I parked a Victor Tanker in a car park! - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

(The two images above are scans of now fading prints of photographs taken on this sortie by one of the F4 navigators on his own camera.)

We went first to Tow Line 5, a reserved airspace over the North Sea. We had submitted a VIP Flight Plan so no air traffic delays were expected. We did a snake climb (loose line astern formation) behind another Marham tanker and levelled at 33,000 feet  in the operating area where I demonstrated a number of ‘dry’ contacts – that is making contact with the other aircraft's centreline refuelling hose without actually taking on any fuel. I also demonstrated that it was quite feasible  to maintain contact during a 180 degree turn. The Admiral seemed quite comfortable as I chatted to him during these manoeuvres. I then handed control to my co-pilot and let him make a few approaches towards the other tanker’s refuelling hose. I  then noticed, by twisting around in my seat, that the Admiral had started looking rather apprehensive at such a young officer flying the aircraft so close to another, so I took control again from the co-pilot.

Several F4s from Coningsby's No 41 Squadron came up to join us on schedule and the crew of one of them took a number of photographs of the formation: they had planned to provide Admiral Leach with a photographic record of his tanking sortie within an hour of our landing at Coningsby.

As the onset of night flying approached, the F4s broke away to return to Coningsby and I started our descent while the second Victor departed for other tasks.

We entered thick frontal cloud at about 10,000 feet on the approach and did not see the ground until 300 feet above the ground, just over one mile from touchdown on Coningsby's Runway 27. For the last few miles we were flying through torrential rain and the Victor’s puny windscreen wipers were going full tilt while the inside surfaces of the windscreens misted up very badly – as they always did in those conditions. The Admiral went very quiet, thankfully, as he realised I and my co-pilot were working hard. We landed safely, without the need to stream our tail braking parachute, and were instructed by ATC to continue to the end of the 9,000ft runway and turn right onto the taxiway. It was now dark and visibility out of the cockpit was very poor; however, the centre line of the taxiway was indicated by green 'glims' every hundred yards or so. One of my rear crew started getting the Admiral ready to disembark so he was unplugged from the intercom while I asked ATC what arrangements had been made to meet Admiral Leach. We were told we would be met by the Station Commander on a dispersal I had never heard of and which was not marked on our airfield chart. ATC told us to continue along the taxiway and take the first right turn. (I discovered later that the turn in question was not visible from the ATC tower so the Controller was not in a position to guide me and should have told me so.)

Visibility through the Victor’s tiny windscreens was always very  limited at the best of times. This was not the best of times! I slowed to an absolute crawl and told ATC that I could not see a right turn but that the green taxiway centreline markers were still visible in front. My co-pilot and the Navigator on the right hand side of the aircraft had their eyes skinned looking for the right turn when suddenly the navigator shouted “Stop!”. He reported that there was some sort of ground equipment close underneath our starboard wing (the Victor's wings were not visible from the pilots' positions). The Nav then reported that he could see F4 aircraft parked close on our starboard side. I shut down the engines and told ATC that I could move no more.

After a few minutes a convoy of cars crossed in front of my aircraft and stopped. In their headlights I could see that we had parked the Victor in a car park!!.

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