Oi Martyn - sell that Disco and make room for this...

I helped wreck one of these at RAF Valley when they were decomissioned they had one there for fire practice - as the old man worked there he used to take us there with screwdrivers and pliers so we could pull it apart - bloody small cockpit for a large plane as I remember.

Didn't Jeremy Clarkson get one delivered to his house on an episode of top gear a few years ago?

I remember one coming over our fields at 400 feew or so about 20 years ago, heading for the ards airshow.

We were moving cattle at the time.

We were picking bullocks out of trees for the next week!!

I can remember seeing a lightning at an airshow when I was a kid. Every year there used to be an air show at the Hawker Siddely factory in Hatfield. I was only about 7 or so and I can remember seeing a black lightning fly past in silence, with one hell of a noise following on shortly behind, very impressive.

I saw some fantastic things at those shows, even managed to get behind the scenes on occasion as we knew someone who worked there. He used to crawl around inside the wings cutting off excess metal to save weight!

Me too, me too. /

Particularly fond memories of one Hatfield show where two lightnings turned up. At the end of the day, they had been parked on the display line for a while, and a crowd formed in front of them whilst the pilots got back on board, started them up, slowly taxied them round to face directly away from the crowd,... then lit the afterburners!

David

On the way back from a camping holiday on Norfolk this year we stopped off at the viewing area at RAF Lakenheath.

We got there just in time to see eight fighters taking off in pairs. I warned my son (7) that they were going to be quite loud. When they throttled the engines up and started moving he turned to me and told me that it wasn't loud at all. Then they lit the afterburners and he quickly changed his mind, the look on his face was fantastic.

In message , SpamTrapSeeSig writes

Saw a Vulcan at an airshow in Yorkshire in the 1950s - Middleton St George, I think but could have been Leeming. Did a fly past low and slow. Unfortunately a bit too low and slow and it got into difficulties. It drifted very close over the crowd and pilot couldn't open it up to speed up. You could see him kicking the tail out sideways to try to get back over the runway. Bit scary - the commentator went very quite, and big intake of breath throughout the crowd. Fortunately he made it otherwise it would have been a major disaster. Had my picie taken sitting in the cockpit of a Gloucester Javelin. I was about 12/13 at the time.

Have also had the privilege of flying in Concorde - now you're really talking afterburners and donor vehicle.

What a tragic end. I wish there was room in the carpark for her.

What a good job we have the 101 club for our parts...

Steve

There is a serviceable (?) Vulcan here at Southend airport.

Serial G-VJET and it has, to me recollection, 8 flying hours left on the sirframe and regularly does demo ground runs, noisy bugger though.

There is a trust fund running to get the old crate airworthy for its last flight....should be good.

AlunP

or this......