Show Notes
It is rare to have the opportunity to meet one of the brave young men who flew and fought in the Second World War so I was delighted to be able to talk to Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell DFC. At the age of 103, Colin recalls with perfect clarity what it was like to fly his De Havilland DH 98 Mosquito bomber into action as part of a Pathfinder Squadron. This Tale is just the first part of the interview with Colin, the opportunity for which I have to thank my old friend Bob Judson. Having had a high ranking career in the RAF, Bob is now a consultant in the field of psychological, life and executive coaching and has a podcast, Leading 4 Life, which explores leadership in the stories of his own life and those told by his many illustrious guests, such as Colin. Bob was kind enough to allow me to share in this opportunity to interview Colin. If you want to take advantage of Bob’s services or listen to his free podcast then check out his website, here: https://www.leading4life.co.uk/ and his great podcast here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2227500
Flt Lt Colin Bell DFC RAF
The lonely and dangerous job of a tail gunner
The PT17 Stearman
The Vultee BT-13A Valiant
The North American AT-6 Texan trainer AKA the Harvard.
The Bristol Blenheim
The de Havilland DH98 Mosquito
Colin with Bob (left) and myself (right) at the RAF Club in front of a painting of the Mosquito gifted to Colin and then presented to the RAF Club to display.
All images are shown with permission or under the Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the IWM, the USAAF, the National Museum of the USAF and Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Luchtmacht.
More from Plane Tales
With the influx of new Airbus airframes, Virgin needed more pilots and not just to occupy the right hand seat… there were opportunities for promotion to Captain much earlier than had been the norm. When I joined the time to command was about 8 years. Looking back I did my first sector with Virgin in July 1994 and it was now November 96, 2 years 4 months later and I was already starting my pre-command training.
We last spoke to Basam when he was doing his Jet Upset Training but now that he has his dream job it was appropriate that we should chat again on one of his London layovers. In particular, he is flying around a war zone which presents additional challenges to a civil airline pilot.
A flock of seagulls had chosen that moment to break ground from the grass beside the runway and fly across our path. They disappeared under the nose as we climbed away and cleaned the aircraft up… no noise of an impact but then we noticed the No 2 engine’s N1 vibration number was pulsing and reading a bit high. So starts another Tale from my flying logbook.
The next tale from my RAF Logbook, albeit now being filled with civilian flights for Virgin Atlantic Airways…