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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0740.PDF
FLIGHT International, 16 May 1963 713 WITTERING A VICTOR SQUADRON'S DAY Text by Humphrey Wynn Photographs by Michael Barnes CENTURIONS I T starts at 0830 and may last until 1930hr. Imagine this in city office terms and you get a picture of an eleven-hour day starting before nearly everybody else and going on long after the rest have stopped. Add that this block of working time may start later, and finish correspondingly later; that if your day ends before midnight you are expected to attend a briefing at half-past eight in the morning; that much of your work may be done ten miles above the Earth's surface; that every now and then you are expected to go off on a business trip to Nebraska or Malaya; and you get some idea of the working life of a V-force squadron in RAF Bomber Command: a mixture of routine and adventure, of devastating power wielded with almost impersonal dedication. Among the wielders of this power are 100 Sqn, whose base is Wittering, the famous RAF station on the Great North Road south of Stamford. Here in pre-war days was the Central Flying School (the date on the Officer's Mess building is 1925); here, during the war, the original airfield was linked to an adjoining one to give a much bigger operational area. This adjoining airfield was Colyweston, in Rutland; and it is there, to the north of the 9,000ft runway, that 100 Sqn now have their dispersal—crossing the Northamptonshire/Rutland county boundary when they drive out in the aircrew coach to their aircraft, Victor B.2s which bear the squadron badge, a skull and crossbones, on the fin. No 100 are one of the newest of the Victor B.2 squadrons, only recently reformed (May 1, 1962) after previous existence as an operational unit in both world wars. They share Wittering with another Victor B.2 unit, No 137 (Jamaica) Sqn. For both squadrons the working day begins at 0830hr with a briefing attended by all the station's flying personnel, to put them Continued on page 716, after double-page photographs "Each crew member carries out his own self-briefing": Fit Lt W. G. D. Sharpe (above), navigator/plotter, in pre-flight cogitation. At right, ". . . the crew change into flying kit, check oxygen equipment and pressure suits": Fg Off K. C. Quin (co-pilot) in foreground; Fit Lt 8. C. Swanson (navigator/radar) and Fit Lt C. Williams (captain) at rear
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