A RAF Hastings over a road by RAF Colerne, No 4 engine stopped, committed to land. No one jumped those traffic lights !
Was it G-AGLR?
My first ever flight was in a Dragon Rapide ...see many pictures of various aircraft in the thread below ...
Click the 'up-arrow to go to the thread .... interesting post in #228
Hi Ann, Yes! That was it! That reg sounded familiar as soon as you mentioned it. It's not in my 1979 CAM but is in a 1968 CAM I got from Coventry Air Museum. I see it was sold from Mid-fly to Southampton Cartographical services. Quite how it ended back up at Birmingham is a mystery .......
My first ever flight was in a Dragon Rapide ...see many pictures of various aircraft in the thread below ...
Click the 'up-arrow to go to the thread .... interesting post in #228
The most exciting flight I've had ...
I was an Instrument Fitter at RAF Feltwell and we were often detailed to go up on the first flight after a major service. The theory being that we would work carefully knowing that one of us would be detailed for the flight. One day it was my turn and I climbed into the right seat of a dual control aircraft which had parachutes built into the seats.
The sergeant tucked a sick-bag into my tunic even though I told him I was never air-sick and I waited with oxygen mask and headphones on for the pilot to arrive. He came and we roared off down the runway to climb up to about 10,000 ft where he turned the a/c upside down and told me to collect all the toffee papers and other bits of rubbish which dropped into the canopy.
He then had to make some performance notes and asked me to hold the stick and keep it straight and level before he then took control and dived the a/c to start a loop during which I blacked out. I told him about this and he said I hadn't blacked out, it was simply my eyeballs being forced down and blocking vision, and I was to look upwards at the start of the next loop which I then saw all the way over.
He continued to do stall turns, barrel rolls, wing overs, and I remember seeing the fields of East Anglia spinning below as we did a spiral dive. By this time I was feeling slightly queasy but luckily we landed and I did not need to use the sick-bag.
It was worth doing National Service just to have had a flight like that ....
The Cartographical Services Rapide was flown into high ground in the Peak District and destroyed when it ran out of fuel on an aerial photographic survey. The pilot was the notorious Jeep Holmes, who later became Chief Pilot at Birmingham European Airways
In the late 1950’s / early 1960’s I was treated to a short flight in a Dragon Rapide from the old Birmingham Elmdon airport . Unfortunately I did not record the reg , although a keen spotter, so I’m wondering if photos exist of this aircraft ?
Thank you, that 10 shilling flight sounds right. Hopefully more information will come to light.
Think only these two were at Elmdon
