Show Notes
Colin will be visiting California in a few weeks and will speak at the Voices of Valor Gala Dinner, A Tribute to the Greatest Generation, to be held at the Palm Springs Air Museum California Gala Dinner on the 8th of February 2025. https://palmspringsairmuseum.org/gala/
Colin Bell telling us his story
The cockpit of a Mosquito
The Canadian Mosquito factory at Downsview, near Toronto, Ontario
RAF bomber crews eating their traditional breakfast after a mission
One of Chilon of Sparta’s famous quotes
Colin beside a painting of his Mosquito
Female German Army personnel and an AA gun battery
The dreaded white light indicating the presence of a Luftwaffe Me262 night fighter
Colin standing by an Me262 jet fighter showing us what he thought of being chased by one
The book of their exploits written by Colin’s navigator’s son
Images shown under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Luchtmacht, the Royal Air Force, the IWM and images in the Public Domain.
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…