History, Politics And Current Affairs

....Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollack, RAF, who flew a Hawker Hunter through Tower Bridge in 1968, has passed into the clearing at the age of 89.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Hu ... e_incident

Mike

Ah bless him. He was invited to resign the day after that.

Craiglxviii wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 8:21 pm Ah bless him. He was invited to resign the day after that.

Craig,

There's another version out there that says he was immediately grounded and confined to quarters to await court-martial - but somebody in the RAF figured out that a court-martial would gain him support from the public, and there was a non-zero chance that he could be acquitted. He was then found medically unfit and retired.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's a Few like him still in the RAF, they'll do fine.

Mike

MikeKozlowski wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 8:31 pm

Craiglxviii wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 8:21 pm Ah bless him. He was invited to resign the day after that.

Craig,

There's another version out there that says he was immediately grounded and confined to quarters to await court-martial - but somebody in the RAF figured out that a court-martial would gain him support from the public, and there was a non-zero chance that he could be acquitted. He was then found medically unfit and retired.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's a Few like him still in the RAF, they'll do fine.

Mike

It’s all true. His Commanding Officer visited him and suggested that he resign his commission or take the Mess Webley. He resigned.

Just remember, we did have a Tornado pilot with call sign Obi-Two for a while… (Euan MacGregor’s brother)…

A noble protest, which resulted in not only the 50th anniversary of the RAF being duly noted and celebrated, but there being no further cuts to the strength or capabilities of the Royal Air Force in the next 57 years.

Didn’t it?

Godspeed to Flight Lieutenant Pollack. One of a special breed rarely seen these days, those slightly nuts pilots that would likely have wreaked havoc on the enemy in war.

There were some similar cases back in the day here in Sweden. They usually got away with it, or faced more lenient consequences than Pollack did though. Here’s a twoship of Draken interceptors passing under the Öland bridge in formation. These days they would not be able to get away with something like that.

And we had a spectacular one here in the late 50s:

https://northernmichiganhistory.com/bom ... ac-bridge/

Mike

OK, he was a civilian but Tex Johnston left a big imprint on Seattle. Unfortunately I fear these days at Boeing are long gone.

https://simpleflying.com/boeing-707-bar ... l-seattle/