RAF veteran Jack Hemmings, 100, takes memorial flight for friend

A 100-year-old ex-RAF squadron leader took to the sky once more to celebrate his lifelong friend who flew the same type of aircraft with him in 1948.

Stuart King, who died in 2020, and Jack Hemmings surveyed central Africa from above for a Christian charity they co-founded after World War Two.

Mr Hemmings' flight over Bedfordshire in a 1947 Miles Gemini marks what would have been his friend's 100th birthday.

"I want to remember all he achieved in his exceptional life," he said.

"One cannot count the number of people whose lives have been enriched by his services."

Mr Hemmings, from Horam, East Sussex, took off from Shuttleworth airfield, at Old Warden near Bedford, in the type of aircraft he flew with Flt Lt King.

While the RAF veteran has flown since he turned 100 in August - by performing aerobatics as a pilot in a Slingsby Firefly - it was the first time he had been at the controls of a Miles Gemini in 74 years.

He and his friend's six-month trip for the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) was the first British mission to assess the humanitarian needs of isolated communities in Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and the former Belgian Congo.

Following the flight, he said: "I love flying because I have a feeling of detachment from all the problems in the world, and there are a lot of problems."

"I don't recall ever looking forward during that first Gemini flight in 1948 - but perhaps we could have imagined half a dozen aircraft in Africa. Today MAF has 123 aircraft around the world. Every flight does some good - I think MAF is like the international Good Samaritan of the air, if anyone needs transporting out of difficulty, or needs urgent medical help.

"If Stuart were here today, I would simply say to him, 'Stuart - you done good'."

During their Africa trip in 1948, the young airmen travelled 10,000km (6,213 miles), encountered impenetrable terrain and unimaginable hardship, which they documented in 900 pages of analysis.

"We were met with total bewilderment, and people gathered round with great interest," said Mr Hemmings.

"We explored whether we could help with the aims and objectives of local missions, helping clear airstrips or build hospitals in areas almost completely cut off."

Mr King, a great-grandfather, was appointed Chevalier, the highest rank in the Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government in 2016.

He died in Folkestone, Kent, aged 98, in August 2020.

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]