Rusty Waughman's - Dawn To Dusk

The veteran Lancaster pilot acts as navigator in a competition flight that takes in the WWII RAF bases from which he flew.

- Pat Malone

Even after 73 years, Rusty didn’t need the chart. He remembered every inch of this territory: every landmark, every wood, every crossroads. Every prominent feature and farmhouse on the Lincolnshire Wolds had been committed to memory on training flights, for use when the chips were down. And at the age of 93 he could recall them all. Back in 1943 he was bringing a Lancaster home, not always in one piece, from Berlin, Munich or Nuremburg. Now, navigating a Robinson R22 in the Pooley’s Dawn to Dusk challenge, Flt Lt Russell ‘Rusty’ Waughman DFC, AFC, Legion d’Honneur, was seeing RAF Ludford Magna from the air for the first time since the night before D-Day.

The airfield was hard to spot, having reverted to farmland fifty years ago. Helicopter pilot David Monks spent hours poring over Google Earth and OS maps to ensure he could identify the exact site, but it wasn’t necessary. “Straight ahead here,” said Rusty. The old runways left the vaguest outline on the land south of the village of Ludford, but the buildings had all gone. Rusty shook his head sadly. “They closed the Black Horse too, you know,” he said.