Plane Tales

As you may recall I was undergoing the training course for the Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant having completed four previous flying tours.  Now being a senior officer it made the j...

Form 414, my RAF Logbook continues with me leaving Australia and the Hornet unhappily in my rear vision mirror as I was heading back to Blighty and a cold winter in Lincolnshire.  ...

After I landed my aircraft I clambered out of the Hornet with the cold realisation that I might have flown my last sortie.  The spinning sensation had ceased and the sortie had gon...

The year is 1957 and the space race is underway.  The major powers around the world, mainly the Soviet Union and the United States, are all striving to develop the technology that ...

Let me take you back to the dim distant past and Captain Jeff’s start with his legacy airline, ACME, I mean Delta, no ACME, Delta, Acta, Delme… oh whatever. His career started, not...

Two of the Saratoga’s F14 Tomcats were tasked to defend the carrier against a simulated attack during Exercise Display Determination 87. The leader of this small formation included...

Part 2 of my interview with my mate Matt, steely eyed rocket man extraordinaire.   Goonhilly   Gyros and spacecraft in Telstar   The interior of Telstar   The m...

At first glance he looks to be a rather scruffy and unkempt elderly chap but behind the heavy glasses there are two twinkling eyes that reveal more than you can imagine.  Indeed, a...

In the tale, the Applegate Memorandum, I described the difficult birth that McDonnell Douglas had with the DC-10 when it’s safety record was permanently marred by a cargo door desi...

I left you last time after we had returned with our Hornets from New Zealand having had a very productive and interesting few weeks working with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks.  We soon sett...

The conclusion of a chat over a pint with Wood Duck, the Royal Australian Air Force Air Attache to the Australian High Commission in London.   Images of No 2 OCU when it was e...

As a fighter pilot on the newly formed 77 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force, now equipped with brand new FA/18s, we had many experienced pilots but before long we also acquired p...