Aviation pics from a bygone age that might be of interest

[ian16th]

The Vulcan to Sydney was 1961, can't remember the date, but I can look up my old passports. 214 stationed tankers in Cyprus, Karachi & Singapore, I was with the Karachi detachment. I think it was during the Trent Bridge Test match! A photo was taken at Trent Bridge and processed in the back of an RAF mobile darkroom as it drove to Waddo/Scampton, and the Capt of the Vulcan handed the pic to the Mayor of Sydney the next day!

The airborne alert I remember well. It was after I got married and I was living out, in Kings Lynn. So the date was between June and Oct 1962.
We split the Sqdn into 3 shifts and worked round the clock for the week.
We started the week with all of the a/c serviceable and as the week went on we had a bigger struggle to get 3 a/c ready, 2 to fly, for each sortie.
At the end of most shifts, some guys had to work overtime.
We ended the week with virtually all the a/c snagged and all of the ground crew shattered.

[FD2]

I came across these grainy old snaps and thought they might be of interest. Anyone care to guess where they were taken? One type of aircraft wasn't based there...

I was on my bike at the time, so it was about 1963.

[CharlieOneSix]

I'd take a guess at Colerne. In 61' I was a cadet in the Air Training Corps and we had a four hour (I think) jolly from there in a Hastings.

I can't make out the last number on the tail - if it's 342 then its probably WJ342 which was written off during an aborted take off at Nairobi-Eastleigh on 23/1/61(edited from 51 to 61). If it's 343 then it's probably WJ343 and it survived until it was sold for scrap from Shawbury on 25/9/69.

343.JPG (39.37 KiB) Viewed 431 times

[FD2]

Spot on C16. I used to cycle up there from home and goof. The station also had a little Anson which zoomed quietly around the circuit occasionally. I used to hear the Hastings doing circuits at night through my open bedroom window down in Bathampton - they usually seemed to be left hand circuits on the westerly runway so it brought them closer downwind! The area to the west of the airfield used to slope steeply downwards in woods and sadly one of the Hastings crashed into this area one night killing all on board. Sorry I can't be any help with the registration but the photos must have been taken after 1961 when we moved to the area. The Shackleton might have just been looking for a quiet airfield for some circuits.
Top photo landing Hastings might begin with a 4. Climbing Hastings might end with 0 or 9, but just not sure.

[CharlieOneSix]

FD2 - you and I used to fly with Jim G who was a co-pilot on Hastings before he moved to helicopters. I remember him saying you had to have your feet on the instrument panel to get enough leverage when trying to pull back to round out to land. Almost certainly a wind up but a good story in the bar!

[TheGreenGoblin]

That shot of the Shackleton takes me back to riding down on my bicycle as a 13 year old boy to a local military airfield to gawp.

Didn't the Hastings feature in the RAF's worst ever peacetime accident in the 60's?

[FD2]

It's funny how memory can play tricks. The Hastings accident I mentioned actually occurred in 1957 when a practice asymmetric thrust landing went wrong. The aircraft hit the runway very hard, bounced, then hit the ground again about 400 metres from the runway and slid into a wooded gully. All 5 crew were rescued or escaped but the aircraft was totally destroyed in the post crash fire. That was 4 years or so before my family moved to Bathampton. Brain re-synchronised!