My absolute favourites: the English Electric Lightning (the only fighter that could chase Concorde in a race) and the Blackburn Buccaneer (the only subsonic British aircraft that went to Red Flag exercises in the US and prevailed). Honourable mention to the Nimrod, which was a great bit of kit and should (IMO) have had a longer lifespan than it did.
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Hawker sidled Harrier jump jet , as my maternal grand father worked at Dunsfold on the project
He was an ex Canadian solider
I should have mentioned the VC10
Used to go to mildenhall and a lot of airshows.
Shame they’ve all kinda stopped or not what they use to be.
Have an old picture not very good one though of Concorde and Vulcan bomber doing a fly by at one airshow years ago .
was such a sight see them both flying side by side setting off all the. Car alarms
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Anorak warning!!! There’s only a fifteen year timespan between the last Lancaster rolling off the production line to the first Vulcan appearing!
I would have guessed at 15 light years looking at them both.
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I was around Porthmadog area last week and heard quite a few jets playing but the cloud was low so didnt really get to see anything, freind of mine goes to Mach Loop quite regular and said you see all sorts of planes flying through the valleys , awesome sight and noise he says
Yes, it is quite something but it don’t half upset the locals!
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Is it right that its only Mon-Fri
VC10 and EE Lightning are the definitive and probably final examples of the British aviation industry.
Having said that there is a question mark over the ultimate safety of the VC10’s tail design and engine location, let alone the Comet’s wing root engine location v the Boeing 707’s conventional tail design and wing pylon mounted engines.
Which leaves the question was the loss of Concorde actually the result of its engine location, in the event of a catastrophic engine failure and the the tyre blowout story a cover up ?.
Having seen the Red Arrows fly them, I have a soft spot for the Folland Gnat.
Never designed as the biggest, fastest, furthest, etc it was a superb light fighter/bomber and trainer.
Concorde was obviously an iconic aircraft, and although it’s safety record is not good, I would jump at the chance to fly on one tomorrow.
The TSR2 was worthy of note as a stepping stone to more modern designs at a time of great flux in the industry.
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Got to agree with you on Concorde, an absolute masterpiece of engineering. Apparently legend has it that even NASA engineers were in awe of a passenger aircraft that could cross the Atlantic like Concorde did not just once but multiple times every week.
I’d recommend anyone with a passing interest in this aircraft to watch Clarksons (love him or loathe him) wonderful piece on the last flight of Concorde. As he succinctly summed up ; “the final flight of this aircraft represents the first time mankind has taken a technological step backwards “ or something like that 
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Mentour Pilot did an excellent YT on the Concorde accident a few years ago.
Petter was a full time airline captain and training pilot, and his videos are really detailed.
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Known as “10,000 rivets flying in close formation”, IMO nothing even comes close to the Avro Shakleton ever since one came over the top of my house at about 500ft some 30 odd years ago during a dsiplay. Up until 1990 8 squadron’s Mk2s, named after the characters in the Magic Roundabout, were the UK’s cold war airborne early warning aircraft. During a USAF RAF exercise one Shakleton crew made the Yanks look stupid when they were acting as target aircraft for the US to intercept. The RT went something like this, US: " My radar tells me I am very close but I can’t see him", RAF: “Check six”!
Sadly the Shakleton holds an unwelcome record: Post war more aircrew have been killed in Shakleton accidents than any other aircraft.
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I’m daft, I should’ve mentioned the Avro Vulcan too. Mum and Dad used to take me and my younger brother to air show days a while back at what was then RAF St. Mawgan - while Buccaneers, Nimrods, Lightnings and F-4 Phantoms were ear-splittingly loud, when a Vulcan did a display…
See also Aircrew Interview featuring former Concorde Captain John Hutchinson on the same subject:
What could (and should) have been. Scrapping TSR2 was an utter waste of (British) vision and skill and money. I hear that the British guvmint was (how shall I put it) “encouraged” by the US to scrap TSR2 and instead buy the General Dynamics F-111, which didn’t suit UK/ NATO ops at all. A primary reason Parliament gave for scrapping TSR2 was “cost overrun”, as if any advanced fighter/ fighter-bomber had ever come in within budget (see F-111 and the much-vaunted and generally underperforming F-35).