Farewell Fourship

I sometimes find it difficult to appreciate the passage of time; this photo was taken by the RAF Finningley photographic section in January 1985, just about 38 years ago (Finningley is now Doncaster Airport).  The occasion was the last flight of one of the pilots, who was about to leave the RAF for employment in Saudi Arabia, and a "last trip" was tradition.  But that tradition was fraught with risk – the pilot was likely to fly something showy and unpractised – so a fourship of the aircraft (the Jet Provost Mk 5, here's a Blip example) was safer and provided other pilots with practice in close formation.

There were two seats in the aircraft and we used it for training navigators in low level navigation; as it happens there was only navigator on this formation, the chap in the centre at the front, a former F4 nav.