unclebuck

Did anyone watch this? Brilliant programme! Very ineresting

Tim-Grove

I watched it great stuff cant wait till next week

AnDy_PaNdY

Excellent programme.
We owe so much to that generation.

TopBanana

I know Branty - nearly spat out my tea when I saw him on the telly!

planky

A woman flying a plane

Mungo

Fabulous programme. I loved the story about low level training "..we were flying at about 30 feet, and somebody flew underneath us..." Fantastic stuff!

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Were those guys heroes or what? I have an uncle whose was a Lancater co-pilot bomb aimer during world war 2, and soon am going to visit him, he still has all his logs, and I'm gonna be reading them, that should be intresting.
Cheers
Colin

IWatkins

Recorded it last night, watched it tonight. What a great program. Looking forward to next week.

As for low, yep, that is low in something that flys like a brick compared to modern aircraft.

However, low is comparative. I've heard some stories about martime Buccaneers that would make your toes curl.

Cheers

Ian

unclebuck

Gosh, the old Buccaneer Don't see much of those anymore.

Go on then, tell us a yarn

BOB.T

I don't spose it's repeated / on video is it?

Sbradley

Senior pilot on my squadron was an ex Buccaneer jock. One particular sortie required a low level ingress snapping up to a simulated toss bombing strike. Seems the met was a bit wrong because when they dropped in low (and by his admission he was a bit of a cowboy) instead of 2-3 foot waves they had 15-20 footers. So him being a steely eyed jet jockey and the Buc' being big and heavy and not particularly good at reacting to winds he went in low and hit the top of a wave. Or two. At around 480knots. It ripped the bomb bay out of the fuselage, shattered the radome and tore off the undercarriage doors. First instinct was to pull up hard so he did and tore off the airbrake as well as it hit the water!

Despite all that he recovered back to the carrier safely. Bloody strong aeroplane.

On another sortie he flew so low that his observer (guy in the back - the RAF call them navigators) asked him to pull up a bit because he was unhappy. Well of course this was a red rag to a bull, and the boss went lower still. So the obs simply refused to talk to him for the rest of the flight. Which would be fine, except that he had the charts, routes and radio freqs. And he was sitting in the back. So the drive rhad to get on the emergency channel and request a steer back to mother then run through all the checks on his own, from memory, instead of being prompted from the observer's flip cards...

Served him right. He was a sod as an instructor. Damn good pilot, though...

SB

unclebuck

lol - great stuff!! Anyone got any more?? Those odd airbrakes were a one off in aircraft design terms.. strange..

stevem2k

Used to watch them flying out of Yeovilton when I was a nipper .. spent hours down at the end of the runway waiting for something to land or take off.

They used to train harrier pilots ( before & during the Falklands ) to use the ski-ramp down there too ...


Steve

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

My old boy was RAF during the war, on 83, Pathfinder Squadron. One of the pilots was a Canadian named "Rick", (his real name was Frederick) Garvie. My dad was in his Lancaster during a trial flight after maintenance, when Garvie flew it under some High Voltage lines slung between two pylons, and hit a haystack!
When they got back to Scampton, there they all were pulling handsfull of hay out of one of the engine air intakes, when the base CO arrived. Garvie on a charge!
Apparently, the guy flew 2 full tours plus 10, and had to be forcibly removed from ops. He then went and killed himself flying an Oxford on a training squadron.
If any of you have seen the Lancaster in the RAF museum, R5868, S "Sugar", Garvie flew that aircraft for 83, as Q "Queenie".
Alcazar

Merc_Cosworth

Molly (bomb aimer) was in my form at school, and still a mate

Oh, how I could critise him for his taste in cars - but I won't

Best of luck to the boy!

Marin

iTrader: (1)

If anyone is interested, my next door neighbour runs the Milton Keynes Aircraft Society and they are organising an evening with bomber crews from WW2 who will be talking about their experiences and then open to questions. Date is 8th July. I'm going so maybe we could have a Scoobynet presence?

Check www.mkas.net for all the details.

Marin

iTrader: (1)

bttt

Popeye P1

My old fella flew Meteors and Vampires in the RAF. Unfortunately one of his flights in the De Havilland Vampire was his last. He took off and his engine failed over the town of Stamford. He decided to ditch the plane in a field. In those days they didn't have ejector seats so the plane crashed but luckily he was thrown out of his cockpit into some trees. A farmer found him and raised the alarm. He was in a coma for a few weeks but eventually came too. Smashed most of his body up but is still enjoying life today.

unclebuck

astraboy

<Go on then, tell us a yarn >
one of my dad's mates was a tornado jock in the original gulf war (the good one)
he told me about the time a Buc returned from a low level mission with a tumbleweed attached to the pitot tube
RAF pilots. You just dont mess!!!
astraboy.

dsmith

Not exactly the continuation of stories of derring do but in the University air squadron as a recognised RAF Squadron we used to get the offical accident reports for various mishaps.

The favourite one involved a Tornado. 2 key features are the buckets which flip round behind the engine - reversing the thrust and slowing you once landed and the fact these buckets could be pre-selected before landing to trigger when the main undercarriages was firmly down.

According to the report one pilot, accidentally pre-selected the above buckets, made a complete hash of his approach and banged the plane down fairly hard. It bounced heavily so as is quite normal, the Pilot went to full throttle aiming to go round and have another go. Except the reversing buckets deployed as the bounce was so hard. So at about 20 ft with the buckets deployed he hit full throttle - and it dropped like a stone !

Futher investigation revealed no tapes of the cockpit as the proper tape had been removed from the cockpit voice recorder and a Dire Straits tape was in it place.....

A liitle more concentration called for on final approach I believe

Deano

IWatkins

The classic I heard over the radio in ATC was a controller (Neatishead ?) talking in a pair of Phantoms (goodies, from the base I worked at) to 'destroy' a pair of Bucs (the baddies) that were inbound, low level towards a Navy ship (goodie).

The Bucs were apparantly at 30 feet ASL in tight side by side formation. The Phantoms were having trouble getting down behind the Bucs to go for a gun kill. Eventually the confidence increased in the Phantom pilots and they managed to get down low behind the Bucs. Just as they were closing in for the kill, the two Bucs both broke formation, one going left, the other right.

The Phantoms climbed out a bit to see what they were doing. The Bucs clover leafed back into formation and then dropped to 15 feet.

Again the Phantoms tried to get down behind but this took even longer. Again, just as they lined up for a gun kill, the Bucs both dropped down to about 10 feet (apparantly) and this caused huge great big plumes of sea spray to be thrown up behind. The Phantoms had to climb out and came back to base. The Bucs continued on and 'killed' the ship.

There is a video tape from the lead Phantom's gun camera that did the rounds afterwards. I gained massive respect for the Buc pilots after seeing that (as I couldn't believe the commentary at the time.

Another story was that (and this was reported in Air Clues IIRC) was a Buc again going low level against a Navy ship. As the ship was fairly close to some oil rigs the Buc pilot decided to come in from behind a rig, quickly zig left-right around the rig and then line up on the ship so that the rig was directly behind and masked some of the approach. However, a small fishing boat was to the lee of the rig and the Buc pilot didn't see it until too late. The cabin/wheelhouse of the fishing boat was removed by the wingtip on the Buc

Ah, the good old days.....

Cheers

Ian

Leslie

Popeye,

I would be interested to know the year your dad had that accident in the Vampire.

If it was one of the single seat Vampires then the ejection seat could not be fitted since the cockpit area was largely made out of wood and was not strong enough to take the ejector. If you fired the seat the frame would burst through the floor and the seat stay in the aircraft! I can understand your dad's decision to try to force land since it was very difficult to bale out without being hit by the tail boom. i am glad he recovered from the accident.

Les

unclebuck

Thanks for the stories everyone, very interesting

Part II has just started for those who may not have realised.

IWatkins

Again, excellent programme. Best docu. I've seen for a long time.

Cheers

Ian

dsmith

Bugger - missed it

Anyone know if its repeated (or rather "when" not "if")

Deano

AnDy_PaNdY

Top class programme, best thing thats been on for ages.

Reffro

I watched it, but I stupidly turned over during the adverts towards the end and forgot to watch the result, did they manage to get a hit on the dam???

Richard Askew

Fantastic documentary.. is being realised on video and DVD soon too

astraboy

Yes they did manage to hit it, after a few calculations it was determinied that they released at exactly the right moment to score a direct hit.
Like I said, RAF pilots, you just dont mess!
astraboy.