Show Notes
I trust that you will recall the stories from my RAF Logbook which had reached the point of my first Hornet deployment to New Zealand to work with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks of No 75 Squadron Royal New Zealand Air Force at Ohakea.
The squadron we were working with had a rich history and I was sure I was going to enjoy my time with them.
75 Sqn RNZAF formed with Wellingtons purchased by the New Zealand government
75 Sqn A4 Skyhawk
The Kiwi Red formation team
Inverted whilst in contact
An A4 in combat firing rockets
How to fly a flat scissors
An FA18 pulls into the vertical
The effectiveness of camouflage
Low level
Attacking a splash target
The Hornet at night
The disappearance of the hook was investigated
The perp was arrested!
75 Sqn RNZAF was sadly disbanded
Images shown under creative commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the New Zealand Defence Force, the USN, CNATRA, Bernardo Malfitano and Myself.
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…