Aye, two seater Hawker Hunter............strange seeing british planes painted up as yankees- the Folland Gnats in Hot Shots, and there was a top gun stylee advert in the mid eighties that had Lightnings.
That was dreadfull.....having to listen to slimfast to satisfy my curiousity
Hunters are awesome. Jet Heritage at Hurn (Bournemouth) used to have one when I worked on the airfield. Proper British engineering, from a time when we built stuff ourselves
Only Hawker aircraft I know of that the yanks ever bought was the Harrier, and then they had to re-name it :roll:
Still had to use Brit engineers to replicate the VTOL for the new Joint Strike Fighter though
There is a company outside Cape Town where you can go and take a flight in classic British Jets. They have a few Hunters and a Lightning. One of my regular customers flew Hunters in Aden and as a 60th birthday treat his family sent him down there to be reunited with the old warbird. He was chatting to the pilot whilst up in the air (like you do) and mentioned he used to fly them back in the day. Without any verification to back this up the pilot said 'shes all yours' and let him land it! :shock:
Aye- the Lightning was featured in "wonders of the solar system" on the BBC.........unfortunately it's no longer on iPlayer.
James may went to the edge of space in a U2, needing a space suit and all kinds of tests and training.
The bloke just climbed into the lightning with the pilot, and then it did exactly what it was designed for- pointed the nose to the sky and went staight up!
Interesting fact as well............afore the Lockeed Skunkworks came out with the U2, the Americans relied for their spyplane stuff on the Canberra- officially the Martin B-57, but a helluva lot of the 'american' missions were flown by RAF and RCAF planes.