After completing my 3 years of training, I became an Aircraft Engineering Technician & was posted onto 23 (Red Eagle) Squadron ( You don't see many of them until near the end of the film - They are the ones with the vertical Blue & Red bars, either side of the nose roundel ) @ Leuchars in mid September 1967.Just as they were converting from Mk.3s ( small ventral tank) to interim 6s (large ventral tank), then eventually on to full mk.6s with an arrestor hook. Like all "newbies" I started off doing 1st line sevicing ( daily inspection @ beginning & end of day & turn rounds between flights.) After I got up to speed there, I was "promoted" to 2nd line/hangar servicing. That's when life got all rather serious as the "superuior idiot" who designed them, knowingly didn't give a damn about lack of accessibility - & while he got chewed out @ the time, refused to solve the problem. Whereas, our view was whoever designed it should have had to work on them '@ hangar level, for ' least a year, just to see how bad it REALLY was (At my time 60 man hours servicing for every ONE flying hours - Eventually it got so bad that became a ratio of 90:1 ! ). - There's no denying it was all VERY character building ! But even with playing locally arranged "war games" every Friday, "Tacevals" - 3 day long TACTICAL EVALUATION exercise, about 3 times a year & more than my fair share of real Q.R.A. (Quick Reaction Alert ) see offs, armed with live missiles, to intercept Russian reconnaisance bombers "somewhere over the Faroes gap" Certainly the intensity of it all is still something I'll always remember with fond memories. Certainly # 23 was the best ever posting I got ! :) After that I was posted to #56 Sqdn @ Akrotiri in Cyprus. The sunshine & sea, along with a slight boost in pay for "Local Overseas Allowance was good, but the squadron suffered from a serious morale problem as the C.O. was after "glory & promotion", @ everybody else's expense. Though towards the end they started to recognise that & I got a "jolly" up in the " T bird" (Mk5 trainer) & a chance to earn my certificate for going "10 ton" - 1,000 mph ! :) - helped a bit to make up for the rest of it !
My grandparents lived in Balmullo ( approx 2 miles west of RAF Leuchars) I used to stay up there a lot when I was a youngster, the Lightnings were amazing to watch, the take off flight path took them right over Balmullo, I loved watching them, and then of course there was night time flying ha ha wakened many a time, great memories
Growing up watching Lightning’s then Phantoms flying over Dundee got me interested in aviation, ended up joining the R.A.F. then moved into the aerospace industry and worked for BAE until I retired last year, what a great video and reminder of what the R.A.F. used to be like, music wasn’t too bad either.
Nothing can beat the low pass just below the speed of sound and then the pull up to infinity (well almost!). You heard nothing then the roar of two RR Avons in full reheat. Tremendous ... !!!
Terrific video of a legendary aircraft. The Tri-Colour or French flag on the vertical stabiliser always surprises me. The RAAF here in Australia continued the tradition with the Dassault Mirage III but seemed to drop it from the F/A-18 Hornet, Super Hornet and F-35 Lightning. Our Defence Ministry has had very poor relations with the French Government over the last couple of decades with a reneging on a new Dassault jet fighter deal and contract termination with a submarine supply.
They didn’t have a French Flag. The Drapeau Francais is blue, white and red from the hoist, while the RAF tail flash is red, white and blue (or sometimes red and blue) reading from the front of the aircraft, the opposite. The Union Flag is, of course, red, white and blue and so the RAF tail flash and roundel take the colours of our national flag. The French tail flash (seldom used) is blue, white and red. In a similar vein the RAF roundel is red, white and blue from the centre (often with a thinner yellow outer ring to add contrast) and the French roundel has the same colours reversed.
Such a shame the airbase is no longer , Lightning’s , phantoms were awesome ! Remember them flying over Dundee when I was visiting grandparents on holidays
They were fantastic. You couldn't do most of that stuff in an F104. What a great piece of film. I saw Lightning solo displays in the late 1960s and also watched them come and go from Binbrook in the early 80s, but never a formation display.
Great video, brought back lots of memories of being at a number of the shows with my parents in the late sixties and early seventies! If you would have asked me, I would have said there was only ever one flying at a time so it was good to see them doing aerobatics in formation. Boy, did they fly close to the crowd as well!
Such a shame we couldn't get the picture quality back then without very expensive bulky 35mm movie cameras that today we get from the phone in our pocket. Great content to admire and that climb over the crowd!
Just made my day cheers Remember BOB DAY 1987 first time at lesuchars never forget it Plus used too see 111 sq i think? F4,s all the time on exercise over Northumberland Glory days
From Thin Lizzy to Potbellied Killer. Best aircraft of it's day, especially after increasing the fuels load with it's increasingly enlarging under fuselage fuel tank. The most awesome fighter interceptor the world had and has ever seen, a total beast of the air, and the Only aircraft to intercept both the U2 and Concorde, climbing to 86,000+ft before diving down to 66,000ft to intercept the American U2 during a NATO exercise, which left the US pilots astounded at it agility at that altitude, and even more so when the Lightening put on afterburners and left them for dead, and again later it did exactly the same thing with the interception of the Supersonic Concorde at maxim altitude.
NAIAD49 BRITiAN....at it's best? You can't even spell Britain, how could you possibly understand the fact that Scotland should be an independent country within Europe. Not ruled and abused by the Westmonster Idiots.
NAIAD49 - Not sure where you're coming from with the remark "No EU to spoil things in those days". Need I remind you that Airbus, Concorde, Jaguar and Tornado are all good examples of collaboration with European partners!!
kathmandoo, You've asked a question so I suppose some kind of response is in order. The very fact you've asked your question makes me think you may be of a generation born with a smart phone in your hand and not appreciate how movies were actually made 50 years ago. Back then home movies were made on 8mm celluloid film. 300 feet of film would give you about 5 minutes of video at about 17 frames per second. The vast majority of home use video cameras at that time did not record sound hence the need to add music to the digitised 8mm film. I could've added random jet noise recorded at a local airbase but that would probably be worse than the music. It's a shame you don't like the music because it's from the early seventies when Lightnings were still serving in many squadrons with the RAF and of course still silver as opposed the later schemes of drab greys and greens. If you took a minute and actually listened to the lyrics of the soundtrack, Silver Machine by Hawkwind you might even agree the lyrics actually fit quite well with the video. I believe a lot of modern music needs to have instant start singing because the attention span of the youth of today is so short they switch off if there's any kind of intro. Maybe you didn't listen properly or maybe it's just not to your taste but the music certainly is not crap.
