Way Back When

I thought I'd look through some of my pilot logbooks, searching for something interesting on this day, back then.

This was interesting to me at the time: I had arrived at RAF Brawdy in South Wales, having converted to the Hunter (T7 and F6) at RAF Valley on Anglesey.  I would have been keen to get on with the new course as it was all about learning to use weapons with the aircraft, bombing, strafing and air-to-air guns.  On Thursday 13 April 1978 I flew a two-seat Hunter T7 with one Geoff Telford, a venerable old bloke (probably about 45 :-)) to confirm my ability to fly the aircraft.

The sortie was called CV1 (Conversion 1) and lasted 50 minutes. The "1in1" in one of the last columns was an emergency approach with a simulated engine failure; the "GCA" (ground-controlled approach) was a practice approach to the runway simulating instrument flying conditions. I must have been good enough because I was cleared to fly a single-seater (F6A) the next day.  Joy!

Well that's not of much interest to today's reader, 42 years later (I was 24 then), but I looked for the aircraft, XL592, on the Internet and found it, derelict and unloved:

https://youtu.be/4kRhVOaAiG8

I didn't really enjoy flying the two-seat Hunter: it meant that you had an instructor with you and it was a sluggish beast compared with the whizzy single-seaters, the fighters late of the front line.  But this poor old girl hasn't had much of a life since I flew her . . .