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Flying through a hangar


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James Bond did it years ago. :tease:

So did the Fleet Air Arm early in the war - up at the station at Wick. Two, possibly three, Skuas flew through a hangar there while the airfield was still being completed. Legend has it they flew through two hangars which were facing one another. The workmen inside completing them were not amused.

John B

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The workmen inside completing them were not amused.

There is a tale concerning RAF Predannack during the war, when the runway was being extended. Much of the work was being done by navvies brought over from neutral Ireland. Word reached the ear of the CO of a Coastal Command Wellington squadron then based at the airfield that the navvies were receiving a hefty danger money bonus for working on a military airfield during wartime, even though Predannack had never been attacked by the Luftwaffe. The CO was somewhat miffed, particularly in light of the dangers he and his crews faced on a daily basis out in the Western Approaches, and he called his crews together and instructed them in the Squadron's new take-off procedure.

From then on, every time a Wellington took off from Predannack the aircraft did not climb until after it had passed over the airfield perimeter fence. This had the effect of scattering the labouring navvies every time they looked up to see a Wellington bearing down on them at little more than fifty feet off the deck. As the CO remarked, the navvies needed to earn that danger money somehow.

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