Chocks Away, the Sky's the Limit!

Having friends to stay is always fun and we aim to give them as good a time as we can. And so, when my brother Spike and a group of his friends arrived for a visit last week, I (Chelmer) came up with a really good idea for making his visit one he will always remember.

At the recent murder mystery evening we attended, we met a very nice man, Sqn Ldr Wan Flewover (Rtd). In real life he is an instructor for a Jaguar Simulator at RAF Coltishall. As he took a shine to us bears, he offered any of us who fancied it, a trip in a Jaguar (via the simulator). Being an action bear, I leaped at the opportunity and asked if I could take Spike along too, as I knew he'd love it.

We arrived bright and early and got a full briefing on what all the different knobs and dials were for. We first got a birds eye view of the cockpit and tried hard to remember what everything did.


We them jumped into the pilot's seat, the hatch was slid shut and off we went with the G forces pinning us to the seat . For our exercise we took off from RAF Valley in Wales (where the fast jet training for the RAF takes place) and quickly hit over 600 MPH.


We then took a fast turn and flew straight under the bridges on the Menai Strait, then decided to go up to 6000 ft before trying out a series of acrobatic exercises, including a Barrel Roll and a Loop the Loop. By now the adrenalin was really pumping and we couldn't stop the whoops of delight.

The instructor decided to give us a bit more of a challenge and sent up a few missiles which we managed to avoid by the skin of our teeth. Spike quickly struck back by launching a few laser guided missiles. As we were doing so well (the instructor later told us we were natural fliers) we were then given some advanced challenges (bird strikes and engine failure). We almost got through, although we did have a crash and had to get the flight restarted. We then headed for home slicing past Snowdon scaring a lone walker on Crig Goch, and then back into Valley for a fairly smooth landing. It was an exhilarating ride and we landed quite exhausted but very excited.

We then went down into the control room where we were shown all the controls that the instructor has at his disposal to set up all the challenges and test the trainees. If we had had more time we would have loved to have a go at instructing our minder who had come with us.


All in all an experience of a lifetime and we will be living on the memories for may weeks to come. So that we can sure it was not all a dream we were presented with a certificate to say that we had successfully completed our maiden flight.


Lots of love from a thrilled Chelmer and Spike xxx