The Last Battle of Britain at Home Day

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Hi all, here are some selected images I took yesterday at this years (and final) RAF Leuchars Battle of Britain at Home Day.

I'm no pro and I don't think I can match Toby's photos from Mollis, I usually end up with more rubbish shots than useful ones. There are others out there who I'm sure have better shots than I can manage on my kit too
Anyway they are in no particular order, enjoy.

[TSR2]

Brilliant shots there, and you're lucky you caught a might VC10. Do you know if the Viggen is on the Civil register now as I didn't think anyone was still operating them, always thought it looked a menacing aircraft. The Sweds look to have be well represented

Thanks very much indeed

[511Flyer]

Nice shots Gordon. What a shame that it's the last one. Is it too costly, or have people stopped caring about BOB days?

I well remember the open days we had at Colerne in the late 50's. Still a lot of wartime types flying, plus lots of early jets. The runway had a hump, and you couldn't see the low flyers coming until the last moment. A roar of Merlins, and a flash of Mosquito at zero feet fast disappearing towards Chip. Followed by roaring Sapphires as a Javelin flew a low circuit around the airfield.

Not to be outdone, Flt Lt "Tiny" Topham showed an astonished crowd just what one of our Hastings was capable of. He frightened the life out of us ground crew!

Happy days, and great memories.

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Its not the cost thats ending the show 511Flyer, the two squadrons based there are being moved to Lossiemouth over the next 12 months so the base can being wound down and passed over to the Army. The base CO announced over the PA that the amount of work & time needed to organise and run each show meant they couldn't do another one after that day, because they had to concentrate from then on moving the operation lock stock and barrel to Lossiemouth before the Army marched in the gates in 2014.

I'm not sure what happened to all the other Battle of Britain at home days, but Leuchars had the honour of being the last base to still hold one. This year was their 65th year too.

Ben our friends the Swedes have a Swedish Airforce Historic Flight, which maintains and flies a variety of aircraft including the Vigen and etc. Its an interesting range of stuff they have and they've come over for the show quite a few times. See http://swafhf.se/ for more, though you need to take a crash course in Swedish to read the site

It was a surprise to see the VC-10 too Ben, I thought they were all well on the way to be withdrawn. It was ZA147 if anyones interested. She did look a bit patched up though. If you look at the nose, the upper fuselage has been painted recently, but not the right shade of grey at all. Poor girl looked like she was being bodged up a wee bit to keep her flying

[Tomliner]

Some very atmospheric shots there Gordon.I'll bet many people in St Andrews will be sorry to see the departure of RAF. EricT

[ukmil]

Glad you enjoyed the show, and the boss was right, it takes ages to arrange and complete. Myself, i worked 18 hour days on both Friday and Saturday to make it happens.

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Thanks for that UKMil. It was a good day, turned out better than expected. I left home at 7am heading for the show in the rain with no sign it was going to dry up soon. Turned out fine. Would have been a crying shame if the last show was a dreadfull wet day.

I've been going whenever I could for about 25 years & it always was a day to be proud of the RAF and the history the show celebrated. A tribute to the dedication & effort everyone involved put in to make it happen. Well done yet again to you all

[emfrat]

[quote="gordon-in-aberdeen] though you need to take a crash course in Swedish to read the site [/quote]

Gordon, as a Clydesider, I had no trouble understanding " mer info".....

Thanks for the pics - I made several visits to Leuchars in my teens, It's a shame the BoB days are gone. They raised a lot of money for the RAF Ben. Fund, too.

MikeW

[Effoh]

As a wee small boy more years ago than I care to remember, I stood in an unofficial layby at the landward end of Leuchars runway as two F4 Phantoms from the QRA went overhead on full burner off to who knows where. I can still see, smell and hear it. Sad to hear it's closing

Cracking pictures though

[Filonian]

Cracking pictures Gordon, thanks for sharing.


Graham