I had reason, recently, to recall an event that occurred back in 2017.
The 19th April 2017 was an overcast day in LFA7, but the cloud base was such that we could be hopeful for a few low level passes. I was over in Wales with my friend Dan who like me had been brought up under the glorious sounds of the GR1s and later GR4s operating from RAF Cottesmore with the TTTE. That morning we had the pleasure of seeing a strong contingent of aircraft from a Hercules of 24 Squadron out of Brize, the home team Hawk T2s of 4 Squadron and a very random civilian owned Cavalon.
Little did we know that over the airwaves of our scanners we were about to hear a call for Low Level from a very important flight. Screaming down the valley came a 4 ship flight of GR4s from RAF Marham, ZA553, ZA614, ZA369 and ZA462, the third being of interest, but we’ll come back to that.
What a start to the day, we then had a more Hawk T2s, Typhoons ZJ912 from 11 Squadron and ZK353 of 29 Squadron (which back in 2015 had been the display jet), a Royal Navy Hawk T1, a BN-2T-4S Defender of the Army Air Corps and a V22 Osprey of the 352nd Special Operations Wing. All in all a good haul for one day’s shooting on the hills, back at the pub we were quite chuffed with the final score. The next day I was contacted by the pilot of the third GR4 ZA369, I of course obliged his request for my photographs. It turns out the pilot was Flt Lt Nathan Shawyer, the very last pilot to be trained on the GR4 under the Royal Air Force. In response to my photographs Nathan sent me a photograph taken by his rear seater.
Fast forward to 30th November 2024 and I’m sat at a lecture organised by Runway25 from Flt Lt Chris ‘Stradders’ Stradling, MBE. A WSO who has over 6,000 hours on the Tornado and the only person in the world to have reached that milestone. About half way through his lecture he put up a photograph of him and his pilot shaking hands after reaching that 6,000 hours mark. That’s funny I recognise that guy! Turns out his pilot for this mission that put him over 6,000 hours had been nonother than Flt Lt Nathan Shawyer. This realisation really made my night and I had to go and have a chat with Chris afterwards to tell him this. What a weird and unexpected circle to have happened.
So thank-you to Runway25 for unknowingly making that happen!
Still the coolest jet to see in the mountains you'll never change my mind!
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