Fighter Escort for a 747 - The 1986 Fighter Meet

[JDK]

A blast from the past thanks to the Friends of TFC blog. Nearly four minutes of quality airshow action. The old Fighter Meet at N Weald Airfield, Essex, 1986 [edit - corrected] I presume from the caption, Chris?

http://friends-of-tfc.blogspot.com/2009 ... s-ago.html

Interesting to note than most of the aircraft are still around, although many in new locations and with new owners, but a lot of missing faces today who were in cockpits back then - John Watts, 'Hoof' Proudfoot, Ray & Mark Hanna... Thanks for the memories chaps!

Identified - TFC Thunderbolt, P-40 (GA-S) and Spitfire ML417, OFMCo Spitfire MH434, and 'on loan' Paul P-40 SU-E, Lindsay Walton's Aeronavale Corsair, Northwest Orient 747, two Mustangs - I'd guess 'Candyman/Moose' of TFC and G-HAEC of OFMCo. I'm wondering if there's a moment with the RNHF's two-seat Sea Fury WG655(?) Quality not quantity. Lots of tight, low close flying.

Ah, them were the days. Where men were boys and cameras used film.

(And thanks to Chris @ FoTFC and Steven Slater for the vid!)

Last edited by JDK on Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

[T J Johansen]

Wow, that brings back memories. This was my first warbird airshow. Travelling abroad at 16 was cool, seeing all these a/c fly was priceless. Just one detail, it was 1986, not 84. Northwest sponsored the show and even had a DC-3 painted in its old colors. That also flew together with the 747 both days.

T J

[JDK]

Date corrected.

Must use more fingers...

[m charters]

And the winner of the how low can you go contest is?!!!!!!
Even the 747 was competing.
You don't see anyone that low in North America!

[DarenC1]

Awesome stuff.

[Mike]

You don't see anyone that low in North America!

No?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/silver1swa/2946899179/

[mustangdriver]

So what was the 747 for?

[Steve Nelson]

So what was the 747 for?

Hauling large numbers of people to distant locations (sorry..couldn't resist. Actually, I'm curious myself!)

SN

[JDK]

So what was the 747 for?

IIRC Northwest Orient sponsored the airshow. I don't recall if any of the warbird pilots were NWO airline pilots 'by night', but that's possible. Certainly some of the pilots were then current on big jets. So Northwest provided a 747 and they made that really neat formation. There are a2a, IIRC of the thing by another long-gone face, the great photographer Arthur Gibson.

http://www.catalina.org.uk/founding-members

Just to show memory's a funny thing, I don't recall the second pass being that low, and I think - happy to be corrected - the run-out is a bit deceptive as North Weald airfield rises to that end, but the land actually drops gradually away around and beyond...

The other thing I remember is the shows at North Weald seemed a lot more fun than some do today. Maybe that's me, but while there weren't a lot of warbirds, and there was certainly a lot of running about by the few pilots, there was a real buzz to the thing.

Cheers,

[Firebird]

23 years ago

I remember it well, as the Sunday show was the same day as the World Cup Final, and also at the end of the show I had finished my last roll of film and was walking back to the car when I heard the unmistakeable Whee-Whoosh of the avpin starters on the pair of Lightnings that had been in the static park, and so missed getting any photo's of their spectacular pairs departure and subsequent 'unoffical' pairs flypasts/display sequence during the next 5 mins of so

The old Fighter Meets at North Weald and the old Great Warbirds shows at West Malling in the 1980's were great days.

Sobering though how many of those pilots are no longer with us.