Author: Xtended

Our guest for this episode is Lt Cdr Ian Sloan who has accumulated vast experience, including day and night, VSTOL embarked operations in the Sea Harrier and operational missions in Afghanistan in the Harrier GR9. As an instructor, he has delivered Advanced Flying Training to RAF, RN and Indian AF students in the Hawk, and has provided aviation assurance as the Hawk ‘Trapper’ on Naval Flying Standards Flight (Fixed Wing). He is also one of few people to have flown both Sea Harrier and Super Etendard.

We welcome Alexander Mladenov back to talk about the KA-52 Alligator (Nato codename – Hokum). We talk all variants from the early development of the V-80 single seat attack helicopter which materialised in to the KA-50 Black Shark through to the two-seat KA-52K Naval Variant.

Ellie Carter is Britain’s youngest licensed pilot, notably hitting the headlines on her 16th birthday after she became the youngest person in the country to fly solo in a powered aircraft. At 14 she was also the Britain’s youngest solo glider pilot.

We were delighted to be joined by Major Michelle Curran of the United States Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team.

Major Curran, callsign ‘Mace’ is just the fifth female Thunderbirds pilot and chatted to us from Las Vegas, discussing her route to becoming a fighter pilot and the challenges she met along the way.

For our 100th episode we welcome back Flt Lt Jon Bond (Red 6 – RAF Red Arrows) to update us on his progress over the past eight years from Tucano Display Pilot to Eurofighter Typhoon and on to the Red Arrows. We also go back to our roots to talk to the AirplaneGeeks about their success in reaching 600 episodes.