Page 94 - Demo

90we sold it. It was bought by an architect from Aberdeen as a holiday cottage and he had many a noisy party there and built a very out of keeping conservatory at the front in place of the old wooden one. In May I changed crew again as Ben Mclaren%u2019s co-pilot got posted. The good thing about this was that John Warren was the first nav and he lived nearby and so could take me to work leaving Gabby with the car. I sold the bubble car, but it needed a rebuild by then anyway. The bad thing was that this crew was the display crew and so we had several displays to do. I hated display flying. I thought that it was dangerous and unnecessary. The Nimrod had a stick shaker system that rattled the control column if you were approaching the stall. It also operated when you exceeded the G limit which was 2g I think. We used to run in fast and then do a series of dumbbells coming back past the display line in various configurations, undercarriage down, bomb doors open etc. finishing with a very steep climb. All the turns were very steep and often had the stick shakers going most of the time. Ben had to keep looking over his shoulder to see our display line and the beam lookouts had to call him round on to it. I had to operate all the services. It was hard to see when we were really on the limits but often we were. Ben was a very good pilot, but it was still a bit nerve racking. Years later a crew doing more or less the same display were all killed when the pilot overcooked it. The first display I was involved in was at Strathallan School. This was inland from RAF Leuchars just south of Perth. It was quite high up and in a hilly area. We checked in with Leuchars who gave us the weather ending with the surface wind and saying that%u2019s sea state 8 for you. It was extremely turbulent, and Ben had to work hard to keep it tight particularly as it was not easy to see the school anyway. The whole crew were delighted when we were finished and were climbing away. Someone down the back asked what was so special about the school that we had to give them a show. As quick as a flash another crew member said that it was a school for the children of aircrew killed in air