Incident
On 5 April 1968 Pollock decided on his own initiative to mark the occasion of the RAF anniversary with an unauthorised display. His flight left the soon-to-be-closed RAF Tangmere, Sussex to return to RAF West Raynham in Norfolk; a route that took them over London. Immediately after take-off, Pollock left the flight and flew low level. Having "beaten up" Dunsfold Aerodrome (Hawker's home airfield), he then took his Hawker Hunter FGA.9 (XF442) ground-attack, single-seater jet fighter over London at low level, circled the Houses of Parliament three times as a demonstration against Prime Minister Harold Wilson's government, dipped his wings over the Royal Air Force Memorial on the Embankment and finally flew under the top span of Tower Bridge. He later wrote of the decision to fly through Tower Bridge:
Until this very instant I'd had absolutely no idea that, of course, Tower Bridge would be there. It was easy enough to fly over it, but the idea of flying through the spans suddenly struck me. I had just ten seconds to grapple with the seductive proposition which few ground attack pilots of any nationality could have resisted. My brain started racing to reach a decision. Years of fast low-level strike flying made the decision simple . . .Knowing that he was likely to be stripped of his flying status as a result of this display, he proceeded to "beat up" several airfields (Wattisham, Lakenheath and Marham) in inverted flight at an altitude of about 200 feet en route to his base at RAF West Raynham, where, within the hour, he was formally arrested by Fg Off Roger Gilpin.
Although other pilots had flown under the upper span of Tower Bridge, Pollock was the first to do so in a jet aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Hawker Hunter Tower Bridge Incident
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