I used to work in a company next RAF Shawbury; it was in some converted stables in the middle of the wood.

Great days; eating pork pies that we should've been testing for nutritional content whilst watching a choice of either the Red Arrows practicing, or the local woodpeckers.

Good, isn't it? And even better when you've not had to pay to get into a air-show.
B. Bumner | 07.15.04 - 7:36 pm | #

Wooooooo..love it! Have seen it a few times, like u say never very 'stealthy'!

Will mail you your 5 questions tomorrow evening, just in from work and back again at 05.00. Can you gimme an email addy please. Thanks for offering to be interviewed. :o)
gemmak | Homepage | 07.15.04 - 10:49 pm | #

E-mail address to the right. Or at the bottom of this comment.
Dr Alan Tupilaq | Homepage | 07.15.04 - 11:10 pm | #

Can I be a pedant and suggest you saw the F117 which isn't actually a 'fighter' at all but a light bomber.

(and if you did happen to see an F22 Raptor please accept my apologies for being utterly wrong)
Hugh Jaynill | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 12:18 am | #

Frankly Hugh I'm not sure I could tell the difference. They both look black and stealthy
Dr Alan Tupilaq | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 8:00 am | #

I saw a Red Arrow crash mid-display once - now that was a surprise! Pilot ejected safely I hasten to add.
JDE | 07.16.04 - 9:40 am | #

Bloody hell JDE......shades of Ramstein?
Hugh Jaynill | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 11:43 am | #

How have you managed to get through forty years of life without seeing the Red Arrows? I'm amazed. It's like saying you've got through forty years of life without ever once watching Coronation Street.
Tony B | 07.16.04 - 12:53 pm | #

Errm, I've never watched a whole episode of Coronation Street ...
Dr Alan Tupilaq | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 3:43 pm | #

"Errm, I've never watched a whole episode of Coronation Street ..."

- Jayzuss that's weirder than Garvan!

Hugh Jaynill | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 5:46 pm | #

To be even more pedantic the F-117 is a low-observable Attack plane. It was numbered with an F (for "Fighter") designation because the Air Force wanted their top recruits to volunteer to fly it: Attack aircraft (A- designation) are relatively unglamourous and generically known as "mud-movers".

By way of recognition, the F-22 is generally painted two-tone grey rather than the black of the F-117. It also has a bubble canopy, high-mounted wing and tailplanes.
Al | 07.19.04 - 12:39 pm | #

Sad or what ?
Al | 07.20.04 - 9:05 am | #

And according to newsnight the raptor is becoming an expensive white elephant along with the typhoon and the raphael. the governments are trying to back out of buying them as they have no worthwhile opponents.
Dave | 07.20.04 - 5:50 pm | #