Al's RAF Jaguar Ride | |
A Couple of Pics: | Folk, It has been quite hard to keep this a secret but I learned well over a year ago that the RAF hierarchy had decided to honour me with a ride in a Jaguar. Pulling it all together has taken a wee while! Smithy has been an absolute brick and met me at Coningsby early eve Sun to "start the process that made it all happen". I won't go into too much detail as I've agreed to write up the experience for an aviation comic of choice. Suffice to say that it was truly the most mind blowing aviation experience to date. I've flown in a Vulcan, I've won aerobattic accolades in an aeroplane that I built from a set of drawings, I've flown myself low level down the length of the Zambezi in a twin, I've sat in the front of an S2B whilst the Smirnoff team practised their formation aerobatic display routine, I've formated on the Red Baron Stearman team, I've got 30 hours in a DC3, etc, etc... 1H40 in a Jag! In excess of 20 mins as handling pilot rolling and looping it. Al |
Strapped in - in the HAS (hardened aircraft shelter - bombproof) and about to start an armed jet - I couldn't keep the grin of my fiz! Turning one's head gradually got easier as the safety clothing (dry suit) warmed up! | |
Formation take off in full burner in shitty weather. | |
It really is me!! | |
My shepherd goes...... | |
We did find some good weather but it was 3 miles up. I've just started recovery from a barell roll. | |
And the jet works any way up!! | |
The green writing tells me "virtually" all I need to know! Most of the time we're doing 7.5 miles a minute but the extra drag of aerobatting can slow it down. | |
And all too soon it's time to land! 100 mins felt more like 10 -We'd been from E Anglia to Newcastle to Anglessey, back to E Anglia and we'd had stacks of time to play (general handling)! | |
Recovering back to base - RTB What a day! Do I feel privileged! Al - I'm off AGAIN to apply for the RAF. Actually I may have been invited back next week to do a wee bit more!! | |
