Once upon a time...

...in 1961, an Avro Vulcon bomber visited Ohakea Air base in New Zealand. At the time I had a very technical job called window cleaning. I was cleaning the control tower windows when the Vulcan had been repaired after missing a bit of the runway as it landed and damaging it's undercart. A repair crew was sent out from England and after several months it was fixed and was due to fly back home.
It was early in the morning and while I was cleaning inside the crew were loading all sorts of luggage into the bomb bay. There were suitcases, holdalls and boxes of stuff they had accumulated while they were marking time waiting for their plane to be fixed. I often wondered if they could push the wrong button and dump it all in the Pacific.  I could hear them talking on the RT in the tower, the accents were frightfully British, full of "I say...."   and "...old chap..." Then came the serious bit. "Starboard Inner   95%,  Starboard outer 90% etc etc". The plane sat at the start of the runway as it's engines roared and after about a minute it started to move at a rapidly increasing rate. At the end of the runway, when it had barely left the ground it's nose pointed upward at a very steep angle and it got smaller and smaller then disappeared from sight. A very impressive take off!

weren't you still part of the British Empire then CM and when did yuz all stop speakin propa inglish like wot them flying men did. I bet the men fixin the plane didn't speak propa ingiish though

They were mostly Scottish and Cockney Davo.

Very fine job Ciderman.  I think the decline of the British accent happened  when they started screening Eastenders. 

That Blanca kept shouting riccccccckkkkaaaaay. What a din. 

I take no responsibility  as I am Welsh. Yacky  da everyone 

I had a great uncle in Aberystwyth- look you!

Cardiff, Vale of Glamorgan plus insomnia. I suffer for my art  :;smile: lovely Aberystwyth dew dew

 Yes I see you're up late (or early)

It's a nightmare at times but off to  the wooden hill shortly. Except we have no stairs.

Night though 

I have placed and removed air cameras from quite a few planes during my national service, including Vulcan,Victor, Meteor, Canberra and Javelin.  The V bombers were amazingly cramped for the crew.