BBMF fighters to Scotland

Header Image: BBMF Spitfire IIa P7350 and Hurricane Mk IIC PZ865 breaking into the circuit at Leuchars, Fife, on 20th July. (All photos: Keenan Carr unless otherwise credited)

The BBMF flew two of its fighter aircraft to Scotland for several events over a couple of days in July. Hurricane Mk IIC PZ865 and Spitfire IIa P7350, with pilots Squadron Leader Mark ‘Suggs’ Sugden (OC BBMF) and Flight Lieutenant Andy Preece (BBMF Ops Officer), operated from Leuchars airfield, supported by BBMF ground crew who travelled to Scotland by road.

Leuchars Station passed from the RAF to the British Army in 2015 and is home to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers (REME) and the Royal Military Police. The RAF continues to operate a fully operational airfield 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from within Leuchars Station, with a diverse workforce of around 40 full-time RAF personnel and Civil Servants from Air Traffic Controllers, Air and Space Operations Specialists, Engineers and Mechanical Transport Drivers. Whilst operating from Leuchars the two historic BBMF fighter aircraft were housed in a hardened aircraft shelter, once home to armed jet fighters.

The BBMF aircraft conducted a flypast over the memorial service in Perth on 20th July for Lancaster Pathfinder pilot Flight Lieutenant Ernie Holmes DFC, who died in October 2021, aged 100. Ernie flew with 35 Squadron and he was only 23 years old when his Lancaster was shot down over enemy-occupied Holland by a German night fighter, on his 30th mission, in May 1944. He became a POW and later survived the ‘Long March’, when POWs were forced to trek westwards in sub-zero temperatures in the severe winter of 1945.

The BBMF Spitfire and Hurricane also appeared at several events across Scotland, including the RAF Lossiemouth Families and Friends Day in north-east Scotland, 100 miles north of Leuchars, and they also delighted crowds in Montrose and Peterhead.

Whilst the aircraft were on the ground at Leuchars the BBMF pilots spent time hosting “show and tell” visits for RAF and Army personnel, civilian staff, Police Scotland, veterans associations and officer cadets of the East of Scotland University Air Squadron and Tayforth University Officer Training Corps, as well as Air Cadets from 2163 (Auchtermuchty) Squadron.