I never managed to fly aboard Concorde before she retired. I’ve regretted it ever since. Thankfully, I didn’t make the same mistake with Thunder City. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, Thunder City was a unique operation, run by businessman Mike Beachyhead. It was the only place in the world where a punter like me could get to fly in some of the most charismatic British jets ever designed, the English Electric Lightning, Blackburn Buccaneer and Hawker Hunter. After deciding that I wanted to follow Vulcan 607 with Phoenix Squadron, a book about HMS Ark Royal, I managed to persuade myself that a flight in a Buccaneer, like those that used to fly on and off her deck, was a necessary part of the research. And so in June 2007 I travelled south, full of excitement and anticipation.
An exhilarating sortie flying aerobatics in a Hunter was quickly despatched, but the main event, the flight in the Bucc, nearly never happened. I’d managed to time my visit to Cape Town to coincide with the arrival of an unusual weather system that saw a number of different storm fronts converge on the city at once. We were smothered by low cloud and drizzle. In the end we were lucky, though. On my last afternoon in South Africa, the met forecast a window in the gloom. It was enough for us to get airborne for a flight that remains an indelible memory. In particular I recall muscling along at 500 knots down on the deck, pulling up into a simulated toss-bombing manoeuvre that caused condensation clouds to whip up over the tops of the wings. We then rolled off at the top of the climb before pulling 4G back into a dive to low level. It was wonderful.
Thunder City is, sadly, no more, defeated by the always tenuous economics of operating a small squadron of classic cold war jets. It’s a great shame. I’d certainly been planning to return one day because during my trip to Cape Town I never flew in one of Thunder City Lightnings. Something I now regret . A lot.
Have a look at the THUNDER CITY GALLERY.