Only one GR1 with outboard stores. I seem to recall we went through phases of concern over wing fatigue with/without outboards. In the very early days we flew with dummies because they were thought to be beneficial.

Another terrific set. Don't suppose you can recall the year of that Mallet Blow pic? I never saw the documentary mentioned more's the pity! Looking more closely at the image the fuselage pylons are clean so that must be us after dropping 4 x concrete 1000lbers on the runway target on 14 March 1988....

This is a companion piece to my series ‘The Office’ in the nostalgia section. With all the moving from flying unit to flying unit came the regular shelling out for new badges and the bribing of my wife to sew them onto my flying suit. Northumbrian Universities Air Squadron https://live.staticflickr....

Possibly my favourite image of all time, beating up the 617 Sqn Has Site at Marham very early on a frosty morning. https://live.staticflickr.com/4579/38389920902_3b4bcb34dc_b.jpg Other0001 by Stephen Wilson , on Flickr Joining the pattern at Nellis during Exercise Green Flag, February 1986. https://...

Life on 617 Sqn soon settled down to the routine tasks. Entering low-level en-route to Northumberland for Exercise Mallet Blow in 1984. https://live.staticflickr.com/4553/38389876772_710e16798f_b.jpg 6171 by Stephen Wilson , on Flickr Crossing the Alps during the return from a weekend away at Ghedi ...

It was during the first formation practice for the QBFP that our Junior Pilot had one of his tanks self-jettison somewhere near Downham Market. That led to the extended farce of flying with the weapons system safe in case it happened again. The tank landed in the garden of a retired RAF engineer who...

Shortly after reforming in 1983, 617 Sqn got a personal invitation to take part in the Toronto Airshow. When our Senior Engineering Officer arrived there for the recce he was shown a corner of the Wardair hangar and told "your Vulcan should fit in there nicely". SEngO explained that we had Tornados ...

My pre-OCU Hawk course at Chivenor coincided with the arrival of the final tail letter needed to make a formation spelling CHIVENOR possible. Special authority was given for two 4-ships to join up in echelon. Of course we had to practise first. Getting the 4-ships together above cloud (this image is...

Nav training at Finningley 1981. The view on an early, high-level, navex in a Dominie. https://live.staticflickr.com/4537/37706646984_9411cec4c8_b.jpg FY1 by Stephen Wilson , on Flickr Quite a busy office layout. https://live.staticflickr.com/4516/24550111568_fcf8727ed5_b.jpg FY2 by Stephen Wilson ,...

This is something I did a long time ago on another forum but I have been persuaded to reprise it here. These are images from various stages of my time as an RAF navigator. They are all dodgy scans from dodgy prints from dodgy cameras. Firstly as a cadet on Northumbrian Universities Air Squadron. At ...

Thank you Mike, and, I've cracked it! Flickr was formerly owned by Yahoo and that is how I set up the account. In turn my Yahoo email had gone dormant through lack of use. I refreshed Yahoo Mail and Bob immediately became my uncle. The Wizzair account dates from 2012 so I must have started to set th...

So here's the thing... When I log into Flickr with my email address and a fresh password I arrive at an account called Wizzair with no images, I really don't think I ever set this up myself. Backtracking through my linked images on UKAR I find an account called Wislonuk which has my images and which...

Sorry if this is an odd one. Recently I spotted a post of mine on another forum which had images linked from Flickr and I had completely forgotten that I had ever used Flickr at all. It was all a very long time ago. I had to reset my password to log in to Flickr and discovered that there are no imag...

Thanks a million for posting these. I think that if there were a single type and a single scheme that represented my early days in this hobby it would be this.

Hi Taff,
I can always find myself on the Laarbruch pic because I was careful to stand with an AIM9 pointing at me.
ATB, WiZ

Now that the old girl has gone I took the opportunity to dig around my filing cabinet and find some old prints, some of which have never seen the light of day before: 1983, three 617 Sqn jets at Toronto for the airshow do a flyby of a press helicopter over Niagra Falls https://farm8.staticflickr.com...

617 Sqn HAS Site, early morning, 1985 https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4579/38389920902_3a4b5652ac_o.jpg Running in to Nellis, Green Flag, Feb 1986 https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4561/38421306761_c9d0970fd4_o.jpg En-route to Tabuk from Bruggen, Dec 1990 https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4537/38421299021_...

It was 14 October 1988, my 30th birthday. We took a coach-load of aircrew from TWCU at Honington. As it arrived at the quarters of our USAF exchange crew at 8am they hoisted a very large cool box in through the back doors; Major Marlo Mellum handed me a can and said 'happy birthday mate.' I didn't s...

Looks like Marham during the squadron exchange with 617 Sqn:



Steve W

[Edited to add: according to my logbook I took that photo on 7 May 1985 in Wales].

Thanks for posting these Steve. Like Taff I was on 16 at the time but I was promoted into my next job at midnight on the day after you took the images. I'm glad to see them because I have no memory of the weekend at all! Blame Mr Warsteiner for that.

WiZ