WONZ 196 – Cold War Pilots

Guests: Graeme Gleeson and Dick Ingham

Host: Dave Homewood

Recorded: 8th of December 2018

Released: 14th of December 2018

Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes 43 seconds

This episode has the other two speakers at the recent WONZ Christmas Party 2018, which was held at the Fly DC3 Hangar at Ardmore Airport. This follows on from WONZ Episode 195.

This episode features two speakers. The first is Graeme Gleeson, who joined the Royal Air Force in 1956, via the RNZAF. Following two attempts at flying training (the first interrupted by a broken leg and then tuberculosis), he eventually made it onto a squadron flying Avro Vulcans.

Graeme talks about flying the Vulcan at low level and about the exercises they did, and what sort of roles they undertook. He then changes tact completely to talk about a later incident in his life when he was the captain of an Air New Zealand Boeing 747 which was hijacked in Fiji. He and his crew managed to foil the hijacker.

The second speaker is another ex-Cold War pilot, Dick Ingham, who tells a terrific story of flying English Electric Lightnings with the Royal Air Force and as a civilian. Following RAF service he joined BAC and continued to fly the Lightning, including with Roland Beamont, and Dick ended up flying the Lightning for the Saudi Air Force.

Quick Links:

• Fly DC3 New Zealand

• Fly DC3 New Zealand Facebook Page

• Avro Vulcan

• Air New Zealand Hijacking on Wikipedia

• Air New Zealand Hijacking on New Zealand History

• Air New Zealand Hijacking on Te Ara

• English Electric Lightning