25th July 1993, International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford

As was his wont, Harry was out of bed by zero-four-thirty and quickly started his day, cooking himself breakfast, going for a run around the perimeter track of the airfield, a distance of over ten miles. Returning to the mess, he showered, completed an intelligence report on the previous day's incident with the two MiGs which was immediately sealed in a file to be dispatched to wherever MI5 was, with some facilities already in place at Thames House.

After a second breakfast in the main mess dining hall, Harry was just contemplating what to do when a shout came over from the only other people in the room, the Red Arrows.

"Oi! Potter!" yelled one of the Reds.

"You bellowed?" Harry responded with a sardonically raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, we could do with your help." said one of the other Reds.

Harry slowly stood up, stretching slightly and yawning before walking over, making it clear he would do so in his own time. As one of the Reds opened his mouth, Harry shut him up with a raised hand, pouring himself a cup of coffee and taking a sip before lowering the hand.

"So." he said.

"Look, we've got a bit of a problem." said Thurley, the current Red Arrows CO; "We usually operate with nine pilots plus a ferry pilot who, in a pinch can take over as a Red, but we've just found Red Five and our ferry pilot have just got food poisoning. We either don't fly or we find another Hawk qualified pilot on-base, and right now, you're the only one we know of here."

"Don't be silly." Harry snorted; "As if I'd be able just to improvise for a formation display. That's what I always do when I display on my own or with one other person and then send the flight notes to the CAA and backdate it to the day before the display. They still haven't worked out that I never bother planning a display."

"I guessed that. But I still want you to give it a go, otherwise we're screwed. You're Hawk qualified, an experienced jet pilot with hundreds of hours on various combat types. We're going to head up to practise, if you can make the cut, we'll fly, if not... well, we're screwed." Thurley shrugged.

"Right... I'll give it a go, but I still think it's a stupid idea." Harry replied.

"We'll head through into briefing and memorise every move we fly." ordered the team leader.


In Red Five, Harry was flying right-marker for the first move they were practising, rolling in in a move where during the real display, red, white and blue smoke would be coming from their aircraft. Thurley was at the centre of the formation in Red One, with a shallow arrowhead of aircraft behind him.

"Reds, diamond... three... two... one... go!" radioed Thurley.

Red Six, on the direct left of Thurley and Red Two throttled back for a moment, falling behind him and closing in on his tail. Red Seven on Red Six's left and Reds Three and Four pulled back for a line of three aircraft behind Red Six and Red Two. Red Eight and Harry in Five throttled back for a moment, pulling in behind Reds Seven, Three and Four, with Red Nine taking the rear of the formation.

"Reds, half-loop... two... one... go!" was the next order.

They pulled back in a neat half-loop before, en-masse turning to port and diving, inverted into a half-roll to port, going onto the normal plane of flight and pulling up. The entire formation then rolled around the central axis onto their starboard wing-tips and flew past the location of their imaginary crowd, a big treeline.

"Good job, that was first rate." Red One radioed; "Formation two!"

They came around again in the opposite direction on their starboard wing-tips, presenting the upper side of their aircraft to the imaginary crowd. Reds Six, Two, Eight and Harry in Five stayed in a box formation behind Red One while Reds Seven and Three moved to the top of the formation and Reds Four and Nine moved to the bottom for a flyby of their 'Phoenix Bend' move.

"And, bend!" called Thurley.

Harry pushed the stick forward in concert with the rest of the formation, flying along on their starboard wing-tips, pulling negative-G, pushing blood to their brains. Then after a second, they all pulled back for a hundred-and-eighty degree turn.

"Perfect, keep it up." Red One encouraged; "Formation three... go!"

Harry didn't need to change positions for this move, they levelled the formation out, with Reds Seven and Nine moving in behind Reds Three and Four for the Chevron Roll.

"Formation four... go!" came the next order as they reversed directions and came in from the opposite direction.

Red Two and Harry in Red Five moved in behind Red One in a three-aircraft line and Reds Seven and Three taking position just ahead of him and to his starboard, Reds Nine and Four doing the same to his port. They flew along on their starboard wing-tips, presenting the upside of their aircraft to the imaginary crowd. Then they pulled up as they rolled to port, eventually entering a shallow inverted dive that led into another ninety-degree turn and ninety-degree roll to port.

"Not bad. Formation Five... go!"


Harry sank into the chair in the briefing room as they reviewed the tapes of the practise display from the onboard cameras and an observing RAF aircraft. He was tired, the moves had become progressively harder. It was one thing 'fighting' a one-on-one aerial duel against a pensioner, but a formation display where he had to have every move memorised and where crashing into your other teammates was frowned upon was exhausting.

"Right... looks like we are a go." commented Thurley after a vote among the pilots, apparently unanimously in favour.

"I don't know whether to thank you or kill you." Harry commented.

"Well, we should get to the flight-line, display commences in twenty." said Red Three, glancing at his watch.

"Fuckery." cursed Harry; "I'm opening the display, forgive me if I do a runner."

A few minutes later, covered in churned up mud and grass, his Aston Martin V8 Vantage X-Pack roared up between the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire. Harry switched off the seven-litre engine and, snatching his parachute pack off the wing, quickly began preparing for his first display of the day.

"Overslept?" said an amused-sounding voice.

"Oh, hey Nadya." Harry replied, turning to see the young woman leaning on the metal barrier just a few feet away; "I'd say not overslept, just too busy. I've been on the go since about five AM. Anyway, how're you doing?" he asked.

"Not bad at all, a wonderful opportunity to get away... from it all." Nadya commented, hesitating for a moment before changing whatever she was going to say.

Harry nodded as he finished doing up the straps on his parachute over the bulky anti-G suit on his lower body before pulling on his leather flying helmet.

"I can't agree more but you'll have to forgive me, I've got an airshow to open." he commented, before opening the aircraft up and sliding into the cockpit.


Unfortunately, during the display, the Spitfire's starter somehow got screwed up, forcing Harry to abort the display before the minimal range of the Spitfire prevented him getting the aircraft to somewhere that he could repair it in his own time. With grey smoke leaving the exhausts from the starter motor chewing itself into a collection of bits of metal inside the most fragile part of the aircraft after the pink, fleshy thing behind the controls, he radioed a minor emergency and pulled away, jamming open the throttle for a one-hundred mile sprint to his personal base, Ravenscroft Manor.

With the starter motor having punctured the forward fuel tank with shrapnel, there would have been a risk of fire had Harry not replaced the fuel there with water-methanol for his own cooling injectors. However, the substance was still spraying all over the engine and boiling, coming out of every panel gap in bursts of steam. Visibility was not good, but a GPS and an old-fashioned map and pencil assured him he was on course,

The sprawling medieval manor, similar in appearance to Knole House that came into view down below his starboard wing, had a long, wide, flat and dead-straight driveway which he'd had paved with smooth tarmac and regularly used it as a runway. Harry circled in, lowering his air speed as he deployed the flaps and undercarriage. The engine temperature was lower than was healthy due to the cooling effect of the water methanol, so if he screwed up the landing, he wouldn't get a second chance at going around and landing because the fuel would stop igniting and he'd have a glider. Easing the Spitfire down, Harry feathered the propeller and killed the engine immediately, not wanting to damage it any more than absolutely necessary with bits of chewed starter motor being thrown around. Rolls-Royce Merlin 130s were rarer than hen's teeth, the only stock of them being his own.

Guiding it in with the rudder-pedal actuated brakes, Harry allowed the aircraft's momentum to fall as the Spitfire taxied up the side of Ravenscroft manor to where there were half-a-dozen small fabric hangars. Undoing his parachute as soon as he taxied up in front of one of the hangars, Harry threw off the leather flying helmet and chucked himself out of the cockpit and dashed for the one slightly further down the line, where one of his usual transports was sat, ready to go.

Demand for him to perform missions which would be made easier by magic meant that he had to be moving around the world far more, so he'd acquired a couple of very fast jets to do the job. The one that was in readiness was a classic F-100D Super Sabre, a single-seat quad-cannon missile-carrying fighter. The original engine had been a Pratt and Whitney J57, but he'd found another engine of identical length and only slight increased diameter. It was fitted with a brand new Volvo RM8 jet engine from Sweden, a far more powerful and somewhat more efficient engine.

Pulling himself up the side of the aircraft, Harry reached into the cockpit, which was already open picked up his bone-dome flying helmet from the seat and slid onto the ejector seat and strapped himself in. With a number of his missions involving hostile territory, old abandoned airbases and angry people trying to kill him, whatever aircraft he was using was always armed. Two-hundred and seventy-five shells loaded into each of the five-chamber revolver cannons, four AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles under the wings, modern, effective air-to-air heat-seeking weapons, not the near-useless Vietnam-era weapons which had a one-third chance of taking out an enemy, a one third chance of failing to launch or lock on, or finally a third chance that it would shoot either yourself or a friendly plane down. The F-100 'Hun' was painted in a gloss black paint scheme with a red cheatline down the side to the blue and red RAF roundels. And the name 'Attila the Hun' painted on the nose.

Otherwise known by him as 'The Bastard' for some of its more murderous flying characteristics.

Harry was soon strapped to the ejector seat which he'd armed, removing the pins and stowing them. He swiftly pulled on the 'bone dome' helmet, plugged in his oxygen, radio gear and anti-G suit before starting the aircraft up. All the armament switches were off or safetied, but most of the other checks were done the morning before he left for Fairford.

Within minutes, the RM8 turbojet was running up, and as soon as it was at the right temperature, Harry released the brakes and taxied The Hun to the end of the runway. Full power applied and the aircraft rocketed forward. Then he added another twelve-thousand pounds of thrust by lighting the afterburner.

Grabbing up the undercarriage the moment that he became airborne, Harry stuffed the nose down. He loved flying the Super Sabre, but really didn't like landing or taking off in the aeroplane which had a murderous stall characteristic called the 'Sabre Dance', and also otherwise known as 'plummet and burn'.

So he gathered as much speed as the length of the runway allowed before pulling up and cutting the afterburner so not to blast the runway surface into oblivion with the scorching heat and immense blast of the 'burner. He pressed the push-to-talk and began making radio contact with area control.


The Reds were stood around their aircraft, watching the sky anxiously. The last they'd seen of their temporary team member was him coming out of a high-G flat turn with some rather nasty shades of smoke streaming from the engine of his beloved Supermarine Spitfire. There was a 'Pan Pan' call before the Spitfire had buggered off at full-throttle. And they had less than three-quarters of an hour until their display.

"Chief!" called one of the ground crew, attracting the attention of Thurley; "Just had a call from the tower, radar and radio says Red Five's coming in, and fast. He's come from south-east of London and apparently has stuck rigidly to a speed of six-sixty knots, which given today's air temperature and air water-content is just below the speed of sound."

"Sounds about right." commented Red Nine.

"What d'you mean?" asked Thurley.

"I've seen the kid running about in a variety of very potent but obsolete fast jets." Red Nine; "Collecting them seems to be a hobby of his, I saw him lob into RAF Valley last year in a Saab Draken."

"Well I don't care if he comes in the Starship Enterprise itself as long as he gets here." Red Two offered.

"Agreed." nodded Thurley; "Someone send a Land Rover to get him over here the moment his engine is off."

Harry slipped in behind a Swiss Hawker Hunter in the circuit, making sure that his circuits of the airfield were wider because he had to avoid overtaking the Swiss while going fast enough to avoid the Sabre's horrible and inevitably fatal stall. Eventually, the runway was clear and, appropriately paranoid, he lowered the aircraft towards the runway, simultaneously deploying the air-brake and full non-afterburning power as an insurance policy.

The stall warning lights flashed up, so Harry swiftly closed the air-brake and undercarriage before jamming the reheat on full to pull away for another circuit. On attempt two, he managed a shallow enough approach at high speed and jammed on the air-brake and deployed the brake chute moments before the wheels hit the runway. Taking a deep breath of relief, Harry held the nose wheel up to bleed off speed as much as possible by increasing the frontal area until the nose sank down onto the gear leg.

"Hun, this is tower, alright there?" asked the controller.

"Sometimes I hate this bastard of an aeroplane." Harry cursed over the radio; "I'll head over to where I had my Spit parked, can you dispatch a towing tractor and someone to wrap up my brake 'chute."

"Wilco."

Harry taxied up to the stand where the Spitfire had been, noting that the '109 was moved further over to give the Super Sabre enough room, it being about twenty feet longer, six feet wider and three feet taller. Manoeuvring in carefully, Harry stood on the starboard brake and letting a tiny burst of throttle to swing the jet around to face out towards the taxiway. Slamming open the air-brakes and locking the wheel brakes, he quickly began to shut down the aircraft.

Pushing open the cockpit canopy, he was just releasing his harness and about to drop down from the cockpit onto the concrete when someone hooked an F-100 ladder over the side of the cockpit, allowing him to get down without risking spraining a muscle or something more grievous.

"You're lucky we still had one of these kicking around bud." drawled a Yank, standing by an open-top Land Rover which had a an RAF Red Arrows 'Blue' erk sat in the driver's seat.

"Thanks mate, I owe you a pint." Harry replied, patting the American on the shoulder as he climbed into the Land Rover.

"What happened with the Spitfire, Flight?" asked the Red Arrows engineer; "And why didn't you come straight down?"

"Starter motor gave in and punctured the forward fuel tank which nowadays I don't use for petrol but water-methanol coolant. I couldn't just bring it down here because I wouldn't be able to start it again without a significant dismantling of the engine to get at the back, for which I have the tools at home, where I flew it." Harry replied, unscrewing the adapters on the end of his oxygen tube and radio cables that allowed him to use them with the old and American Super Sabre; "The leak kept the temperature low enough that I was able to fly on emergency power the whole way."

"Excellent. The team have a flight-line briefing to do as soon as you arrive, then a mug of tea and a sarny before you head up." the engineer explained as they pulled to a halt in a cluster of bright red BAE Hawks.

"Shame I've got to downgrade to such a low-powered aircraft." Harry sniped as he slid out of the Land Rover.