{"id":17391,"date":"2016-10-24T22:24:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T22:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=17391"},"modified":"2016-10-24T22:24:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T22:24:06","slug":"when-raf-abingdon-was-a-parachute-training-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=17391","title":{"rendered":"When RAF Abingdon was a parachute training centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Browsing back numbers of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Illustrated_London_News\">The Illustrated London News<\/a> I came across two stories about RAF Abingdon as a parachute training centre.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag16\/16102401.jpg\" alt=\"parachute training\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The wreckage of Britain&#8217;s worst air disaster for eight years in which 41 servicemen were killed when a Hastings of R.A.F Transport Command, on a parachute training flight, fell into a barley field a few minutes after taking off from Abingdon. The aircraft was to have landed at Benson after dropping parachutists at Weston on Green, but soon after take-off the pilot radioed that he was in difficulty. A board of enquiry was set up. Meanwhile all R.A.F Hastings have been taken out of service for a thorough examination<\/em>. (17 July 1965)<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag16\/16102402.jpg\" alt=\"parachute training\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The Falcons, which is what the display team of No 1 Parachute Training School, Abingdon, Berkshire, call themselves, have established a new British free-fall parachuting record. This was a six-man chain falling at a speed of 120 mph, from a height of 12,000 feet over the North African desert. The men jumped separately at half-second intervals, then linked up in mid-air.<\/em> (21 January 1967).<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the Illustrated London News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Browsing back numbers of The Illustrated London News I came across two stories about RAF Abingdon as a parachute training centre. The wreckage of Britain&#8217;s worst air disaster for eight years in which 41 servicemen were killed when a Hastings of R.A.F Transport Command, on a parachute training flight, fell into a barley field a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heritage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}