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The RAF pilot’s story:

RIP Alan Pollock, RAF Hawker Hunter pilot who in 1968 famously flew through Tower Bridge in protest at defence cuts. This ended up being his last flight as an RAF pilot and ended his Air Force career. It is now the stuff of Legend.
Rest in peace Sir, we salute you.
The first time I heard the Alan Pollock Hunter story was from a friend who was working as a RAF flight line mechanic at West Raynham on the day this happened 57 years ago. As the pilots landed they were arrested by RAF police who were initially unsure who the culprit was.
The last pilot to land was Alan Pollock who arrived in style with an inverted low pass over the hangars. He also happened to have an AA street map of London in the cockpit. Well and truly busted out the RAF 'the Tower Bridge Incident' has gone down as a legendary piece of RAF history.
Interesting fact not often mentioned about the incident, the 1 Squadron ground crew at Tangmere who dispatched the aircraft packed toilet roles behind the airbrake at Flt Lt Pollock’s request so he could drop them over Parliament! He buzzed the Houses of Parliament creating a mini-sonic boom just as MPs were debating the problem of aircraft Jet noise!
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Posted

Anyone catch that screamer over Austin just now? 2nd pass in the last hour or so. Military, but way too far away for me to identify. Think it went west to east over downtown and then headed north.

Posted
2 hours ago, Mittens said:

Anyone catch that screamer over Austin just now? 2nd pass in the last hour or so. Military, but way too far away for me to identify. Think it went west to east over downtown and then headed north.

Two small fighter jets.  I saw them when the noise was still coming from downtown but the jets were already over Camp Mabry.  They were moving.

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We are watching a series called "What Went Wrong..." on Amazon Prime.  So far, we've have only watched season 1.  The premise is to cover various types of accidents or catastrophic events.  Season 1 had 3 aviation episodes that include the Challenger disaster, Concorde Flight 4590 (very good), and MH370 mystery.  Flight 4590 was doomed from the get-go.   The first show for season 2 covers the Ramstein Air Show.  Just looking ahead, it appears there are a couple more aviation mysteries in the future.  Recommended.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

A friend posted this about his tour of the Boeing plant in Renton:

Quote

The Boeing tour was awesome.  There was a 787 Dream Lifter on the tarmac.  It’s a special cargo plane designed to haul airplane parts.  I got the photo below from the internet.  No pictures were allowed on the tour.  All phones / cameras were locked up.

They were building 777 cargo mostly, although there was one 777x passenger being built for Singapore Airlines.

They weren’t building any, but there were 40 777-9 planes.  They’re waiting for certification from the FAA.  It has a carbon fiber fuselage, and carbon fiber wings.  It’ll be the first commercial aircraft with carbon fiber wings.  The wingspan is so long that 11 feet on each wing folds up, which allows them to fit into regular gates at the airport.

 

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