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I heard and then saw a thing of beauty this evening...

Timbo

By Timbo
in The Broadscot Lounge

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gancanny

gancanny

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  about 14 years ago i got chatting to an elderly chap during lift-out day at dilham.

 

    it turned out he had been a flight engineer on halifax bombers during ww11

  after the RAF he joined  BOAC which is now british airways and was a member of the first team to be trained up for the jumbo 747,  he later went on "loan" down under for QUANTAS training their aircrew,

            in later years he was again selected to join the team which brought CONCORDE to our skies,  he never was a crew member on a commercial flight only on the development,

                 he had a boat on the dilham moorings and lived in salhouse

   what a fantastic few hours of chat that turned out to be

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Timbo
Timbo

While the Mrs hunted for waffles...they are on special at Lidl...I sat in the carpark by the side of the Trent in Gainsborough, car window down trying to get some breeze when I heard the distinctive h

BroadAmbition
BroadAmbition

'A long time ago in a galaxy far far away'   Well to be precise it was the either the Norwegian or Barents sea I was at sea on one of her Majesties grey funnel line vessels.  The year would have bee

Timbo
Timbo

Ah but you see MM with Iain's "I had the pleasure of standing under its bomb bay many years ago." and Lorri's "got my name on the inside of the bomber doors" that would make them Bombay Ducks!

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Timbo

Timbo

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  about 14 years ago i got chatting to an elderly chap during lift-out day at dilham.

 

    it turned out he had been a flight engineer on halifax bombers during ww11

  after the RAF he joined  BOAC which is now british airways and was a member of the first team to be trained up for the jumbo 747,  he later went on "loan" down under for QUANTAS training their aircrew,

            in later years he was again selected to join the team which brought CONCORDE to our skies,  he never was a crew member on a commercial flight only on the development,

                 he had a boat on the dilham moorings and lived in salhouse

   what a fantastic few hours of chat that turned out to be

 

 

To take this thread on another twist...this reminds me of a childhood visit to York Railway Museum when it first opened.

 

Desperate to get my mind off of boats and fishing and other Broads related activities Mum and Dad had dragged me to York for the day. Now Mum was the type of woman that must have had one of those invisible signs on her head...you know the type that reads 'Lost?Lonely? Psychopath? Talk to me I won't mind!'. On this day however her sign turned a boring day into one to remember. We had drifted across to take a look at the Mallard. As we walked around the fabulous train Mum spotted an old man stood looking at the train and crying. Of course Mum couldn't resist and went to ask if she could help. The old boy kept saying 'this is the real Flying Scotsman you know'. Then he reached into his wallet and withdrew a photograph of him on the footplate of the Mallard when 'she' (are trains she's like boats?) broke the record. Reaching into his bag he started to pull out all kinds of documents and photographs of when he was one of the firemen on the train. A fascinating day only made better when Mum fetched a member of the Museum staff who recognised the chap and organised for him to have a new photograph taken from the footplate and the old boy was good enough to take me up with him.

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SPEEDTRIPLE

SPEEDTRIPLE

Posted
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Although not Broads related here is a wee bit of info regarding the Halifax Bomber.

There is a Halifax at Elvington Museum near York, an excellent day out or was IMHO.

 

http://www.yorkshireairmuseum.org/

 

cheers Iain.

 

 

Yep,  York Air Museum, been there and bought a mug. Another fantastic museum which also has a replica of the first human operated plane, which actually took to the skies long before the wright brothers powered flight, and a few miles up the road between Pickering and Scarborough. It was in a little village called Brompton by Sawdon.  Karen and i had a holiday cottage in the village of Sawdon about a mile North of the village. I was stunned to see the stone at the village boundary proudly displaying the words "birthplace of aviation" engraved on it. I`ve told Karen we`ll go back to Yorkshire soon, as i want to go back to the Air museum, which incidentally has the catapult that Barnes Wallis used in the ship testing tanks when developing the bouncing mine for "Operation Chastise" (Dambuster raid) as an exibit, along with other artifacts all about the great man and his achievements.

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loribear

loribear

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I absolutely love the vulcan myself too, she's one hell of a lady ,& the that noise she makes is brilliant, it sends shivers down your spine ,& from what ive heard there's only been one pilot who actually did a barrel roll in one, that must have really been something , WOW, it's just a pity she won't be flying for much longer, ive actually got my name on the inside of the bomber doors , Oooooh lol, lets hope we can keep her flying for abit longer. smilie_girl_023.gif

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Siddy

Siddy

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Seen concord a few times doing the pleasure flights out of Leeds and also from home about 8 miles in sight of runway and you could hear it rev up. Check utube for the windy sideways landing into Leeds & bradford or Yeadon as it was known.

Seen Concord on display at Manchester as at 6` it's a step over into the pilots seat but it's seen wear a tear in the cockpit, also see where the gap opens and they can put fingers in at speed. That one was used for the Royals liz at one side Phil at the other lol. Use can use it for pics if you get married they take the car along side.

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SueH

SueH

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Have you seen the diary for the Canadian Lancaster that is starting her flight from Goose Bay to Coningsby today?  She will be appearing with the BBMF Lanc in quite a few fly-pasts this coming month, providing she is serviceable of course!

 

A sight not to be missed.

 

SueH

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

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Back in that unmentionable time my Uncle, then a local man, painted his squadron's Spitfires pink! Perhaps the idea was that enemy gunners would laugh so much that they'd forget to press their triggers. On the other hand, being local, he was actually quite sharp! At altitude, apparently, pink Spitfires were hard to see. 

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BroadAmbition

BroadAmbition

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'A long time ago in a galaxy far far away'

 

Well to be precise it was the either the Norwegian or Barents sea I was at sea on one of her Majesties grey funnel line vessels.  The year would have been 1980-ish

 

That particular day we were towing a 'Splash Target' about 1/2 a mile astern of the ship  The splash target was to simulate a ship and threw up a tall water plume.

 

The American air force were due to do a live bombing exercise on the splash target.

 

The weather was clear, bright with azure blue skies and not a cloud to be seen with hardly any wind They were about six aircraft due to make numerous 'Bombing' runs which they duly did.  Some of the 'Hits' were indeed classed as hits as they were quite close to the splash target.

 

The Americans drew off gained some altitude and circled.

 

Then    -   'She'    -   arrived over the horizon. Her height was about 3000ft the same height that the Americans had been carrying out their exercises.

 

'She' was of course a lone Avro Vulcan, in she came, no practise run,(like the Yanks had enjoyed)  just straight in and let go a solitary bomb.  By now most of the ships company were on the upper deck (Which would have been around 200 of us or so, 80 odd below decks).  After letting go her ordnance she stood on her tail and emitted that now famous Vulcan 'Howl'

 

The noise even at that height was tremendous, then silence.

 

We sailors just stood our mouths agape - Our splash target was no more, a direct hit (Which most of us had never witnessed before or since) leaving our ship towing just a wire hawser with no splash target throwing up a plume of spray.  Witness 200 sailors whooping with pride and joy.

 

The American aircraft quickly departed.  The Vulcan gained much altitude until she was able to produce a fine contrail in the sky where she proceed to 'Write' out our ships pennant number over hundreds of miles 'D88'

 

That was one of my most proudest and best remembered days where the famous Vulcan is concerned.

 

Nowadays I see her regularly flying in/out of her home base as she is on my doorstep - I've had a walk round her in her hanger too.  Some of us now take her for granted, apart from when she goes over 90% and 'Howls' (She doesn't always do this even on take off).  I will never forget that proud day at sea when she showed the Yanks how it is done

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

Posted
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My father, a volunteer in the Royal Observer Corps in WWII, on three occasions was involved in telling the yanks when NOT to do it, as they were want to do, and still do. Once on a convoy, once in a Flying Fortress & once on a US landing ship at Normandy. Apparently, in the Flying Fortress, when flying through a cloud the Captain became jumpy and for no other reason ordered everything he had to fire on a particular bearing! 

 

Coincidently dad never came under direct fire when with the Yanks but he did twice when on leave. Once at Horning Ferry when that was bombed and also at Stracey Arms when the Mill was strafed. If you look carefully at the mill you can still see bullet scars on the brickwork.. 

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Timbo

Timbo

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On the way back from a quick visit to Royal Tudor at the weekend we passed the Vulcan at Waddington...is this now just an ornament and not flight worthy? 

 

I have to say as far as historic aircraft go, living in Gainsborough we have the Battle of Britain flight go over on a regular basis and we are used to the constant practice sessions of the Red Arrows. A few years back when the Red Arrows got their first female pilot my daughter asked me how she could tell which plane had the woman pilot.

 

I'm sad to say in true 'Dad' form I said she had to wait for them to come down low and watch for the pilot doing her 'lippy' in the rearview mirror.  :norty:

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10B

10B

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Yesterday we were at Mahon Airport in Menorca, returning home. Along the back of the Airport in a nice row side by side sat The Red Arrows. As we waited they started to move, they passed across the front of the passenger terminal, taxied to the end of the runway and then took off, three groups of 3 then a single one and then it was one or two at the rear?

All the ground staff stopped what they were doing and watched the takeoff.

It felt proud that a British flight in a foreign country had brought an airfield to a standstill.

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