Plane Tales

It’s logbook time again and you may recall that I was as freshly a minted A1 QFI as there could be and I had just left the training world to return to the front line on my old Squadron, the Fighting Cocks. I had been in Wales for over 4 years and in that time the faces I knew on 43 Sqn had almost all gone... it was like I was joining a unit of strangers.   The Q Shed   Additional armed aircraft ready to go onto QRA   The F4 tank limiting speeds   A Soviet Badger trying to sneak past at low level   An F4 tanking from a converted Victor V Bomber   Decimomannu Air Base   How the ACMI Air Combat Manoeuvering Instrumentation worked   The Men of Harlech near Llanbedr   The Jindavik target drone   A frame from the Jindavik cameras showing a Sidewinder about to impact the towed flare target   My new navigator, Coolhand   A 43(F) Sqn Phantom   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the USAF, RuthAS and Mike Freer.