Yeolvilton Visit 27 September 2017 Story Photos  

The Hawker Association's annual visit, this 2017 year, was to the Royal Navy Historic Flight's new home in the Navy Wings Heritage Centre, Hangar 15, South Dispersal, RNAS Yeovilton.

The Hawker Association's previous visit to the RNHF was in 2012 when the Flight had made the invitation to 'come again' we're sorry it's taken us these years to accept! The RNHF have since taken up residence in the new and much larger Navy Wings Heritage Centre, Hangar 15 so now they're accommodating not only their two Swordfish, two Sea Furies and humble but much used Chipmunk, it's also enabled them to bring in under one roof three additional naval aviation aircraft, namely, Sea Harriers ZH800 & ZH801 and Phantom F-4K XV586. The historic and unfortunately seriously damaged Sea Vixen XP924 that anyway had been resident in Hangar 15 remains there whilst decisions are made about it's future.

The day started by assembling the 21 attendees in the Fleet Air Arm Museum café, mis-named in the joining instructions as the Swordfish Restaurant but that didn't fool anybody, and by the 12:15 target everybody was registered and had been given a 'goody-bag' that was later to have more items added by the RNHF.

The car-sharing exercise was conducted to allocate attendees into a reduced amount of cars that would be going airside and at 12:30 the Flight's Display Manager and Event Host Katie Campbell arrived to complete her records, issue the required MOD vehicle passes and lead the convoy through the Security Gate, around the perimeter road and into the Navy Wings office block where a short briefing was given.

Then into the hangar's Briefing Room to be welcomed by Commodore Jock Alexander OBE MA FRAeS, recently retired from the Navy as Commanding Officer RNAS Yeovilton and now the Chief Executive Fly Navy Heritage Trust. Jock gave a summary of his 39 year career in the Navy and then introduced Lt Cdr Chris Gotke AFC RN Commanding Officer of the Royal Navy Historic Flight. Chris gave a summary of his flying career which covered many types that were of interest to the audience, but particularly so the Sea Harrier. He named some of the pilots who would be joining the Flight as Display Pilots and prior to a Q & A session he explained that the T20 2-seater Sea Fury was well on the way to getting back into it's flying display routines, very welcome news, especially to those who'd seen it under repair at last years group visit to North Weald Heritage Aviation. Chris answered questions on various topics, one of the more penetrating ones was about the post-Shoreham air show display regulations, deftly handled, as one would expect from a Display Pilot showing something in it's most favourable light!

The group was then split into two, half went off on their tour guided by Navy Wings Supporter Mike Elliott, the other half with Katie Campbell, and both guides showed their knowledge and passion for those aircraft under their care, Katie in particular showed that passion and knowledge for the venerable Swordfish! Other than the area containing the club/private/sports aircraft, visitors had unrestricted access to all of the hangar and were free to take photos, but that time passed all too quickly and then the call came for tea and biscuits, and merchandise sales in the Briefing Room. About merchandise sales Jock has since written '...‘Many thanks for bringing the Hawker team to VL yesterday and I understand they all thoroughly enjoyed the visit, which is borne out by some great sales of merchandise!   Please pass on my thank to them all’

To conclude the day Barry Pegram thanked Katie, he commented that Yes, we'd seen senior naval ranks, that day but it was clear who was really in charge! Barry added that the £10 fee that attendees had paid would be donated to the Fly Navy Heritage Trust, the Trust have since acknowledged receipt of that cheque, and finally, a vote of thanks was given to Frank Rainsborough who with Katie, had organised the event. Prior to departing Hangar15 a group photo was taken with Sea Fury FB11 as a back-drop, that photo appearing the next day on the Navy Wings website.

And so the day ended with everybody happy and holding a bagful of items, one of which was an invitation to become a Navy Wings Supporter.