Iconic Aircraft Aviation Forum

by **Spitfire** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 2:41 pm

Don't know if any of you use Facebook a lot - I do and you can get some real nuggets come up on your timeline

This came up from Classic Air Force Live at Newquay today ... lovely story ...

Every now and then, we get to meet some pretty special people here at Classic Air Force. Today was one of those days.

We had the absolute pleasure of meeting Lt Cdr Peter Sheppard AFC and some of his family, Eric and Karl. What an interesting conversation and what inspirational people I have just met.

To write down what Peter has done throughout his aviation career would take a couple of best sellers. BUT

He has piloted our very own Hunter - the very aircraft -(photo below)
...piloted half of our museum,

Suffered a catapult failure and fallen off the end of aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable (and swam back to the surface in 11 seconds (although he says it felt like two minutes,) Sea Fury..

Ejected out of a Hunter at 250 feet after engine failure...

Ejected out of a Hawk at 10,000 feet after mid air collision...

Landed a Sea Vixen on a carpet of foam with no undercarriage or hydraulics. This was after he was told to ditch at sea and eject. Peters answer was "Done that twice - think I will land on bed of foam this time!"

A couple of quotes Peter told me.

"After the mid air collision with the Hawk the Hawk pilot said to him in the bar at the end of the day, "sorry about that"! And continued to have a couple of pints"

When I asked about our Hunter and what it was like to fly "gentlemanly and beautiful" was the reply.

Peter is aged 82 now. As you would imagine he speaks with a modesty and such a matter of fact way, that only a person of his experience and immense talents can do. What a massive honour to speak today.

So Peter, Eric and Karl. Come back to see us soon guys. It was great to meet you all today. inspired..