The ‘Alternative Angles’ theme to this year’s Historic Aircraft Association Seminar at the RAF Museum, Hendon on Saturday 27th November, both added new perspectives to the many recent activities surrounding the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain and covered some fascinating new ground.
As with previous HAA events the prime aim of the Symposium is to give members and guests the chance to meet and share in the passion of specialists from every field and era of flying, and this year’s speakers excelled.
A late change of opening speaker was necessitated by Duxford-based display pilot Charlie Brown being mustered for flying duties on the day. His substitute, HAA President Air Marshal Cliff Spink, held the 100+ attendees in rapt attention with his first-hand ‘from the pilot seat’ views on fighter aircraft, tracing the history back from contemporary fast jets to has flown Spitfires, Hurricanes, their biplane predecessors and their enemy, the Messerschmitt Bf109.
While author Brian Milton is well known as the author of ‘Hurricane – The Last Witness’, he later admitted that his talk about the aeroplane was his first public address on the subject. However his words, based on seventeen interviews with survivors from the war who flew the Hurricane, was both illimunating and moving.
Another alternative insight into the Battle of Britain was provided by Matthew Whiteman, producer and director of the BBC drama “First Light”, based on the memoirs of 92 Squadron pilot Geoffrey Wellum. Rather than a conventional presentation, following a showing of a section of “First Light”, Matthew and HAA Chairman Rick Peacock-Edwards, whose father was a Hurricane pilot in the Battle, answered delegates questions to give added insight both the events in 1940 and their recent commemoration on BBC TV.
The keynote speaker at the 2010 Symposium, Squadron Leader Tony Iveson DFC offered the unique perspective of one who both flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain and Lancasters with the legendary 617 Squadron. While his presentation on flying Spitfires as a Sergeant Pilot with 616 and No.92 Squadrons was impressive, Iveson added a new dimension when answering questions on his three sorties against the pocket battleship Tirpitz.
His first-hand recollections of his attack on Tirpitz, as clear today as the Arctic sky above Norway nearly seven decades ago, were simply spellbinding. As ‘the few’ become fewer, it is a rare privilege to be in the presence of such heroes.
The HAA Symposium is the Association’s final social event of 2010, although its lobbying and consultation activities with the AAIB, CAA and EASA continue. Social events recommence early in the New Year with a series of members’ ‘Behind the Scenes’ visits through the early spring.
More information will be published shortly here on www.haa-uk.aero