Intersting aviation story concluding 'Empire of the Clouds' by James Hamilton Paterson. A book about the post-war decline of the British aircraft industry. Kindly sent to me by my friend Danny.
Background: Alan Pollock was senior operational flight commander of No. 1 Fighter Squadron, flying Hawker Hunters and rated by the RAF as 'Exceptional'.
"The first of April 1968 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the forming of the RAF from the old Royal Flying Corps. The RAF began making preparations for a fly-past over London to commemorate the day... As the day approached, however, it became clear that Harold Wilson's Labour government was planning no such fly-past and murmurs of disquiet were heard in RAF stations across the land... Tangmere was scheduled to close... Of all the airfields made famous in the defense of London during the Battle of Britain, Tangmere was perhaps the most numinous... - it was hallowed ground". After a party at Tangmere, "Al Pollock and the others climbed into their Hunters to fly back to West Raynham.... he (Al) was determined to slip away from the others and carry out a solo defiant 'celebration flag-wave' of his own over the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, the Ministry of Defence and - most particularly - the RAF memorial on the Westminster Embankment.
Immediately after take-off he gave the others the slip, quickly dropping to low level so his Hunter's camouflage would render it invisible from above as he sped across the Sussex countryside. On the way to London he paused to briefly beat up Dunsfield airfield - the home of Hawker...
'The weather was one of those rare, perfect 8/8 Gordon's-crystal-gin-clear days when all the colours shout out brightly... I swept round over Wandsworth, Battersea and Chelsea bridges, keeping a special eye open for helicopters.'
"Within seconds he was over the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall... Three times he circled low, the noise interrupting a debate... Then he levelled out over the Thames and dipped his wings past the RAF monument... Satisfied that he had made his point, Pollock glanced at his fuel gauge and decided to carry on eastwards along the river to Essex and then turn North to West Raynham. But as he crossed London Bridge, travelling at about 330 knots now the need for stealth was over, Tower Bridge suddenly loomed ahead through his windscreen."
'Until this very instant I'd absolutely no idea that, of course, Tower Bridge would be there. It was easy enough to fly over it, but the idea of flying
through the spans suddenly struck me. I had just a second to grapple with the seductive proposition which few ground attack pilots of any nationality could have resisted. Years of fast low-level strike flying made the decision simple'...
'There was considerable road traffic I could now see, including a red double-decker bus slowly lumbering across the famous double-bascules bridge from north to south'
"Calculating his clearances with split-second accuracy, Al Pollock took his camouflaged Hunter through the bridge above the traffic in a blast of motion and sound that beat back from the iron girders and startled the living daylights out of good few people. By the time they'd realised what they had seen, Pollock's Hunter was a dwindling speck passing Rotherhide in a shimmering blur of exhaust. He was not the first pilot to have flown through the bridge, but he was the first ever to do so in a jet aircraft."
