Fighter pilot | The Journey of My Left Foot (whilst remembering my son)

Saturday 4th February

Happy birthday to my father

A life well-lived and so fast-paced

He would be eighty five today

Always fun, never straight-laced.

And on World Cancer Day…………

My father ~ Pancreatic Cancer

My son ~ Testicular Cancer

Me ~ Metastatic Malignant Melanoma

Missing you my Angel father Hank

Missing you my Angel son Frank.

xxxxxx

Hank and I. August 2008

Hank and Prince Charles

4.2.1932 – 5.10.2009

Remembering when we were in Scotland and HRH Prince Charles was taken on a two hour, supersonic flying sortie with Hank in a Phantom fighter-bomber. The flight included an air-to-air refuelling exercise with a Victor tanker, taking on 1200 gallons of fuel. They flew as high as 40,000 feet and as low as 1000 feet, making a pass over Balmoral, (reported at the time, as an ‘extrovert flourish’).

Hank and his three children ~ me, my sister and brother ~ early 70’s

Hank and my mum. Receiving the bar to his AFC

Phantoms over Scotland

Thursday 4th February

Today would have been my father’s eighty fourth birthday.
He succumbed to pancreatic cancer in October 2009.
He was a fighter pilot and flew many different aircraft, all over the world.

The poem, High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, an American, serving with the RCAF, flying spitfires in WWII, seems a very apt and appropriate tribute to my father.

My father, flying the lightning in the foreground, for 56 squadron

My father visiting the Canadian RAF, in front of a starfighter

My father bringing the fleeing Shah of Persia to England in an English Electric Lightning

My father, in front of his F4 phantom

Phantoms, 43 squadron in formation

My father, in his phantom, shadowing a Russian 'bear'

My father with members of the Blue Angels aerobatic team

My father, teaching Prince Charles to fly the phantom

56 squadron in Cyprus. My father exiting his lightning

My father, on board his yacht Rum Raisin

Hank n Frank, Tobago, 2002

In the last picture, here you are with your grandfather Hank.
(He disliked the names of Dad, Daddy, Father, Grandfather; so everyone called him Hank.)
We had so many wonderful sailing adventures with him on board his yachts.

Give each other a hug.

Miss you, my Angel father, Hank.
Love you, my Angel son, Frank.

Flying high together.

xxx xxx