Flt Lt Peter Sturt
Peter was assigned to 8 Squadron from September 1963 to
August 1965.
Shack escort!
Peter recalls a interesting sortie that included formating on
a Shackleton.
“The OC 42
Squadron was flying the Shackleton while our flight of four Hunters from 8
Squadron practiced some close formation on his aircraft. I was flying XF552-D.
The main thing I remember from that sortie was when we formed up in echelon port
on the port wing of the Shack and the intention was for the 5th Hunter to take a
pretty photo of the four peeling neatly off to the left, a la second world war
stuff. Unfortunately, OC 42 decided to call the break rather than our formation
leader and he did it by saying ‘standby to break’, ‘break 1’, ‘break 2’, ‘break
3’, etc., in that order. Our whole formation twitched horribly. I was No. 3 and
when I saw the two aircraft on my right banked towards me I heaved up and away
out of it. It took some time to get us back into any semblance of order and we
did not see OC 42 after that. I think he took his aircraft on to Sharjah or
Bahrain!”
Combined RAF/RN flypast
After his tour with 8 Sqn, Peter undertook a tour as an
instructor at Chivenor followed by an exchange posting with 809 Sqn, with which
he returned to Aden on board HMS Hermes in 1967.
A massive flypast
over Aden with the Khormaksar Hunter wing and the Buccaneers
and Sea Vixens of
HMS Victorious and Hermes took place on 17 May, 1967. The formation was lead by
Sea Vixens from 892 and 893 Sqns, followed by Buccaneers from 801 and 809 Sqns
with 8, 43, 208 and 1417 Flight Hunters bringing up the rear. Flt Lt Peter Sturt
flew XT279, a Buccaneer S.2 of 809 Sqn,
and he recalls that; “This
was quite a memorable flight since the Vixen lead pilot was not that familiar
with leading large formations. During the final run in to Aden he decided that
he was a few seconds too early and decided to slow down from the run-in speed of
(I think) 350 knots. Unfortunately he chopped his throttle to slow down rapidly
to about 250 kts and the concertina affect as this rippled down to the back end
of the formation (especially the Hunters at the very back) was again quite
interesting. Fortunately the whole formation achieved some order by the time it
overflew Aden. I suspect the comments in the Jungle bar that evening amongst
the Hunter fraternity were somewhat blue!!”
“The OC 42
Squadron was flying the Shackleton while our flight of four Hunters from 8
Squadron practiced some close formation on his aircraft. I was flying XF552-D.
The main thing I remember from that sortie was when we formed up in echelon port
on the port wing of the Shack and the intention was for the 5th Hunter to take a
pretty photo of the four peeling neatly off to the left, a la second world war
stuff. Unfortunately, OC 42 decided to call the break rather than our formation
leader and he did it by saying ‘standby to break’, ‘break 1’, ‘break 2’, ‘break
3’, etc., in that order. Our whole formation twitched horribly. I was No. 3 and
when I saw the two aircraft on my right banked towards me I heaved up and away
out of it. It took some time to get us back into any semblance of order and we
did not see OC 42 after that. I think he took his aircraft on to Sharjah or
Bahrain!” 