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How the R oyal Navy Air Warfare Instr-uctors (AWIs) influenced the format-

ion of the USN TOPGUN program andthe RAN Fleet Air Arm (FAA) SeaVenom FAW Mk.53 and Skyhawk A4G

Operations. RAN AWIs initially weretrained at RNAS Lossiemouth at theAWI school until 1974 when they weretrained at NAS Nowra by ex-RN AWIs& subsequently RAN AWIs afterwards.

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To Gun Movie Patch

TOPGUN was formerly known officially as the United States Navy Fighter WeaponsSchool, and was established on March 3, 1969 at NAS Miramar, California after a United

States Navy report recommended that a graduate-level school be established to train Fleetfighter pilots in air combat tactics to counter the relativ ely poor air combat performbeing experienced by Navy airc rews over Vietnam. The school initially operate d thSkyhawk and F-5 Freedom Fighter to instruct F-4 Phan tom II aircrews, inc luding the

US aces of the Vie tnam War, Randy Cunningham and Willie Driscoll. T he 1970s and 19brought with them the introduction of the F-14 T om cat and the F/A-18 Hornet as the

primary Fleet fighter aircraft flown by students, while TOPGUN instructors retained theirA-4s and F-5s, but also added the F-16 Fighting Falcon to better simulate the threat

presented by the Soviet Union's new 4th generation MiG-29 'Fulcrum' and Su-27 'Flanker'fighters. During the 1990s, the TOPGUN syllabus was modified to include more emphasis

on the air-to-ground strike mission as a result of the expanding multi-mission taskings ofthe F-14 and F/A-18. In addition, TOPGUN retired their F-4s, A-4s, and F-5s in favor of F-16s

and F/A-18s. In 1996, the transfer of NAS Miramar to the Marine Corps was coupled withthe incorporation of TOPGUN into the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon,

Nevada. TOPGUN instructors currently fly the F/A-18 Hornet and the F-16 Falcon.TOPGUN was made famous in popular culture by the 1986 release of the motion picture Top Gun.

htt ://c i.eba . h/PETE-MITCHELL-TOP-GUN-YOUR-NAME-TAG-FLIGHT-SUIT-/400094451739

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TOP GUN ANDTHE BRITISHAn exchange programmebetween the Royal Navyand US Navy had existedfor many years. But from1964 onwards, in advanceof the Phantoms intro-duction into Royal Navyservice, small numbers of experienced FAA Pilots andObservers were sent toNAS Miramar in Californiawhere they ew as instruc -tors on VF-121, the US

Navys Fleets ReplacementAir Group, or RAG. AtFightertown, USA the Britshelped train rookie crewsin the rudiments of yingand ghting the F-4 beforethese students were post-ed to frontline squadrons.At the end of their tours,the British exchange crewswere able to bring homegreat experience of thePhantom and its systems,but the relationship was a

reciprocal one. The pres-ence of British instructorson VF-121 made availablea handful more US Navyaircrews to the frontline

ghting in Vietnam a warthat by the end of the dec-ade had sucked in over half a million US troops. A warthat was not going well.US Navy pilots in Vietnamwere struggling to gain theupper hand against theenemy. And, by the end of the sixties, concern abouttheir poor performance

had become so acute thataddressing the situationbecame a priority for USAdmirals. And in the effortto turn things round, thesmall British contingentat Miramar would play animportant part.

Alongside its Phantomsquadron, Miramar washome to VF-124, its equiva-lent Crusader RAG. And itwas Vought F-8 Crusader

jockeys who walked into

the bar at Happy Hour withthe biggest swagger. Thesingle-seat F-8s were realpilots jets, known to theirpilots as The Last of theGun ghters. Relativelysmall and agile, armedwith machine guns andshort-range missiles theywere out and out dog ght -ers. The Phantom, bycontrast, was huge, carrieda crew of two and wasnteven equipped with a gun,relying instead on guidedmissiles alone. For all its

record breaking, the Navynever expected their newinterceptor to get tangledup in the messy businessof dog ghting. It was sup -posed to be beyond all that.And Miramar F-8 pilots hadbecome bored of ambush-ing them. Screaming intosomeones six oclock onlyto provoke a gentle 2 G turn in response wherewas the fun in that? Theydalmost started to ignore

the Phantoms until oneof them stumbled ontothe tail of an F-4 being

own by a Royal Navy AWarfare Instructor calledGeoff Hunt. And he washaving any of it.

In response to theindignity of discoveringan F-8 on his tail, Huntslammed the Phantomsengines through the gateto engage full afterburneand pulled into a screamturn towards the attackinF-8. And then the two je

fought until their fuel wagone. The Crusader pilolanded with eyes like dinplates.

Only the best wereselected to go on theRoyal Navys Air WarfaInstructors Course. Andfor most students it wasthe most demanding, morewarding ying that thewould ever enjoy. Grountheory at HMS Excellenthe Naval Gunnery Scho

i h f l h h h i i f h d h h l

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in Portsmouth, was fol-lowed by 3 months inten-sive ying with 764 NAS atLossiemouth. Flying 3, 4and sometimes 5 sortiesa day in the squadronsHunters, students wouldlearn about every aspectof modern tactics andweaponry, from ACM anddeveloping spatial aware-ness leading divisionalattacks of 4 aircraft, todelivering nuclear weapons.Sandwiched around the y -ing they were given lessons

on how to brief and debrief a sortie, and taught aboutteaching. Because whenthey were posted to theirnext squadrons, it wouldbe as that squadronsAWI the resident expert.764 instructed its studentsto join their squadronsand share what theydlearned, spreading thatexpertise throughout thewhole frontline. And theydbeen doing it since 1959.

Through the instructors onexchange at Miramar, theAWIs methods made theirway into perhaps the mostwell-known programme inthe history of naval avia-tion: Top Gun.

The Brits at Miramar didtheir best to t in. Theygave themselves US-stylecallsigns. But rather thanthe Vipers and Mavericksthat seemed to prevail,they came up with Alien,Dogbreath, Cholmondleyand Spastic [LCDR Al

Hickling SP then COVC-724 in 1972-3] . WhenLt Dick Lord arrived atMiramar in 1966 he calledhimself Brit One. Becausehe was South African andbecause he liked the ideaof his American wingmanhaving to call himself Brit 2.Lord was staggered by thesize of the operation theUS Navy had there.

Sitting on the hard-standing were more

aircraft than made up theentire Fleet Air Arm. Hisown squadron, VF-121,had over 80. And it was inthe units sheer size thevolume of people involved

that Lord, a single mindedand talented ghter pilot,quickly realised that aproblem lay. As he passedaround the debrie ngcubicles that surroundedthe main room he listenedin. No-one teaching tacticswas more revered thanthose pilots whod killed

MiGs in Vietnam. Alright kid, you y likethis Lord heard them say

because this is how I ewin Vietnam. And if youdont, theyre going to bustyour ass! Then in the nextcubicle hed hear some-thing completely different.

Alright kid, you y likethis, because thats how I

ew in Vietnam. And, if youdont theyre going to bustyour ass!

There was no clear,consistent message. Hecould only imagine howmust scramble the brainof eager-to-impress younstudents.

For his debrie ng following his rst sortie asan instructor, Lord askedfor coloured chalk. Onthe AWI course at Lossiafter every engagement,he scribbled down head-ings, speeds, who didwhat, when, where errorwere made. Then, in the

debrief after the sortie,he could recreate theght on the blackboard,

pick it apart in detail andlearn from it. It took theego and subjectivity outof it - stopped a debrief

just becoming a pissingcontest. Using the sametechniques he pointed ouhis students errors andexplained how and wherhed gained an advantagAnd soon he found that

d b i f i i f d Th h W ld W i i i i l b

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debriefs were starting toget crowded. Dan McIntyre,boss of the air-to-air sec-tion of VF-121, noticed ittoo and asked him to writea revised ACM syllabus forthe whole squadron andtour the west coast baseslecturing US Navy attackpilots on ACM.

Lord threw himself intoit and, in early 1968, wasslipped a dusty le markedTop Secret: For US EyesOnly containing USAFMajor John Boyds work on

Energy Manoeuvrability.Shot through with math-ematical formulae he couldsee why the report hadbeen gathering dust. ButLord stuck with it andrealised it was golddust.Boyd had used graphs toillustrate the performanceenvelopes of different

ghters. By overlayingone graph with another,Boyds work could showyou exactly where your

own aircrafts advantagelay. And exactly whereyour weaknesses werefound. Lord added it tohis teaching, amused thathe was now lecturing onsomething he wasnt evenallowed to have read.

As the war in Vietnamdeepened, sucking inmen and material in evergreater quantities, alarmwas growing amongstUS Admirals about theperformance of the Navys

ghters and especially

about its new hot ship theF-4 Phantom. By the endof the sixties, the F-4 hadonly accounted for thirteenMiGs. The older, simpler,gun-armed F-8 Crusaderhad eighteen. More worry-ingly, the overall Americankill ratio against the MiGswas stubbornly refusing torise much above 2:1. Justtwo small, cheap enemy

jets for every multi-milliondollar American ghter.

Throughout World WarTwo and Korea the ratiohad been closer to 10:1.Something had clearlygone wrong.

In the summer of 1968,Dick Lord left Miramar tobecome the Royal Navyspre-eminent weapons andtactics instructor, the AirWarfare Instructor of 764NAS itself. But his legacyat Miramar was there forall to see in the standardi-sation, organisation andrigour of the new VF-121

tactics course. A couple of months after Lord returnedto the UK, one of his fellowinstructors, Lt Cdr DanPederson USN, the squad-rons operations of cer,became the rst CO of the Navy Fighter WeaponsSchool. NFWS was soondubbed Topgun, its role,like 764, was to take thebest crews in the eet and,for a month, give themintense and comprehensive

tuition in aerial combatbefore sending them bacto share that knowledgein squadron ready roomthroughout the Navy.

Topgun wasnt con-sciously modelled on thRoyal Navys Air WarfaInstructors Course, butthe similarities werepronounced, and Pederswas quick to acknowledLords contribution heattended some of the FleAir Arm pilots lectureshimself. Dick Lords wo

at the VF-121 TacticsGroup was the foundatioon which Pederson andthe original eight Topguninstructors built theircourse. One of the eightJohn Nash, maintained ththe month-long coursewas nothing more thanan extended course of thRAG tactics syllabus. Aof course, Lord had writthat syllabus.

In 1970, a Phantom

l nched from the deck kno n s NATOPS g me for the f int he rted determined th t M cdon

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launched from the deckof the USS Constellationshot down a MiG-21 withan AIM-9 Sidewinder mis -sile. It was the rst MiGshot-down by the US Navyin nearly two years of war. The pilots name wasLt Jerry Beaulier. And hewas a graduate of the rstclass ever to pass throughTopgun.

Dick Lords parting giftto Miramar was a typedfourteen-page documenthe called Flying and

Fighting the Phantom. Itwas a distillation of allhed learnt about the jetin his time in the tacticsgroup. Copies were handedto every single VF-121student on their arrival atMiramar. It was also sentto McDonnell-Douglas, thePhantoms manufacturer.They were suf cientlyimpressed to quote fromit on the opening page of the F-4s operating manual,

known as NATOPS: To be successful in

the ghter business theaircrew must, rst andforemost, have a thoroughbackground in ghtertactics. They must acquirean excellent knowledge of all their equipment. Thenthey must approach theproblem with a spirit of aggression, and with uttercon dence.

It sat alongside just oneother quotation. And thatwas from Manfred Von

Richtofen, the Red Baron;the most famous ghterpilot whos ever lived.

Dougal Macdonaldwas Dick Lords last everstudent at 764 NAS. Noteveryone coped with eitherthe physical or psycho-logical stresses of the AWIcourse. Over three monthsstudents spent a lot of time pulling G and yingstraight at the ground

and that was never a

game for the faint-hearted.And in being an Observerrather than a pilot goingthrough the Air WarfareInstructors Course,Macdonald was a rarity. Asa Looker, he had no directcontrol over the aircraft,but, in having responsibil-ity for navigation andoperating the weaponssystem, he controllednearly everything else.Without him, the guy inthe front seat could y fastand make a lot of noise,

but he couldnt ght a war.It was a lesson that old-school ghter jocks werestill getting to grips with.A ghter with a two-mancrew was more capablethan a single-seater. Theworkload was shared; youhad an extra pair of eyes.

Dick Lord took theyoung Observer underhis wing, ying as piloton most of Macdonaldssorties himself. He was

determined that Macdonwas going to get throughHis rst impression of any young aircrew hemet came from the lookin their eyes. Macdonaldtough and eager, his eyewere alive with the sparhe was looking for. Mucmore than the pilots, Loknew, the Lookers wercompletely outside of thcomfort zone at 764. BuMacdonald thrived durihis time at Lossie. And only did he qualify as an

Air Warfare Instructor hself, but, like his mentorhe became an InstructorMiramar and, after sittinthe Top Gun course himself, joined an elite grouof aviators.

(PS In the broadcastDoug let on that his callsign was Haggis - nocomment). http://www.feetairarmoa.org/pages/images_ pages/page79.htm

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http://www.saairforce.co.za/news-and-events/10

37/dick-lord-an-officer-and-a-gentleman

B i di G l H d h df l f th i t d d b B iti h il t ll

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Brigadier General Dick Lord1936-2011

Brigadier General Dick Lord,the Fleet Air Arm pilot whohas died aged 75, was instru-mental in the development of Americas Top Gun ghter pilotacademy, made famous by the

lm of the same name.Lord established his unusual

role in 1968, when he was theforemost British instructor

sent on exchange at Miramar,California, to train Americanpilots then suffering signi cantlosses at the hands of MiG-21s

own by the North Vietnamese.While some criticised the per-formance of Americas multi-million dollar Phantom jet, Lordconcentrated on sharpening hispupils Air Combat Manoeuvring(ACM) skills to improve theirodds in a dog ght.

He and a handful of otherFleet Air Arm graduatesof the Royal Navys gruel -ling Air Warfare Instructors(AWI) school in Lossiemouth,Scotland, introduced rigorousnew methods for recording andscrutinising the performance of trainees during exercises. Lord,for example, scribbled notes ona pad on the knee of his ightsuit during mock dog ghts,which he then exhaustivelyanalysed on a blackboard at

post- ight debriefs.Such was the trust placed

in Lord that he was grantedaccess to classi ed Americanmilitary documents comparingthe performance of US aircraftagainst that of enemy ghters.

This access allowed him to write,with others, the US Navys AirCombat Manoeuvring manual.

A year after Lords arrival,the tuition and methods

introduced by British pilots, allgraduates of the AWI schoolat Lossiemouth, made theirway into the US Navy FighterWeapons School, which wasset up in 1969. Better knownas Top Gun, it remains themost famous programme inthe history of naval aviation.Soon after it was establisheda Phantom own by one of its

rst students shot down a MiG-21, the rst time a US Navyaircraft had succeeded in aerial

combat in two years.Lord enjoyed the lm Top

Gun, but mused that it was remarkable that any history

book studiously avoids men-tion of any British involvementand added that the lm had

not given us due justice. Heremained proud of his involve-ment, however, and during histime at Miramar had insistedon using the call sign Brit 1.

This meant that his wingman 1959 ying Sea Venom and Sea instructor with 764 Naval Air

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This meant that his wingman,though American, was forced touse the call sign Brit 2.

Richard Stanley Lord wasborn on June 20 1936 inJohannesburg, where he waseducated at Parktown Boys High. His father, a soldier inthe Imperial Light Horse, wascaptured at Tobruk and did notreturn from his PoW camp until1946. Richards early fascina -tion with ying was played outin imaginary games of Biggles

high in the branches of a jaca-randa tree.

Lord was one of severalEnglish-speaking South Africanswho, despairing in the 1950sand 1960s of a career in theAfrikaner-dominated South

African Services, joined theRoyal Navy. His initial navaltraining was at the Royal NavalEngineering College, Manadon,and he gained his wings in June

1959, ying Sea Venom and SeaVixen ghters from the aircraftcarriers Centaur, Victorious,Hermes and Ark Royal.

In 1966 he found himself ying from Ark Royal off Beira,

Mozambique, to enforce the oilblockade of Rhodesia followingits Unilateral Declaration of Independence. After one mis -sion to intercept a suspectedblockade-runner, he returned to

nd that the carrier had beenovertaken by a tropical storm

and that her ight deck waspitching through 65ft: his air-craft caught the third arresterwire and damaged its undercar-riage reckoned a near perfectlanding in the conditions.

Lord quali ed as an Air

Warfare Instructor and in 1968began his two-year exchangetour with the US Navy, y -ing Skyhawks and Phantoms.On his return he was senior

instructor with 764 Naval AirSquadron where he passed onthe skills and con dence thathad made such an impact inAmerica.

He returned to South Africain 1970, where he gained acivil licence and began to teachcommercial pilots. But, as hesaid later, a visit to Cape Townby Ark Royal struck a deepchord in my heart, and rekin-dled his love of more adventur-ous ying. Though heBrigadier

General Dick Lordstill wasunable to pass the Afrikaanslanguage test, he joined theSouth African Air Force, thesecond oldest air force in theworld.

With the SAAF Lord took

part in the Border War, foughtbetween South Africa andCuban-backed Angola from1966 to 1989. He ew Impala,Sabre and Mirage ghters

against Cuban piloted MiG His books included Fire Flood close relationship which existed

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against Cuban-piloted MiGghters, and commanded No 1

Squadron SAAF from 1981to 1983, later directing SAAFoperations from Oshakati andWindhoek (now the capital of Namibia).

He ended his career incharge of the Air Force Com-mand Post in Pretoria, wherehe was awarded a DistinguishedService Cross for his role inhelping to organise the rescueoperations that saved all 581

passengers and crew of theGreek cruise-liner Oceanos,which sank off South Africaseastern coast on August 4 1991.

Another highlight of hiscareer was to organise, in 1994,the y-past at the inauguration

of Nelson Mandela as Presidentof South Africa. Lord then re-tired as a Brigadier General andbegan writing about his life asan aviator.

His books included Fire, Floodand Ice (1998), a description of SAAF search-and-rescue opera-tions, conducted in conditionsranging from drought, to white-outs in Antarctica, to devastat-ing deluges.

His biography,From Tailhooker to Mudmover (2000), which detailed his ex-periences as a pilot with theRoyal Navy, the US Navy, andin the Border War, is regardedas one of the best and funniest

books about ying in the 1950sand 1960s. He also wrote a his -tory of the Mirage ghter in theSAAF, called Vlamgat (2000) or,in English, aming hole.

In From Fledgling to Eagle:the South African Air Force

during the Border War (2008),Lord drew on his own diariesbut also incorporated anecdotesfrom dozens of other aviatorsand squadrons, highlighting the

close relationship which existedbetween the SAAF and SouthAfrican Special Forces.

Apart from ying, his passiowas military music, his favour-ite piece being Sarie Marais,the march of the Royal Marineswhich is based on an Afrikanerfolk song.

Dick Lord married, in 1968,June Beckett, a BOAC air-host-ess. While he complained aboutthe fantastical characterisationsin Top Gun, she contended that

the lms portrayal of big-talking ghter pilots was extremelytrue-to-life. She survives himwith their two sons.

Brig Gen Dickborn June 20 1

died October 26 2

[Obituary 06 Nov 20http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

news/obituaries/military-obitu-aries/naval-obituaries/8873213/

Brigadier-General-Dick-Lord.html

Vampire Dual Seat

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g

l

Vampire Dual Seat(side by side)Trainer Jet Aircraft

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PhoJump to RN FAA Phantom F-4K trials on USS Saratoga story from Naval Aviation News Feb 1970

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SEE-

NEXT-

PAGES

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USS Saratoga CVA-60 http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=65...In March of 1980, Saratoga and embarked airwing CVW-17 departed on their 16th Mediterranean deployment. Highlightsof the deployment included major exercises with the USS Forrestal (CV 59) battle group, and visits by the Chief of NavalOperations, Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Thomas C. Crow. Then-commandingofficer, Capt. James H. Flatley III, made naval aviation history on 21 June 1980 when he completed his 1,500th carrier arrested landing. To make the event special, Midshipman James H. Flatley IV, the Captain's son, rode in the back seat

(Then) LEUT Flatley Landed the 'NO HOOK HERK' also JUMP

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USS Independence Naval Aviation News June 1975

http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?product id=1850

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http://www.pen and sword.co.uk/?product_id 1850

Impending Hookon. Another F4K parked in Fly4. Archive EM(A) John Fisher

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http://www.phantomf4k.org/resources/4271/imageGallery/DL

p g p y ( )

unity', an elongs to a five-nation FarEast military exercise For reasons mainly

all the time, hull own on the horizon aninterfering with nobody

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East military exercise. For reasons mainlyconnected with Denis Healey's desire tosave face with the locals when ChairmanHarold speed ed up our Far Eastern with-drawal from 1975 to 1971, Healey cookedup Bersatu P adu to show how all threeservices woul d jump into action to saveMalaysia and Singapore in an emergency.

So last week Complete Unity crankedinto action. Troops poured into Singaporewith Land Rovers, helicopters, guns andother items designed to let Lee Kuan Yewget on with reduoing his golf handicap inpeace. A shuttle of R.A.F. VC 10's showed

that London and Malaysia are but20

hours apart. And to keep Denis's nameshining bright in the Vd1.P. lists the Ministryof Defence flew out 3 7 journalists to watchthe fun.

Knowing that of the 14,000 British in-volved nearly 1 0 , 0 0 0 were Navy andMarines, the unprejudiced might have

thought the Navy would figure in thejournalists' programme. I t did - ut onlyafter some last-minute stitching-up of theP.R. organisations' own Bersatu Padu.Apparently they got so enthused about air-

interfering with nobody.It must also have been rather humiliating

for the R.A.F. to find that 'the Exercisescenerio made them dependent on the Navyohopper pilots and Marine Cknmadoscapturing an air-strip for them, and prob-ably painting that silly slogan 'm y Navy"on the end of the runway to boot. Everyonethought Chairman Harold had discoveredhow to manage without the Fleet Air Arm.

Anyway - urprise, surprise - hen Navy finally did get rememibered by theP.R. boys the only day available was theday after the Commando carrier Buhvm

was due to sail. Happily the said sailingwas postponed and the Navy had theword.

After a superb demonstration of Com-mando assault techniques, they said coollythat while the Army and R.A.F. spent thenext six weeks getting acclimatked, B d w mwas off to show the flag a t Expo ' 7 0 . Th

would return when everyone elseready. It is hardly surprising that onethe 6ide-shows at Bersatu Padu is a cam-paign by the Australian Navy to persuadeFleet Air Arm pilots to defect to them.

Naval ReviewJuly 1970

Exercise

BersatuPadu

http://www.naval-review.co.uk/

issues/1970-3.pdf

Most people also don't realise that TopGun school

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Most people also don t realise that TopGun schoolwas heavily based on the RN FAA AWI course and that RN instructors taught USAF pilots in the

model precursor to TopGun. In fact the RAG man-ual for students was written by a RN FAA pilot.gf0012-aust comments:http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/navy-maritime/role-aircraft-carriers-conflicts-10867/-

Of significance is Ex BERSATU PADU. InvolvingRN & RAN carriers - and which the UK DoD wasable to learn that organic air support provided byRAN Skyhawks was far more effective and timely

than any land based air provided by RAAF Miragesand RAF Lightnings. It is also an expeditionaryevent, so has some relevance.

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Navy NewsAug 1977

V C 7 2 1RAN Navy List March 1976

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L i e u t e n a n t - C o m m a n d e r

L i e u t e n a n t

L i e u t e n a n t (SL)

L i e u t e n a n tM i d s h i p m e n(SL)

E n g i n e e r S u b - L i e u t e n a n t(SL)

E X ( P ) P. C . M a r s h a l l ( I n C o m m a n d )E X ( P ) C.C. B l e n n e r h a s s e t ( a s

S e n i o r P i l o t )E X ( P ) M.B. N o r d e e n , U . S . N .E N P.C. J o h n s o n

E N W E R.B. V i t e n b e r g sE X ( 0 ) J . H . J o n e sE X ( P ) C . R . O . R e xE X ( ( P ) P. C o xE X ( P ) J . C . C l a r k

A d d i t i o n a l

E X P. H . G r e e n f i e l dE X ( P ) C . F. T o m l i n s o nE X ( P ) R . S . N o r m a nE X ( P ) A . J . B r a d t k e

A . P. M i d d l e t o n

L i e u t e n a n t

U n d e r g o i n g T r a i n i n g

E X ( P ) D . J . R a m s a yE X ( P ) B.J. E v a n s

2

( F o r m e d a t N o w r a , 1 s t J u n e , 1 9 5 5 !

RAN Navy List March 1976

2nd RAN AWI Cours

L to R: Peter Marshall & Max Poole 26 April 2012

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at NAS Nowra with former TA4G 880[formerly NZ6255] J Hangar

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http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1969/1969%20-%201337.html+...38.html

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http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1969/1969%20-%200561.html & ...62.html

The flying teams; from the left: Peter Goddard;

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y gPaul Waterhouse; Doug Borrowman; BrianDavies; Al Hickling and Hugh Drake

Beecroft Range,RANArmyco-operation

bli i

VC-724COLcdr Al

Jump toanother

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Leut PhilThompson

publicityphoto,late 1973

Australian ArmySergeantGraham Hay

Hickling

Holden Utility

Click above for:Who ya gonna

call? Sea Vixen!

another example

PubliTHW

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W

htt ://www.tailhook.net/PDF/ Hook Ma azines/8.Winter2012. df Vietnam War era unofficial pos

A similar poster(with vultures)was seen inthe office ofVC-724 SeniorPilot (SP) in theearly 1970s

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VC 724 Sqdn Linebook January 1974

Jum

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http://www.avcollect2buccaneer/brough/1st_carri

XK523 THE VERY FIRST CARRIER LANDINGDerek Whitehead makes a 'hookless' approach tomake the very first carrier landing onto HMSVictorious on 19th Jan 1960 in XK523. Great Weather!

George Heron RN/RAN

On the 26th of March 1965, 736 Squadron wasreformed at Lossiemouth from 809 Squadron, as a

Jet Strike Training Squadron equipped withBuccaneer S.1s. The S1s were partially replaced byBuccaneer S2s from May 1966. The squadroneventually disbanded on the 25th of February 1972

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Cmdr George Heron top photo 2nd from right Navy News 10 April 19

-

HMS Ark Royal was the most powerful warship the Royal Navyhad ever put to sea 50 000 tons of British Sovereign Territory a

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had ever put to sea.50,000 tons of British Sovereign Territory afloating airfield that was home to 2,700 men, a stockpile of nuc-lear weapons, and the most modern, capable air force in Europe.But by the early seventies, Ark Royal was in the twilight of her

career. Only kept in service to help face down the Cold War threatfrom the powerful Soviet Navy, it seemed Ark would play nofurther part on the worlds stage.

Then, in January 1972, intelligence reached Whitehall thatBritish Honduras now Belize was threatened with imminent

invasion. To defend the colony Britains response had to be im-mediate and unequivocal. And Ark Royal offered the only effect-ive means of preventing the little Central American country beingoverrun by battle-hardened, US-trained Guatemalan paratroops.But to do so the old carrier would first have to endure a destruct-ive, high-speed 1,500 mile dash across the Atlantic towards theGulf of Mexico. Only then would it be possible to execute anaudacious, record-breaking plan to launch a pair of Buccaneerson an extra-ordinary and unprecedented long-range mission. It

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VF-805 linebook page(s) 1 of 2

CO SP EBuccan

L 1972 h VC 724 CO L d B i D h AWI l l f

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Late 1972 perhaps VC 724 CO Lcdr Brian Dutch AWI lower left wLeut Chris Olsson lower right (formerly of the RN FAA Buccaneer pilo

Chris Olsson had aounger brother Nigelwho was the drummer in Elton John Band in1970s

Yea tho I fly thru the valley of death,I f il

SPs Prayer

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Flying Instructors PrayeMy student is a headache that I do not wa

He maketh me to lie down at night very weaHe leadeth me beside high-tension wi

Yea, though he knoweth better, my hair turneth greyAnd though I fly on the clearest

I fear much evil, for he is with me. A

THE HOOK, Spring http://www.tailhook.org/Sp09catwalk

I fear no evil...Because I'm the best in the valley

Flight Line Cafeteria

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Photo via Al Hickling