Since my last editorial it really has been quite a month of history in the making, and repeating itself. It all started on April 29, when I thought it would be interesting to compile a snapshot of how the RAF went about ensuring that the seven-aircraft flypast for the Royal Wedding would arrive overhead Buckingham Palace exactly on time. Once the aircraft had set off for London I hastened to my parents’ house, some 2hr drive away, for a family barbecue, arriving just in time for the first sausages to be ready. I must have picked up a few tips from the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s precise planning!

Aeroplane editor Jarrod Cotter flying in RAF BBMF Chipmunk T.10 WG486 close to the type’s 65th anniversaryI had anticipated that the Royal Wedding would be hugely popular by its very nature, but when the astonishing audience figures were published they quite took me aback. My thanks to Sqn Ldr Ian Smith and Yvonne Masters at the RAF BBMF for letting me record this piece of history from such a different perspective.

On May 4 I was invited to the Imperial War Museum (IWM) Duxford for a Spitfire press call and photo shoot; the anniversary of the very day that 19 Sqn’s Spitfire Is were first shown to the press at RAF Duxford in 1939. As The Aeroplane had attended that event all those years ago, it seemed quite surreal for me be representing the journal at its recreation. Among several representatives from the media there was a reporter from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, and my thoughts on the occasion were transmitted on the next day’s breakfast show. Thanks to IWM Duxford’s Marketing and PR Manager Esther Blaine and the patient ground crew for all their help on the day.

Two days later, because this issue was to include a fascinating series of pictures of a 13 Sqn Bristol Blenheim V sortie in 1943, I visited RAF Marham to bring the unit’s history up to date. Aircrew were making what will probably be 13 Sqn’s last “manned” flight, as it was to be disbanded a week later. It was announced at the disbandment that the squadron will re-form next year, but will be equipped with Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles. As can be seen on page 36, this “flight into history” was most impressive.

The next event, on May 15, marked the 70th anniversary of the first flight of the Gloster E.28/39, at RAF Cranwell. Hearing Capt Eric “Winkle” Brown recall, exactly 70 years to the day after its first flight and at the same location, how he was at Cranwell purely by chance and witnessed the flight, and then became a test pilot on the E.28/39, was simply breathtaking. Schedules and pressure of time meant that we shall have to bring you more on this in a forthcoming issue. May 22 marked the 65th anniversary of the first flight of the de Havilland Canada Chipmunk, of which I am most fond, as it was the first RAF aircraft in which I flew, and the type on which I first put all my principles of flight theory into practice. Therefore I felt privileged to recently have a flight in the RAF BBMF’s T.10, WG486. It was like going back to my roots, and all around the “Chippie’s” anniversary. All in all, it really has been quite a month.

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