Last night I went to a "lecture" given by an ex fighter pilot, Group Captain Geoff Brindle. His talk was on his experiences flying the English Electric Lightning, and later the Phantom. It was fascinating stuff and he really made the point of how good an aircraft the Lightning was, its only real shortcoming being its lack of range. Some of the antics that the pilots got up to were hysterical.

The talk was at the flying club next to Leeds/Bradford airport and was a couple of hours long. It was illustrated with slides and G/CPT Brindle really was a good speaker.

When asked how the British Phantoms compared to the American ones he said the British took a good aircraft and made it harder to fly.

When asked which was the better aircraft, the Lightning or the Phantom he said the Lightning was better for pure flying but the Phantom was the better war machine.

There is another talk coming in a month or so about the Malta War years by one of the veterans. Also there will be the son of one of the Malta Gladiator pilots so it should be interesting.

Hi James, I have no info on any other lectures G/CPT Brindle is doing. I only found out about this one through a friend at work. The talk was organised by AIR SUPPLY, a shop in Leeds that supplies items for private pilots. Apparently they organise regular talks on aviation, all proceeds going to a local charity.

Hi Martin

That Malta lecture sounds like it could be brilliant! Maybe you could see if the veteran would do an interview for Armorama - it'd make a wonderful Feature.

All the best

Rowan