Surely it couldn't be right. "Sunderland display and depart" said the entry on the flying programme for 1990's RAF Coningsby open day. Must be a misprint. No way would it turn up here. But, come the appointed time, the authoritative voice of commentator Roger Hoefling spelled it out. "Thus" he intoned, "the Short Sunderland V". And there it was, one of the most majestic sights imaginable in the skies, juxtaposed incongruously against the backdrop of hardened aircraft shelters and Tornado F3s as it swept low along the main runway. In those glorious days of neither needing, nor being able, to know everything due to appear at an airshow, this was just about the ultimate surprise. The entry in the late Ken Emmott's logbook for that date, 16 June 1990, shows one of the busier days in the air display career of Sunderland G-BJHS. Airborne with co-pilot 'Mac' McKinney and engineer Geoff Masterton, he took the flying boat from its Calshot base via a flyby at Southampton to the Biggin Hill Air Fair, and one of its rare full demonstrations. Flyovers of Duxford and Cambridge ensued en route to that memorable, lengthy showing at Coningsby, after which there was still the chance to fit in appearances at the RNAY Fleetlands open day, and overhead British Aerospace's Hamble plant. It would be easy to wish there had been more such occasions, affording the chance to see G-BJHS in the skies, but then the times it did happen would have been that much less special.
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