SBAC 1957

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Just been flicking through some old Aircraft Illustrated mags (thanks Wrighty ) in the Sept 1974 edition is a bit about the first Farnborough International Airshow with some pics of previous shows. There is a picture of 2 x white Vulcans and 2 x white Valiants crossing the field in formation, its a wide angled pic with lots of ground and lots of sky in it (looks like across N to S as opposed to down the runway) anyway what drew my attention to the pic wasn't the aircraft but the amount of trails left by high flying aircraft. So reading the caption to the photo is says " Vulcans and Valiants below the tracery of vapour trails produced by Bomber commands mass flypast in 1957" ! this intrigues me, did bomber command really do a massed flypast at 30,000ft ! anyone in the know ?

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So what did the mass flypast consist of and at what height? Single flypast or a few ?

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From the Book 40 years at Farnborough it quotes

x2 Vulcan`s

x2 Valiant`s

x4 Whirlwind`s (RN Demo)

x4 Provost`s (CFS Aerobatic Team)

x6 Sea Hawk`s

x12 Gannet`s

x27 Javelin`s

x36 Hunter`s (x9 Black Arrow`s)

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Took place on the Thursday of the 1957 show week (they needed clear skies of course which were in short supply that week)at 30,000 feet and consisted of 90+ aircraft as a Bomber Command tribute. Other than the V bombers I think the only other aircraft involved were Canberras. It was repeated on a smaller scale with just the V Bombers at a Farnborough show in the sixties. Haven't got that log immediately to hand but remember seeing them trail inbound while at Northolt for the SBAC visitors that year. Even with 90+ aircraft the trails in the sky in 1957 faded in comparison with a major high level NATO interception exercise held over southern England in around 1962(?) when the sky was literally full wall to wall with trailing military aircraft of all sorts. Cant remember the date but do remember watching in a clear sky with some awe while playing cricket for the school in Chiswick. My memory for dates is however roughly on par with my then cricketing ability.

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Thanks for the insight :-)

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Cor, the British taxpayer must have been shelling out cash hand over fist back in the day. Then again, my dad was in the RAF at time, so I guess I should be glad they were!