Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

This page is adapted from the final chapter of my book 'Red Arrows - the inside story' (published in 2001, now out of date but still sometimes available from Amazon and the like). Except where otherwise indicated in the caption, the images are my own, never before published.

Clicking on the images will pop up larger versions.

Following the Minister's bomb-shell at his Waddington Press Conference, we gradually learned what the MoD's plans were for the future of Scampton and the Red Arrows.

In the short term, RAF Scampton would be re-activated primarily as a home for the Red Arrows and to that end the station would remain under the Command and Control of the Station Commander at Cranwell.

The airfield would also be used as a relief landing ground for any training aircraft that needed a runway to practice on. For day-to-day matters, Wing Commander David Bolsover, Wing Commander RAFAT (Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team), would be the Detachment Commander at Scampton.

The Central Flying School HQ was to remain at Cranwell and so the Commandant would have to travel to Scampton when he needed to supervise the Red Arrows.

The plan was for the Team to fly out of Cranwell for the last time at midday on 21 December 2000. Since that was in the middle of the winter training period the Team Leader could not fly nine aircraft in formation and that was a pity; it would have been nice to have a ceremonial arrival of all nine aircraft together. As it was, there would be a maximum of seven aircraft taking off from Cranwell; they would reach Scampton at 1210 and carry out a normal training sortie before landing at 1245. The rest of the Red Arrows’ aircraft would have already been moved out of Cranwell into 4 Hangar at Scampton to undergo normal winter maintenance. We intended to invite the local and regional media to attend at Scampton from 12 noon and the Station Commander agreed that we should invite quite a few local dignitaries and residents to the event.

As the date for the homecoming approached, I suggested that it might be a nice idea to ask the Minister for the Armed Forces if he would like to be present at the PR event. All PROs were under remit to keep their ears and eyes open for suitable ‘good news’ events for the Minister to attend – events that would keep the RAF, and the Minister, in the public eye for all the right reasons. I was delighted and not at all surprised to hear that John Spellar readily agreed to turn out, even so close to the Christmas holiday. There was then a minor protocol matter that I had to resolve. Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant for Lincolnshire, Mrs Bridget Cracroft-Eley, lives in Hackthorn village, just off the A15 end of the Scampton main runway. Mrs Cracroft-Eley, and her family, have long been great friends of RAF Scampton and the Red Arrows and she rarely misses an opportunity to attend functions at the base. However, when the Lord Lieutenant attends an event in an official capacity she is representing the Queen and has to take precedence over everyone else present, whatever their rank and status. That would have caused a slight embarrassment because the RAF wanted the Minister to be the senior guest. No problem! I telephoned Bridget and she readily agreed to attend in her other capacity, that of local parish councillor.

In early December I went to Scampton to record an interview with the well-known broadcaster Laurie Taylor for a BBC Radio 4 programme called ‘Thinking Aloud’ – which title, for the purposes of the radio audience, could have been interpreted as ‘Thinking Allowed’. When I was first contacted by the researcher I assumed that he wanted someone to talk about the Red Arrows and I asked if Laurie would rather interview the Team Leader. However, it was me they wanted! The 30-minute programme was devoted entirely to stories about the City of Lincoln and my 10-minute contribution was about Scampton, its history, and that black dog. We had intended doing the interview standing alongside Niggers’ Grave but it was dark, windy and pouring with rain so instead we made the recording standing in an empty shell of an office in Station Headquarters that had once been the Station Commander’s office and would soon be the Detachment Commander’s office. I did, however, insist on driving Laurie, his producer and his researcher along the waterfront, pausing to get wet, cold and wind-swept at Niggers’ Grave, before we went to work. I considered the interview needed that for authenticity.

The weather in the week beginning 18 December was appalling, starting with thick freezing fog which gradually gave way to very low cloud, mist and rain. No flying was possible on the first three days of the week and late on the Wednesday afternoon the decision was made to cancel the media event planned for the Thursday and as a result several weeks’ work was wasted. It began to look as though the Red Arrows’ aircraft would have to remain at Cranwell until the New Year and that would have been particularly inconvenient. However, the weather lifted just sufficiently during the Thursday afternoon for the Hawks to fly into Scampton almost unnoticed. The whole Squadron then went off home for Christmas and my second planned retirement date passed.

My successor should have started work on 8 January but in the event that was the date that the interviews took place for the candidates who had applied for my job. Surprisingly, there were only three applicants and one of those pulled out literally at the very last minute. The successful candidate had to give three month’s notice to her current employer and so I was asked to stay in post until mid-March. I agreed, but less readily this time. To be strictly accurate I was not asked in advance; I heard about my latest extension when a personnel officer at Cranwell casually mentioned that he had heard that I was now staying on until March!

A few days after my successor had been offered the job, the Red Arrows flew off to RAF Akrotiri for a 25-day ‘Winter Hawk’ training session while those technicians who stayed behind at Scampton got on with the work of setting up the engineering services in 4 Hangar. I started arranging another civic event to mark the Red Arrows’ return and that took place on 9 February, a week after the Red Arrows returned from Cyprus. This time the weather was kind and the event was very successful. However, in spite of my suggestion that we should renew the invitation for the Minister for the Armed Forces to attend, the RAF did not invite him. I was frustrated for this one last time and can only speculate on the reason for not inviting him. It seems that MoD consider a good news event is only good news after it has happened without incident. If there is the slightest possibility of a potentially good news story going wrong, then MoD believe it is better not to have it at all!

That seemed to be the thinking anyway. Another wasted opportunity!

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