Tale from the tower - Stealth plane

Let me take you back to 1992. My first posting was to RAF Honington in Suffolk. Home of (then )to a couple of Tornado squadrons (Have to say my dream posting). On this particular day I was the Tower assistant (Glass house bit) along with the control and the supervisor (The man in charge of the tower that day) was also present having a coffee.

It was a quiet day when the landline went for the supervise.

Supervisor "Supervisor, Yes Hi, ummmmm a What, and he wants to come here?? Errrr f*ck yeah he can (or words to that effect). OK I'll be down we can ask him to turn it off and see what happens"

Well me and the Tower control were a bit confused. Then he told us what was going to happen. Basically a F117 had asked to come and do some practise landings at our little airfield. Now these are common at air shows now but back 1992 they were still very secret and rare as hen's teeth.

So I called the station photographer and told him the situation and to hall ass over here as soon a possible. To be honest he didn't really know what we were talking about but I explained that it was huge and a stealth fighter was coming in.

So the supervisor rushed down to the radar room were they had the plane on radar. yeah I know it is stealth fighter but they have this special dohickey that makes them
visible when doing normal flying around. They then asked him to switch it off so they could see what happens and then straight away asked him to turn it back on as it totally disappeared from the screen.. and 5 people shit themselves.

So back upstairs the photographer had arrived and the tower controller and I started winding him by every now turning our heads left to right and asking if he had seen it. "No" he replied. that's Coz it is a stealth plane we explained. "C*cks" he said rather to loudly.

So the black Beast turned up and started do a few circuits when my phone rang.
me "Local control SAC Hunt Speaking"
Voice " AH Hunt this is the station commander"
me to myself "Oh Shit" and sudden rush of brown adrenalin
me " Sir yes Sir (Sir Lord please don't shout at me)"

Now back in those days (near the end of the cold war and IRA and all that) you weren't allowed to say aircraft makes over insecure phone lines. So the conversation was bit weird.

Station Commander "Is that what I think is flying around"
me "If I think what you think it is then.... yes it is"
him " Ah Bloody good show. Do you think you could ask him to fly over my house as I have some people from London here" (His house was slightly to the right of the runway)
Me "Sir yes Sir"
Me to Control " El Chiefo wants to know if he will fly over his house"
Controller "FFS hang on"
Controller to Black Beast "PAPPA TANGO DIET COKE we have request for you to fly over the big house just to south of runaway next time round"
Black Beast " HEll Yeah yeeeeeeeeeee haaaaaaaaawww" Or words to that effect.
Me to SC "Sir he will do"

So here we were thinking bearing in mind the secret nature of the plane and Billions spent on it that he would gingerly manoeuvre and fly gentle over the house at very safe distance.................... errr no.

Picture topgun and the scene with the flyby and the coffee cup and you are still a few feet out. This dude nearly took the roof of the station commanders house. (which he was very happy with..oddly).

The next thing the phone rings again.

Me "Local control SAC Hunt"
voice "Hello this is the Suffolk police"
me "SHITE it wasn't me"
SP " No No we are not calling about THAT but could you ask that black thing to piss off please as cars have stopped on the A134 and traffic is now backed up to Bury and Thetford."

And with that the black beast was gone.

So that was that adventure of the secret stealth plane which was not so secret