From having a missile blow up in front of him to being thrown into an inverted dive by a Vulcan tanker, Wing Commander Mike Streten (Ret’d), a former Officer Commanding 5 Sqn at RAF Binbrook, had an eventful career. For the August 2016 issue of Aviation News, Dino Carrara interviewed Wg Cdr Streten about his time flying the legendary English Electric Lightning
“I was flying one night in cloud and suddenly a lightning bolt went down the side of my Lightning. I had heard that they could affect the compass, so I went back to base. On inspecting the aircraft on the ground there were scratch marks, like claws had gone down the side of the aeroplane.”
Mike Streten spent 30 years in the RAF and enjoyed a varied career with some pretty hair-raising moments – being struck by lightning being just one of them.
He joined the University of London Air Squadron and flew the de Havilland Chipmunk T.10 and on entering the RAF’s main flying training stream went onto the BAC Jet Provost T.3 and T.4 at RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire. There was then the Folland Gnat T.1 at RAF Valley, Anglesey and Hawker Hunter T.7 and F.6 at RAF Chivenor, Devon.
