VC10s What they mean to me.
Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2013 9:42 pm
Excuse the indulgence, but at least the members here will understand what I'm on about! Born in the 1950s, I grew up in Walton on Thames, just up the road from BAC Weybridge, and right under the flightpath from Heathrow. Our family noticed the first time the prototype VC10 went over, it took ages to coax the dog out of the understairs cupboard. She'd bark at 707s, Comets or Caravelles, but the VC10, that was loud! I was a member of the 9th Walton on Thames Air Scouts, and out troop leader was an engineer on the production line for the VC10 so we were fairly regular visitors to the factory. Between visits to Weybridge, cycle trips to the Queens Building at Heathrow and train trips to Gatwick and the Farnborough Airshow, by October 1970 I'd seen all the civilian VC10s and a few of the RAF C mk1s.
My Father took a new job and we moved to a village near Stamford in Lincolnshire so Harriers and Hunters became the new diet. However in 1973 we moved again, and from my bedroom window in the new house, at Carterton in Oxfordshire, I had a perfect view of the aircraft taking off from RAF Brize Norton. For a while I had a job on the airfield working at the cinema and bowling alley and those shiny 10s were a big part of my life alongside the Belfasts, Britannias and even the odd Comet. If we were showing a film and a VC10 was due to take off for a long distance flight, fully fuelled, the Tower would let us know in case the vibration shook the film from the spools. I even saw G-AXLR fly over Brize Norton on a couple of occasions, never saw it land, I'd have liked a picture of that one.
I moved away to work for the Police in 1977 but really missed those VC10s.
Whenever I visited my parents a walk round the perimeter path at BZN was compulsory. When BA started to withdraw their fleet I decided I had to get a flight on one. I wouldn't normally have flown to Bahrain but that was where the VC10 was going so that was where I was going, only it didn't! The VC10 went tech. at the gate and a few hours late my only trip to that country was courtesy of a BA Tristar! Should have used Gulf Air.
RAF Abingdon open day in 1990 brought it home that my chance of getting a flight on a VC10 was over, but one could see more of them flying over thanks to the RAF, and now I was living in Witney, so saw them every day, although in 1991 a little flare up in the Middle East made them rather rare for a while. Still with for Thames Valley Police, we often worked closely with the RAF Police at Brize Norton and in 1996 they needed some assistance with a charity event and we obliged. A few days later I receive a phone call asking what I was doing the next day. Nothing special was the reply, and that is how on a sunny October day in 1996 I ended up as one of ten guests of 101 Squadron flying in a VC10 K3 over the North Sea refuelling a succession of Tornadoes and Jaguars. I got through 14 rolls of film, and a fantastic chicken dinner eaten facing backwards in those few seats behind the cockpit.
Over 5 hours flying in a VC10, doing such work was more than I could ever have wished for.
The aircraft was 'F' ZA147.
I couldn't make it to Brize Norton or Bruntingthorpe for the goodbye, but if anyone plans on preserving that airframe, please let me know.
My Father took a new job and we moved to a village near Stamford in Lincolnshire so Harriers and Hunters became the new diet. However in 1973 we moved again, and from my bedroom window in the new house, at Carterton in Oxfordshire, I had a perfect view of the aircraft taking off from RAF Brize Norton. For a while I had a job on the airfield working at the cinema and bowling alley and those shiny 10s were a big part of my life alongside the Belfasts, Britannias and even the odd Comet. If we were showing a film and a VC10 was due to take off for a long distance flight, fully fuelled, the Tower would let us know in case the vibration shook the film from the spools. I even saw G-AXLR fly over Brize Norton on a couple of occasions, never saw it land, I'd have liked a picture of that one.
I moved away to work for the Police in 1977 but really missed those VC10s.
Whenever I visited my parents a walk round the perimeter path at BZN was compulsory. When BA started to withdraw their fleet I decided I had to get a flight on one. I wouldn't normally have flown to Bahrain but that was where the VC10 was going so that was where I was going, only it didn't! The VC10 went tech. at the gate and a few hours late my only trip to that country was courtesy of a BA Tristar! Should have used Gulf Air.
RAF Abingdon open day in 1990 brought it home that my chance of getting a flight on a VC10 was over, but one could see more of them flying over thanks to the RAF, and now I was living in Witney, so saw them every day, although in 1991 a little flare up in the Middle East made them rather rare for a while. Still with for Thames Valley Police, we often worked closely with the RAF Police at Brize Norton and in 1996 they needed some assistance with a charity event and we obliged. A few days later I receive a phone call asking what I was doing the next day. Nothing special was the reply, and that is how on a sunny October day in 1996 I ended up as one of ten guests of 101 Squadron flying in a VC10 K3 over the North Sea refuelling a succession of Tornadoes and Jaguars. I got through 14 rolls of film, and a fantastic chicken dinner eaten facing backwards in those few seats behind the cockpit.
Over 5 hours flying in a VC10, doing such work was more than I could ever have wished for.
The aircraft was 'F' ZA147.
I couldn't make it to Brize Norton or Bruntingthorpe for the goodbye, but if anyone plans on preserving that airframe, please let me know.