For Beefsteak:- Waddington 1976

[firbeck 860]

I've tracked down a list of participating aircraft from that year, I thought you might be interested.

I gather that the official scramble involved 4 Vulcans, repeated in 1978, 80, 81.

I only ever saw 4 Vulcans in the air at once, that was during the practice for the Queens Jubilee Flypast in 1977, I was working in Chelmsford at the time and they flew low over the office, only three took part in the actual flypast on the day, the fourth was held in reserve. It's a shame that I only have pictures of this on slides and can't upload them. On the day, the formation flew right over my house in Witham, it was a right mixed bag of Lightnings, Phantoms, Jags and whatever was about at the time, presumably the Reds flying Gnats, an amazing sight that we will never see again.

Here's the list, it's very poignant:-

Note that the Red Arrows were an aircraft short, presumably due to an accident, look at all those aircraft we'll never see again, Jags, Phantoms, Buccs? Lightnings, Vulcs?

Then the one's sadly lost in accidents, The Vintage Pair, colliding over Mildenhall during the Air Fete, Mosquito, stalled and crashed at Wharton, Sea Fury FB11, abandoned over the sea when the undercarriage wouldn't retract.

Sad isn't it, especially when you consider the aircrew that were killed.

I wonder how many of the aircraft on this list have survived intact, I note that our possibly never to fly again Vulcan XH558 isn't on the list.

A Buccaneer is being restored to fly at Scampton and some airforces still fly Phantoms, so lets not give up hope on seeing some of them fly again at our airshows.

Strange, I've just noticed the lack of American participation, I wonder why, no, perhaps the Starfighter was one of theirs, CAG, National Air Guard California perhaps, I remember seeing ANG exercises involving Delta Darts over Suffolk around that time, so who knows.

[Fynger 841]

Wheres 'Spock' ??.....only Vulcan i know of

[Beefsteak 305]

If you look that list contains 13 Vulcans plus some on the ground (Whether it was a genuine scramble we never knew ) I also said around 76

We did get a genuine Lightning scramble (Intruder alert) late at night when I was at Marham (Blew the windows out of our billet!)

[firbeck 860]

Wheres 'Spock' ??.....only Vulcan i know of

I'm here, however, I find you very illogical.

[firbeck 860]

I thought you might like this, Waddo 1981, it must have been noisy.

I gather that in 1968, 22 Vulcans did a streamed take off from Cottesmore, joined up with Victors over Finningley then formated with more Vulcans over Waddo and did a 50th anniversary RAF flypast over Abingdon, it must have been an amazing sight, trying to track down pictures of this is proving difficult though, but I shall persevere.