UK Low flying 1970s, 1980s

[plumberbeno]

There was a pub at Southey near Bardney.. Which had painted on its roof saying!! If you can read this your flying to low!!!!!

[Nighthawke]

Close - Riverside Inn at Southrey - "If you can read this please tip your wings"

http://nbepiphany.co.uk/our-story/blog/ ... l-southrey

http://nbepiphany.co.uk/gallery3/var/al ... 1396443112

[Sparts99]

Anyone know the 'P*ss off Biggles' story in detail?

[Nighthawke]

This one...?

https://www.targeta.co.uk/wheretogo.htm

[B58Hustler]

Grew up in the town of Aylsham, seven miles from RAF Coltishall. Daily dose of Jag (obviously) plus all the visitors previously mentioned.
Overriding memory though is A-10s jinking left and right below the rooftops. They took you by surprise so after you had 'missed' a visual of the lead you would train your eyes in readiness for the wingman who would be along very shortly!
Good times............

[bvs]

In 1978ish I had a little series of low level Hawk back seat trips from Brawdy to Coltishall as prep for (as he was then) a Prince Charles Hawk trip from Brawdy to Colt.My role was to do turn rounds/refuel any attending Hawks,there had to be a QFI in the tower at Colt - so I always flew up with the QFI.
On the final practice I had 4 Hawks to turn round/refuel,I was still strapping in as we taxyed for take off due to a hold up,the other crews included an AVM,an AM and an ACM - I had never spoken to such top kneddies before
Anyway the outward trip was always low level via the Ho Chi Minh Trail (LFA7 ?) in wales which was great fun - you know looking up at sheep etc,on one trip we met a solo student in a gnat going the other way - he overstressed the a/c to avoid us,luckily the Hawk always had the landing lamp 'on' so showed up well.
One of the pilots I flew with later became a RR Test Pilot and chief pilot at Shuttleworth - a really nice chap
The most interesting return trip was the last one - we started out 'in the box' of a diamond 4 but due to severe turbulence we broke formation and the pilot kept asking for higher altitude - we ended up at 39,000 feet which was lovely as the clouds cleared and dusk was descending.
4 years later I was working on bulldogs and did a few LL trips in them,perhaps the most interesting for a saddo like me was during an exercise (Safe Haven) we flew around looking at potential airfields (disused) to disperse to including Little Riss and Pershore,pilot called up midland radar (I think) in Pershore tower - told them we were doing a low pass along the runway - reply was ''ok we will duck '',my pilot on that trip later flew the Lanc and was the boss at BBMF.

[raptor9]

Great post BVS. Reminds me of my trip through there in a Vampire T.11 from a Summer ATC Camp at Shawbury. Fabulous days!!.

[bvs]

Great post BVS. Reminds me of my trip through there in a Vampire T.11 from a Summer ATC Camp at Shawbury. Fabulous days!!.

Thanks John,I was at Shawbury for summer camp in the summer of '69 (somebody should write a song about that ) - lucky boy to get a vamp trip - all I got was a chippie trip or 2

[powerslave]

Living in Preston,Lancs between the British Aerospace factories Warton and Salmesbury,the skys were full of jets in the late 70’s and 80’s.
Remember after school on warm summer evenings I used to watch aircraft fly over with my binoculars,a lot of them where military at high level going into the lakes and Scotland.
Used to see F-lll’s all the time in the lakes,Jags,Harriers,Tornados,it was great.
Always remember seeing a pair of Upper Heyford F-111’s low level over Windermere on a summer evening about 8 pm,awesome.

[skippyscage]

This one...?

https://www.targeta.co.uk/wheretogo.htm

some of those stories can also be directly aligned with a (now) famous canyon in the US

[cat1]

This one...?

https://www.targeta.co.uk/wheretogo.htm

Great article, worth a full read...
a favourite quote:
'He also added that a friend in the RAF had been asked by an American pilot, "Whats a Biggle?"