The Red Arrows

[LizG]

9 hours ago, Vaughan said:

I am glad there are other witnesses here on the forum, otherwise it would be un-believeable!

I remember it was very calm and thinking they only just missed Maidie's mast when it was Bermudian so taller than it is today.  She was moored up on a bouy at the top of the Broad so they came up over the marshes from Burgh St Peter first as JM referred to!

[Polly]

We lived near Sywell, so got a free show over our garden most Spring bank holidays. One year I was at the airfield and yes, they came screaming in out of nowhere at rooftop or lower and funnelled upwards. The cars in the car park shook, and an elderly friend suddenly appeared out of one, reeling a bit. It seems that he had been having a nap and they gave him a rude awakening.  Given that he died a year or so later of a sudden heart attack, I reckon that it could have been a more dramatic arrival than the Reds had planned!

[Hockham Admiral]

I was out in Malta, at RAF Luqa, with my Buccaneer, for an aerobatic display. The Red Arrows duly arrived and we had a monumental drink-up in the Officers' Mess until about 3am.

The 'Arrows had been invited to fly over Valetta at 9am that same morning and they  did...down the streets in between the houses. One even took a TV aerial with him!

[JennyMorgan]

My most endearing memory of the Arrows at Oulton Broad was me standing outside the old shop at Burgh St Peter when it was on the riverbank. On the opposite bank was a solitary and relatively low tree. An aircraft came in from behind the shop, flying low and blasting across the river. I am convinced that it was no higher than the top of that low tree and I well remember small branches and twigs being blasted back at the shop. No damage but it was as thrilling as it was alarming.  

[grendel]

there was a house at the end of the runway at one of our local airports near ashford, this had had its chimney knocked off many times (lymne airport I believe) I think it was originally a WW2 grass strip the planes would come in across the road, only a little above the chimney, their tv aerial was lower on the side of the house.

[FairTmiddlin]

Yes Grendel Lympne know the house  and the company was Dan Air. Mostly Daks in the early days then old BA Boeings. Finallyclosed and moved to Lydd (Lympnes other claim to fame is MacCartney and Wings recorded Back to the Egg at Lympne Castle . Oh and a huge Wildlife park started by John Aspinall yes the guy who purportedly got rid of Lucans body. )

My endearing memory of the Red Arrows was flying into San Javier airport near the Mar Menor in Spain and spotting the Arrows and also the Patrulla Águila (Eagle Patrol ) or the Spanish Display team all parked near the end of the runway. San Javier is dual purpose. Military and civilian

Then later sitting in a bar near the inland sea which is the mar menor watching the Arrows teaching the Spaniards how it was done. And the C0ck ups of the Spanish

[JennyMorgan]

Here is an undated, not very good quality snap of the Arrows over Oulton Broad. Here they are going North to South across the Broad. It was when they went West to East along the Broad that they flew under the roof height of the buildings on the right. Don't know which year this was, sorry. 

[Hockham Admiral]

Well I can say that it's some time in the last 37 years, Peter, as the Reds started flying the Hawk just as I left HMFC in 1979!

[Vaughan]

Are they Hawks or Gnats? I only ask because the two look similar and I seem to remember it was 1975.

What about you Liz?

[JennyMorgan]

Vaughan, I have checked online with my local record office which has a picture of the Arrows over OB in 1976. Unfortunately that picture is not online. 1976 could well be the second visit. 

 

 

 

[Hockham Admiral]

4 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Are they Hawks or Gnats? I only ask because the two look similar and I seem to remember it was 1975.

What about you Liz?

Those are Hawks, Vaughan.

Gnat

Hawk

[donnygeoff]

no, you are both wrong

this is a gnat

 

this is a hawk

 

you can tell the difference with the wing shape and tail configurtion

 

[lurcher]

that's not a gnat its a mosquito

[donnygeoff]

54 minutes ago, lurcher said:

that's not a gnat its a mosquito

The wooden wonder, another nice aircraft.

 

[Vaughan]

As Flanders and Swann once said : "It's not irrelevant - it's a hippopotamus."

I actually asked because that would mean it was sometime between 1979 and and 1981, when I left Norfolk.

Unless they did more than one display?

[LizG]

Thinking cap time, I will respond later when my memory has turned some cogs

[JennyMorgan]

They did at least two, one of which was 1976.

[Vaughan]

10 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

They did at least two, one of which was 1976.

I think that was the one I saw.

As to the aircraft type, they didn't stand still long enough to identify them!

[LizG]

My poor brain is struggling, I now know I crewed the Rebel in 1974, but I have a photo of Evening Flight in 1974 in what must be the 'bloodbath' and that would mean I wasn't out on the water but Vaughan was.  I have another photo taken by the EDP of the 'bloodbath' in almost certainly 1976 and I was in an Enterprise and it was VERY rough and we survived the start and that was about it!  Not a calm day.  Therefore this memory has to be 1975 then.  I thought it was the year that Vaughan's leave was cancelled during Wroxham Week due to the Cyprus crisis and that I think that now was 1974 as I remember Evening Flight arriving at Oulton Broad later in the week.......... The photo I have attached is dated August 1974!!!!

[TheQ]

A Hawk, Black, Jet powered, flew over us two days ago, following the same course as the Hercules and two King Airs did for the Queens Birthday. Only it was flying somewhat lower towards the south.

[grendel]

we get them circling above the office, as we are just off junction 29 of the M25, this puts them in a perfect alignment to fly up the Mall to Buckingham Palace, they circle us until the perfect time is reached, the best one was last year when there were several jets trying to fly slow enough to not overtake a spitfire and the lancaster the jets were in a very nose up attitude applying a lot of thrust (we could feel and hear it) (dont ask me what the jets were but one was in ww2 paint job)

[troutman62]

On 23/06/2016 at 7:02 AM, Hockham Admiral said:

I know that quite a few of us enjoy watching the Red Arrows and I found this old documentary of their '72 visit to Canada and the USA.

Now these guys were seriously good and very, very low! Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6xCbeY6HjE

You should have come back 'ome at the weekend mate !

Great display at Cleethorpes for Armed Forces day ! We could have called in the Notts for a pint or three.

Edited June 29, 2016 by troutman62
Just an afterthought

[Vaughan]

21 hours ago, w-album said:

My poor brain is struggling, I now know I crewed the Rebel in 1974, but I have a photo of Evening Flight in 1974 in what must be the 'bloodbath' and that would mean I wasn't out on the water but Vaughan was.  I have another photo taken by the EDP of the 'bloodbath' in almost certainly 1976 and I was in an Enterprise and it was VERY rough and we survived the start and that was about it!  Not a calm day.  Therefore this memory has to be 1975 then.  I thought it was the year that Vaughan's leave was cancelled during Wroxham Week due to the Cyprus crisis and that I think that now was 1974 as I remember Evening Flight arriving at Oulton Broad later in the week.......... The photo I have attached is dated August 1974!!!!

On the day of the display I was not racing, so was sitting in the clubhouse, and it was a very calm wind.

I did get called off Wroxham broad, in the middle of the Cruiser race, to go back to Cyprus in 1974 which was a bit ironic as I had just come back from there, after a NATO exercise in the Med. I was there on an RFA landing ship, and took part in the last pub crawl in Famagusta, where we had a brandy sour in all the hotels along the beach. The next morning at dawn the shooting started and it remains an abandoned ghost town, to this day. No, it was not the Royal Fleet Auxiliary that trashed it!

I don't suppose the actual date matters now, as it was a fabulous and un-forgettable display, the like of which we shall never see again.

[LizG]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

I don't suppose the actual date matters now, as it was a fabulous and un-forgettable display, the like of which we shall never see again.

Agree

[BroadScot]

On one of their early Scottish Air shows at Prestwick Airport the manouver of the two jets coming from opposite ends of the runway at a very low height, meeting in the middle, has always stayed with me. Very scarey! That was in the late 70's.

Iain