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15 Dec Group Photo?

On the 15th of December, the last day of Harrier flying, was there a group photo taken from someone up in a cherry-picker, or am I imagining it?

If there was a photo could someone email me a copy please?

Military Pensions Petition

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:

“Protect Military Pensions”
Online Petition

I really think this is an important cause, and I’d like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It’s free and takes just a few seconds of your time.

Thanks!

Jever Steam Laundry AGM 7 May 11

A note on the 2011 AGM in the RAF Club on the 7th May 2011, â€˜release brakesâ€™ at 1830, or before if short of fuel.

All present and past members of IV (AC) Sqn are welcome, not just those who served at Jever!

Further details on the Jever Steam Laundry Home Page.

The Princess and The Fighter Pilot

Once upon a time, a Fighter Pilot asked a beautiful Princess, “Will you marry me?”
The Princess said “NO!!”

….and the Fighter Pilot lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles, made many deployments, got good promotions and duty stations and made love to skinny big-breasted broads and hunted and fished and raced cars and went to men’s clubs and dated women half his age and drank whiskey, beer, tequila, rum, did shooters and Flaming Hookers and never heard bitching and never paid child support or alimony, hosed cheerleaders, almost movie stars, barmaids and kept his house and guns and never got cheated on while he was at work or on a deployment and all his friends and family thought he was friggin’ cool as hell and he had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up.

The End

[Thanks to Blacky and Mike BH for this]

16-Ship Video: It’s Not War

ItsNotWar from One F on Vimeo.

Includes excerpts from the final UK Harrier GR9/T12 flight on 15 Dec 2010, during which a 16 ship formation was flown. Includes RF 10-3, Auriga 10 and RAF Wittering/Cottesmore.

HFA Event

From the Harrier Force Association:

Advance Warning

On Saturday 16th July, the first Harrier Force Association event will be held in the old OCU hangar at RAF Wittering. Displays by the BBMF and Blades have been organized and the rest of the afternoon/evening will be an informal bbq/beer tent affair with bands and a disco.

McZ (James McMillan) is the point of contact.

For more details, and to register, go to the HFA website.

RAF Harrier Ground Attack – Falklands

Jerry Pook’s book, RAF Harrier Ground Attack – Falklands, is now available online. Here’s the ad from the publishers:

During the Falklands war Jerry Pook, a pilot in No. 1(F) Squadron RAF, flew air interdiction, armed recce, close-air-support and airfield attack as well as pure photo-recce missions. Most weapons were delivered from extreme low-level attacks because of the lack of navigation aids and in the absence of Smart weapons. The only way he could achieve results was to get low down and close-in to the targets and, if necessary, carry out re-attacks to destroy high-value targets.

Apart from brief carrier trials carried out many years previously there had been no RAF Harriers deployed at sea. The RAF pilots were treated with ill-disguised contempt by their naval masters, their professional opinions ignored in spite of the fact that the RN knew next to nothing about ground-attack and recce operations. Very soon after starting operations from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes the squadron realised that they were considered as more or less expendable ordnance.

The Harriers lacked the most basic self-protection aids and were up against 10,000 well-armed troops who put up an impressive weight of fire whenever attacked.

: The crowded deck of HMS Hermes in good weather with RAF GR3s in the force ground armed with CBUs and a Reece Pod and Sea Harriers

: 1982_05_25 Atlantic Conveyor burnt out and sinking after the Exocet attack

The ISBN is 9781848845565. Here’s the link to the publisher’s website, Pen & Sword.

HFA News

From Jim Arkell:

Hello!

The HFA is gathering momentum. We had our first meeting on Monday and I was asked to write a Constitution! Iâ€™ve managed to find a copy of the Buccaneer Aircrew Association version, so thatâ€™s at least a starting point! Iâ€™ve also agreed to investigate the design and production of a tie, so I may come to you for your opinions in due course! Iâ€™m also setting up an account with HSBC and have volunteered to be Hon Treasurer, which means Iâ€™ll most probably end up running a virtual shop on line, selling various bits of memorabilia â€“ and the tie! Gary Waterfall will shortly be posting an updated message onto the Website explaining what is going on!

He will be proposing an inaugural HFA event at Wittering this summer, organised by the residual elements of the Harrier Force under Simon Jessettâ€™s charge. The plan is to hold a party in the OM and to invite the SNCO member of the HFA to arrange something similar in the WO Mess for the SNCOs either on the same weekend or an adjacent weekend, demonstrating that the HFA is not solely officer-based! Gary is also planning to set up a Harrier Heritage Centre in the bowels of the OCU building. More to follow on both these topics in due course as soon as dates are known.

I have given Rob Foulkes copies of the CD/DVDs that were shown at the VSTOL Event on 15 Dec, so these will hopefully be viewable on YouTube via HFA website soon.

The booklet covering 40 years of Harrier history is coming on well. My plan is to mail these at the end of March 2011 to everyone for whom I have an address with an invitation to make a contribution (via a cheque or PayPal) to the HFA!

Finally, I retire (for the second time) on 1 April 2011…!

Feel free to pass this to anyone else who might be interested.

Regards, Jim

Thanks for that, Jim, and enjoy your retirement – again!

The Standard in All Saints

From John Hickie:

Went into All Saints Church, Stamford, today and the Sqn Standards have reached their final resting place. Photos are attached. (The 4 Sqn Standard is masked in the first photo by 1 Sqns. Some might say “right and proper”!) John.

Duncan Simpson on Harrier’s Heyday

Former Hawker Chief Test Pilot Duncan Simpson talks to Pat Malone about the long life and untimely demise of the Harrier

Published here with the kind permission of AOPA UK.

Duncan airborne in one of a pair of Kestrels in 1964

Duncan Simpson in retirement

At a time when we are consigning our Harriers to history itâ€™s worth recalling that in the 1950s, when the Harrier was conceived, Britain had a phenomenally successful fighter aircraft industry, that it sold hundreds of military aircraft to dozens of countries, and that scores of British companies employing tens of thousands of people in high-technology fields prospered on the back of military aircraft exports. In the words of the fabled Four Yorkshiremen, if you told that to tâ€™young folk today they wouldnâ€™t believe you.

Prominent among exporters was Hawker which made three of the best jets of the time, the Harrier, the Hawk and the Hunter, all of which were widely exported and bought even by the United States in preference to home-grown aircraft. One man who was intimately involved with the development of all three was Hawker test pilot Duncan Simpson, long retired but keenly aware that working ourselves into a position where we have aircraft carriers with no planes is not a brilliant idea.

Duncan, latterly Hawkerâ€™s Chief Test Pilot, is not one to make political statements in public on defence matters but he clearly shares the bafflement of the Harrier Force at its demise. Tall and distinguished at 82, he speaks in quiet, hoarse tones â€“ the legacy of a post-ejection operation for a broken neck â€“ and he picks his words carefully when discussing defence cuts. â€œI thought that the Harrier would survive,â€ he says. â€œI went up to Wittering for the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Harrier Force; theyâ€™d just come back from Afghanistan and they are intensely proud of the job theyâ€™ve done there with the Mk 9, which is a very well-equipped and able aeroplane. I thought they were relatively safe because they are fully developed, at a fraction of the cost of some of the collaborative programs. But the final blow came when I was due to go down to Bristol to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rolls-Royce Bristol and a first of the Pegasus engine hovers. They were devastated at the news that the Harrier was to be discontinued.â€

Continue reading Duncan Simpson on Harrier’s Heyday

Cartoons from 1972

Thanks to Pete Mears for finding these!

Hi Chris,

A sweet and sour event last Friday at RAF Wittering – a pleasure meeting up with old colleagues again, but sad watching three fine Squadrons disband, with no firm commitment to either 1 or IV Sqn reforming any time soon.

At RAF Wildenrath circa 1972, a booklet of cartoons by a chap called Canning went on sale in the Malcolm Club. The cartoons caricature some of the humorous goings-on in the Harrier Force at the time. I’ve attached some examples (if you wish to put them onto Fourfax) that may bring back some fond (or not!) memories for those who were there, and maybe raise a chuckle or two in those that weren’t!

Cheers,
Pete