Apologies for coming late to the party, I've only just seen this series of posts.
You've hit a nerve with me on this subject.
Reading what a few of you say strikes a chord with me as I was an Air Cadet in the mid 70's and spent much of my youth drooling over all these planes and some of the bases too.
Our squadron CO (who was young at the time flew Lancasters just as WWII was coming to an end): his son was a Lightening pilot. One of his anecdotes, and I don't know if it was true, was that they only did a limited tour on Lightenings of something like 6 months - otherwise they began to loose their hearing !
One summer camp was spent at Waddington and happened to be when they decided to run a TACEVAL. I remember being in the middle of the airfield when all the Vulcan squadrons were scrambled. It was unbelievable !
At the time I was impressed, but now with hindsight - I can't believe how lucky I was.
In those days I had a Zenit B and shot a lot of transperancy (slides). Most were in colour but I have one set in B&W that I shot at RAF Finningley in 1977. As ATC we were allowed to the dress rehearsal for the Queens Silver Jubilee Air show.
I should dig them out and get them scanned as they'd be far easier to see than having to get a projector & screen out.
Unfortunately I could bore you all shit-less but better leave those facts/stories for another time.