Cold War History – March 1987

Here's a back-Blip because this photo has just come into my posession.  I have guessed at 20 March 1987, but there's a period of about ten days on which it could fall.

This squadron, a Tornado unit based at RAF Laarbruch in Germany, is having a reunion next week.  I'm not attending because I don't fancy spending several hours in close proximity with up to 100 others in a closed space.  The participants, former colleagues, will arrive from various parts of the world as many of them joined the airlines, and the venue is in a part of the UK that currently has around 14,000 cases of Covid per million (estimated by the King's College, University of London, ZOE study). 

There has been much chat on WhatsApp between the planned participants and several photos from long ago.  This one is of most of the Squadron outside the Exercise Red Flag building on Nellis AFB, near Las Vegas.  The exercise was (then and now) the most challenging and enjoyable training available anywhere and we made the most of it because attendance was rare.  I next went on a similar exercise in 1992.

One of my granddaughters recognised me very quickly because I look like her father – eighth from the left, arms folded, more hair than now.