Llanbedr, RAF Valley

Too young for V Force (and to me ORPs were usually FOD hazards!!). How many of the dispersal bases would have been equipped with ORPs (or, for easier recognition which ones had a 03/21 (ish) runway?).

Yeah ... but Wyton rw 26 and ORP south side anyway!

I'm on the same Wiki page as you cite. Now I'm really confused!! I've run the whole list on Google Maps, and nothing correlates!!

The photo is from RAF Finningley. It had an ORP until about 10 years ago:


Finningley was our SFD aerodrome when I was on 35 Sqn. On one occasion the Boss charged off the ORP with such enthusiasm that he sent the VASIs (or were they PAPIs by then) skywards.

Dang and blast ... I failed to spot the shadows in the grass at Finningley :mad:


Thanks, BEagle. I shall sleep soundly tonight ;)

Apologies, vascodegama. I should have taken your early call more seriously.

Well done Beags. Another triumph for GD/P!

It looks like XP 702(C) has been flying in the box slot, either that or bl00dy fast!

Old Pax

Could be they are doing options of producing the MR 1 and 3, The early MR 2 did have a mid upper turret.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...A_06.09.55.jpg

Presumably the liquid on the tarmac under WG557 in that photo is engine oil?

:E

The mid-upper was removed from the Mk2 by 1956.

Airfix are doing an MR2 with early and late period markings, with an AEW 2 coming later (NOt official, but they displayed a test model with a radome!)

I particularly liked the shot of Ulf Burberry and his crew scrambling towards a Victor. I had a bit to do with training Ulf on the Argosy when he became Station Master at Benson and I have to say that he was a joy to fly with. Mind you, I never saw him running!

In keeping with the allegedly poor security and USSR penetration of UK instituitions , the second Mail picture of the three recruits and the Flight Sgt type appears to show a young Mikhail Gorbachev , the man nearest the non com trying to infiltrate the RAF..... just an observation

Wasn't a Triumph Herald was it ? If so, I may have travelled back from the pub in it in the back seat with a WRAF cadet ;)

He's a warrant officer (see cap badge and patch pockets on the tunic). Call him "flight" instead of "sir" at Feltwell and you'd have been standing at attention getting the "hairdryer" treatment!

I'm guessing that the 74 Sqn Hunter shot with the rather attractive SACW was at Horsham St Faith (now Norwich airport)?

gayford reyr #10

You called?:}

@ Tankertrashnav ... no, just an old upright Ford Popular, but in my case it was the only show in town :D :cool:
My car-sharing days were [briefly] confined to the course at Shawbury, before I became a 2-car a/plt off and hired one out ;)

BTW, I noticed the gent on the right on the Feltwell photo appeared to have a pen in his breast pocket. :*
One assumes he didn't graduate?

I clicked on the daily mail link in the first post and thought I had been diverted to the caption competition thread

Yes, I noticed that, and his rather naff tieclip. Still, I suppose he was shown the error of his ways. I'd stopped eating peas with my knife by the time I graduated ;)

The Victor scramble had a proper Chief Technician as well.

Mr Winklepicker has a classic FLATUS DETECTED UNKNOWN ORIGIN expression, and his bag is the exact kind that was advertised in the back of RAF Flying Review. Trendy chap!

What a pity the UK does not have an airworthy Lightning that we could send to intercept an ageing Bear intruder and shame the Russians into stopping their petty "threats"

With a pen in the breast pocket, one is neither an officer nor a gentleman....:cool:

What about wearing jeans?

Remember DC at Binbrook giving a sqn ldr a very low F1369 score for wearing jeans for gardening, but it was about 1981!


In the production control office at Marshalls in 69/70 I was told that I should have pencils or pens in my breast pocket of my jacket as that lent an air of authority. I did not succumb!