Aeroplane magazine

SALUTING THE RAF’S ‘HARDEST DAY’SALUTING THE RAF’S ‘HARDEST DAY’UB L I S H

UB L I S H

UB L I S H

PUB L I S H I N

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More than a Century of History in the Air

VULCANFAREWELLThe last seasonfor XH558

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Classics from a ‘golden age’

GREAT AIR RACERS

RACING WITH STYLE9 770143 724095

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NOVEMBER 2015 £4.30

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Meteor night fighters

DATABASEThe world’s highest-time WW1 aircraft pilot

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

MASTER OF HIS CRAFT

A legendary ‘Wooden Wonder’ sortie

WORLD WAR TWO

A legendary ‘Wooden Wonder’ sortieMOSQUITO PR MISSION

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Contents

NEWS ANDCOMMENT4 FROM THE EDITOR

6 NEWS• Hunter tragedy at Shoreham• ‘Battle of Britain’ B-25 saved• Classic Air Force Rapide andChipmunk sold at Goodwood• Italian P-51 restored… and the month’s other top aircraftpreservation news

16 HANGAR TALKSteve Slater’s monthly commentcolumn on the historic aircraft world

REGULARS17 SKYWRITERS

19 Q&AYour questions asked and answered

72 AIRCREWThe role of a First World War Hansa-Brandenburg floatplane crew

92 EVENTS

95 BOOKS

106 NEXT MONTH

FEATURES22 BIGGIN 75

Saluting the Battle of Britain’s‘hardest day’

26 VULCAN XH558Highlights of the last flying‘V-bomber’s’ final display season

34 BILLANCOURT RAIDA famous Mosquito PR mission afterBomber Command’s raid against theRenault works at Billancourt on3 March 1942

42 RACING MOTHHow a beautiful, modified DH60MMoth ended up back in theKidston family

48 MEW GULLSShuttleworth’s and David Beale’ssuperb Percival racers cometogether

58 COSMIC WIND BALLERINAThe story of a famous FormulaOne ‘midget’ air racer

64 AEROPLANE MEETS…GENE DeMARCOThe most experienced pilot of FirstWorld War aircraft

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November 2015Vol 43, no 11 • Issue no 511

Aeroplane traces its lineage backto the weekly The Aeroplane,

founded by C. G. Grey in 1911and published until 1968. It was

re-launched as a monthly in 1973by Richard T. Riding, editor for 25

years until 1998.See pages 20-21 for a great subscription offer

26

34

22

58

ESTABLISHED 1911

COVER IMAGE: Avro Vulcan B2 XH558 of theVulcan to the Sky Trust.STEVEN COMBER

DATABASE: METEORNIGHT FIGHTERS

IN-DEPTHPAGES

17

98 ‘PATRICIA LYNN’ RB-57sSecretive Vietnam War USAF recceoperations uncovered

Tony Buttlerdetails theaircraft thatstarted anew era forRAF nightfighter units,as the firstjet to servein the role

48

42

An Aeroplanespecial section

hat happened at the RAFA Shoreham Airshowremains difficult to take in. The Hunteraccident, in which 11 people died, offered areminder of how a day of aerial enjoyment can

so quickly, so cruelly, turn into one of tragedy. Aeroplane sendsits most heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of allthose involved.While one must think above all of the victims and their

loved ones, it is only inevitable that much talk has resultedof potential ramifications. Shoreham, of course, bears nocomparison with the most prominent previous west Europeanairshow disasters — Farnborough in 1952, Ramstein in 1988.Apart from the fact that both saw significantly greater lossof life, they took place in very different times, and in verydifferent circumstances. Also, in the case of Shoreham, no-oneinside the show venue was harmed. This inevitably opens upa whole other set of issues relating to display safety and thecapability of organisers meaningfully to protect those outside.It comes as little comfort, but is still relevant, to say that theregulations protecting spectators inside airshow venues servetheir purpose and continue to evolve.Nor, in my opinion, can parallels meaningfully be drawn

with other types of aircraft incident involving innocentbystanders, such as 2013’s Glasgow police helicopter crash. Apolice helicopter going about its operational duties is, just likean airliner engaged in public transport or a military aircraftperforming a training sortie, a very different matter to displayflying. We may enjoy it, but display flying is not an ‘essential’activity in the same manner.In no way is it clichéd to stress the success of existing UK

airshow regulations, as developed over many years by the

Civil Aviation Authority. They allow us to enjoy a wide rangeof aircraft and displays while maintaining an excellent safetyrecord. In the post-war era, more people lost their lives in thefootball stadium disasters at Ibrox, Bradford and Hillsboroughalone than have done so, whether spectating or participating,at British air displays. Arguably, these regulations are — to usea modern phrase— more ‘fit for purpose’ than those perhapsfound elsewhere. They have been tweaked with the benefit ofexperience, including that gained as a result of past accidents,and continue to be so. Such will be the case as lessons fromShoreham are disseminated, digested and learned.Now, the CAA has placed new restrictions “until further

notice” on classic jet display routines over land. Some havedescribed them as ‘knee-jerk’, but that, on consideration,is wrong. Let us not, in our enthusiasm for airshows andaviation, forget the extent of what occurred at Shoreham.Eleven people lost their lives, many neither planning toattend nor viewing the display. Some reaction and mediacoverage has, as always, been ill-informed and sensationalist,but scrutiny after such an event is utterly unsurprising. TheCAA needed to take immediate action, and that it has veryadequately done. Those involved in respect of the broader airdisplay industry’s regulatory and supervisory environment arealready taking this on board.No doubt about it, the response could have been much more

draconian. After all, the West German government imposed ablanket ban on airshows straight after the Ramstein crash. TheUK air display scene needs now to ensure no repetition of thecircumstances which might result in that happening here.

Ben Dunnell

W

4 www.aeroplanemonthly.com AEROPLANE NOVEMBER 2015

EDITORFrom the

CONTRIBUTORS THIS MONTH

“I was interested in military history from ayoung age”, says Andrew. “This interestcrystallised around World War Twoaviation and coincided with me joining theRAF as an avionics technician. After leavingthe RAF I remained in the aviation industry,working in the Middle East for many years.While working abroad, my aviationresearch centred on RAF photographicreconnaissance operations and aircrew,and over the years I have had the privilegeto meet and correspond with manyphoto-recce veterans and their families.”

AndrewFLETCHER

Being taken to the Regent Cinema inBrighton in 1969 to see the ‘Battle ofBritain’ film began Tony’s life-long passionfor vintage aviation. This was furthernurtured by the appearance of the firstissue of Aeroplane Monthly on the shelf ofa newsagent in May 1973. After saving hisdinner money to buy a copy, Tony neverstopped looking back, and fluked his wayinto the job of assistant editor in early1998. Now freelance, he still compiles theNews section (see News, AeroplaneNovember 2015).

TonyHARMSWORTH

Stuart learned to fly on a BeagleTerrier 2 at White Waltham in 1963and was keen to be associated withTiger Moths from his teens. Thefounding secretary of the deHavilland Moth Club, he is alsoeditor of its magazine The Moth,secretary of the de HavillandEducational Trust and manager of theannual International Moth Rally heldat Woburn Abbey. In recognition ofhis services to the club he wasappointed MBE in 1997.

StuartMcKAY

Tony Buttler worked for 20 years as ametallurgist, testing aluminium andtitanium components for aviation.During this period his interest in militaryaircraft grew, particularly in their designand development. In 1994 he took aMasters degree in archives atLoughborough University, and since1995 has worked as an aviation historian.Tony has written 25 major books,numerous titles in the Warpaint series ofmodelling publications, and a very largenumber of articles for magazines.

TonyBUTTLER


News NEWS EDITOR: TONY HARMSWORTHE-MAIL TO: [email protected]: +44 (0)7791 808044WRITE TO: Aeroplane, Key Publishing Ltd, PO Box 100, Stamford,Lincolnshire PE9 1XQ, UK

ShorehamHunter tragedy

Hunter T7WV372during thefirst pass of its display at Shorehambefore the accident. BENDUNNELL

his display and, remainingoffshore, flew along the coasttowards the airfield. At 12.20hrs[UTC] Shoreham Airport reportedthat the wind was from 120° at12kt, with no significant cloud andvisibility of more than 10km. Thesurface temperature was 24°C,dewpoint 17°C and QNH1 1013hPa. The pilot flew parallel to thecoast in a gradual descent duringpart of which he flew inverted.This may have been to check thatthere were no loose articles in thecockpit before his display.Having rolled upright and

wings level, the descent wascontinued to 800ft amsl and aright turn made to line up withthe display line to the west ofRunway 02/20 at Shoreham. Theaircraft remained in a gentleright turn with the angle of bankdecreasing as it descended to100ft amsl and flew along thedisplay line. It commenced agentle climbing right turn to1,600ft amsl, executing a Derryturn to the left and thencommenced a descending leftturn to 200ft amsl, approachingthe display line at an angle ofabout 45º. The aircraft thenpitched up into a manoeuvre withboth a vertical component androll to the left, becoming almostfully inverted at the apex of themanoeuvre at a height ofapproximately 2,600ft amsl.During the descent the aircraftaccelerated and the nose wasraised but the aircraft did not

24 hours, had been carried outthe previous afternoon by anengineer and on the day of theflight the pilot carried out apre-flight inspection and signedthe aircraft Technical Log. Therewere no reported defects. Herequested the aircraft to berefuelled to full and this wascarried out by the two groundcrew. The pilot was described asbeing in good spirits and lookingforward to the flight. Theweather was good and, at thetime of departure from NorthWeald, the nearest recordedactual weather was at StanstedAirport with a surface wind 150°at 14kt, no cloud below 5,000ft,visibility more than 10km,temperature 28°C, dewpoint16°C and the QNH 1014 hPa.When all preparations werecomplete, the pilot occupied theleft seat and secured his harnessbefore putting on his helmet. Theengine start was normal and theaircraft took off from Runway 02,which had a downslope, with atail wind of approximately 8kt.The take-off run was longer thanusual, probably due to theambient conditions and, onceairborne, the aircraft flew toShoreham. The flight towardsShorehamwas uneventful and,having descended to 1,000ftabove mean sea level (amsl) theaircraft carried out a left orbitoffshore at Brighton between2,300ft and 2,500ft amsl. Thepilot was cleared to commence

Following the tragic accidentinvolving Canfield Hunter Ltd’sHawker Hunter T7WV372/G-BXFI, which killed 11people during the ShorehamAirshow in Sussex on 22 August,the Air Accidents InvestigationBranch (AAIB) published a specialbulletin on 4 September.In light of the serious nature of

the accident, and the possibleramifications, Aeroplane ispublishing at length the contentsof this bulletin (available atwww.aaib.gov.uk), edited solelyfor house style.

SYNOPSISThe aircraft was taking part inan air display at ShorehamAirport during which itconducted a manoeuvre withboth a vertical and rollingcomponent, at the apex ofwhich it was inverted. Followingthe subsequent descent, theaircraft did not achieve levelflight before it struck thewestbound carriageway of theA27.

HISTORYOF THE FLIGHTThe Hawker Hunter wasscheduled to carry out a displayof aerobatic manoeuvres at theRoyal Air Forces Association(RAFA) airshow at ShorehamAirport in West Sussex. Thepilot had flown his light aircraftto North Weald Airfield in Essexwhere the Hunter was based.The Daily Inspection, valid for

achieve level flight before it struckthe westbound carriageway of theA27 at its junction with OldShoreham Road.

AERODROME INFORMATIONShoreham Airport is located 1nmwest of Shoreham-by-Sea. Theaerodrome has three runways: anasphalt surfaced main runwayorientated 02/20, 1,036 metreslong with a width of 18 metres;and two grass runways, 07/25 and13/31. The aerodrome is 7ft abovemean sea level. A large organisedair display was being undertakenwith the required minimumseparation from the crowddetermined according to aircraftspeed and the type of displaybeing flown. The relevant displayaxis for G-BXFI was 230m fromthe crowd line, parallel with, andon the other side of, the mainrunway. The extended centrelineof the display axis thereforepassed through the junction ofthe A27 and Old Shoreham Road.Local restrictions were in placedirecting pilots not to overflyLancing College buildings,residential areas at Lancing below1,000ft, or Shoreham Beachbelow 500ft.

PILOT’S QUALIFICATIONAND EXPERIENCEThe pilot had received flyingtraining in the Royal Air Force andhad served as an instructor andfast jet pilot before enteringcommercial aviation. He held a


ShorehamHunter tragedy

European Union Airline TransportPilot’s Licence (ATPL) which wasvalid for the lifetime of the pilot.An Aircraft Type RatingExemption (Full) was issued by theUnited Kingdom Civil AviationAuthority (UK CAA) on 27 August2014 enabling him to fly theHawker Hunter, Jet Provost Mk1-5and Strikemaster aeroplanes,valid until 27 August 2015. Heheld a European Union Class 1Medical Certificate with nolimitations, issued on 20 January2015 and valid until 31 January2016. He held a valid DisplayAuthorisation (DA), issued by theUK CAA, to display the HawkerHunter to a minimum height of100ft during flypasts and 500ftduring Standard 3 categoryaerobatic manoeuvres. He hadalso met the requirementstipulated in Schedule 2 of his DAto have flown: ‘three full displaysequences, one of which was onthe aircraft to be displayed, notmore than 90 days prior to theflight in question.’ From the pilot’selectronic logbook, it wasestablished that the pilot hadflown a total of 40.25 hours in theHunter since 26May 2011, ofwhich 9.7 hours had been flown inthe last 90 days and 2.1 hours inthe last 28 days. He had also flownair displays in other types ofaircraft, and the investigation willstudy his other logbooks forfurther information.The aircraft was not fitted with

a flight recorder and no flight path

information was recovered fromthe aircraft GPS. The accidentflight was recorded by the NATSradar facility at Pease Pottage.The maximum altitude recordedduring the final manoeuvre was2,600ft amsl (recorded byHeathrow radar), which may notreflect the peak altitude achievedbecause the radar data was notcontinuous. The investigation isanalysing audio recordings of airtraffic control communications.Two image recording cameraswere mounted within the cockpit.One was located on the aftcockpit bulkhead between thetwo seats, giving a partial view ofthe pilot and instrument panel,and a view through the cockpitcanopy and windscreen. To dateno abnormal indications havebeen identified. Throughout theflight, the aircraft appeared to beresponding to the pilot’s controlinputs. The other video camerawas mounted at the base of thewindscreen, looking over thenose. Cockpit imagery is beinganalysed to help understand thefinal manoeuvre in more detailand to provide system statusinformation. Initial findingsindicate that the minimum airspeed of the aircraft wasapproximately 100 KIAS whilstinverted at the top of themanoeuvre. The associated audiorecording is being analysed forinformation relating to theaircraft systems. The AAIB hasreceived a large amount of video

footage and photographs of theaircraft, many of which weretaken in high resolution, from avariety of locations on andaround Shoreham Airport. Ananalysis of the information usingphotogrammetry techniques willbe undertaken to establish theparameters of the aircraftmanoeuvres, including flight pathand speed.

PRE-FLIGHT TECHNICALACTIVITYThe aircraft was operated on aCAA-issued Permit to Fly and itscurrent Certificate of Validity wasvalid until 10 March 2016. Therewere no technical defectsrecorded in the aircraft TechnicalLog. The aircraft and its twounder-wing tanks were fullyfuelled before the flight. Groundcrew reported that the pre-flightchecks and engine start werenormal and that the safety pinsfor the pilot’s ejection seat hadbeen removed and placed in thestowage provided prior todeparture to arm the seat and itsassociated systems.

ACCIDENT SITE ANDWRECKAGE RECOVERYThe aircraft crashed on to thewestbound carriageway of theA27 road near its junction withOld Shoreham Road andCoombes Road, which is close tothe northern perimeter ofShoreham Airport. During theimpact sequence, the aircraftstruck vehicles and personsaround the road junction. Trafficlight stanchions, road signs and acrash barrier in the vicinity werealso struck. The groundmarksand photographic evidence showthat the aircraft struck the road ina nose-high attitude on amagnetic heading ofapproximately 230°. The firstground contact was made by thelower portion of the jetpipefairing, approximately 50m eastof the road junction. During theimpact sequence fuel and fuelvapour from the fuel tanks wasreleased and then ignited. Theaircraft broke into four mainpieces which came to rest closetogether approximately 243mfrom the initial ground contact, ina shallow overgrown depressionto the south of the A27. During theinitial part of the impact sequencethe jettisonable aircraft canopywas released, landing in a treeclose to the main aircraftwreckage. During the latter partof the impact sequence, both thepilot and his seat were thrownclear from the cockpit. The pilotsustained serious injuries. The

investigation continues todetermine if the pilot attemptedto initiate ejection or if thecanopy and pilot’s seat wereliberated as a result of impactdamage to the cockpit. Most ofthe aircraft wreckage has beenrecovered and transported tothe AAIB facilities atFarnborough where it will besubject to further detailedexamination. Work continues torecover smaller wreckage fromthe accident site. Furtherinvestigation by the AAIB willexamine the aircraft and itsmaintenance records todetermine its condition beforethe accident. It will also explorethe operation of the aircraft, theorganisation of the event withregard to public safety, andassociated regulatory issues.The AAIB will report anysignificant developments as theinvestigation progresses.

The following week, the Hunterpilot Andy Hill, who had survivedthe accident with serious injuries,was reportedly released from aspecialist hospital.In the immediate aftermath,

the Civil Aviation Authoritytemporarily grounded allHunters on the UK civil register.In a statement on 24 August, itfurther announced: “Flyingdisplays over land by vintage jetaircraft will be significantlyrestricted until further notice.They will be limited to flypasts,which means ‘high energy’aerobatics will not be permitted.This only affects aircraft on thecivil register, and not existingmilitary types. The CAA willconduct additional riskassessments on all forthcomingcivil air displays to establish ifadditional measures should beintroduced. We commenced afull review of civil air displaysafety yesterday and held aninitial meeting this morning.”In a note to its members, the

British Air Display Associationsaid: “[We] all need to bemeticulous in adapting to andoperating as required by the CAA’sinterimmeasures and it makeseminent sense that all organisersand [flying display directors]re-scrutinise their display location,management arrangements andrisk assessments in advance ofexamination by the CAA’s riskreview panel; [and] all displaypilots ensure they are aware ofand ready to adapt appropriatelytheir preparation and intendedprofiles to meet any necessarychanges at the remaining eventsthis year.”


News

be done to limit the corrosionand repair damage to theairframe and replace missingparts.Surplused by the US Air

Force at Olmstead Air ForceBase, Pennsylvania, in January1960, the aircraft passedthrough the hands of severalowners prior to acquisition byJohn ‘Jeff’ Hawke/Euramericairin June 1967, whereupon it wasflown to Fort Lauderdale,Florida. The Mitchell wasconverted into a camerashipfor use in the ‘Battle of Britain’film, and arrived at Bovingdonairfield, Hertfordshire on 15December 1967.Filming began at Tablada

near Seville, Spain, during May1968. The B-25 — flown by thelegendary ‘Jeff’ Hawke, and

During 2014 he was put intouch with a derelict B-25project in Franklin, Virginia.Acting on Peter’s advice,Reevers purchased thebomber in late 2014, and byApril 2015 it had beendisassembled intomanageable sizes for shipping,subsequently being loadedinto containers anddespatched to Australia for athree-month ocean voyage.During early September the

B-25 was given a thoroughclean-up, before being movedto a secure, covered storagearea where more detailedassessments will beundertaken to prepare for arebuild initially back to staticdisplay and then, in the longerterm, flying status. Work will

One of the most famous B-25Mitchells in history, theformer ‘Battle of Britain’ filmcameraship 44-31508/N6578D, arrived in Adelaide,South Australia duringAugust, to join the growingReevers warbird collection.Project co-ordinator and

primary researcher PeterSmythe had tried for severalyears to obtain a B-25 forReevers, but it was a searchthat led to many dead-endsor incomplete airframes thatwould have requiredsignificant rebuilding. Peterhas dedicated much timeover the past few years toraising awareness of thelittle-known Royal AustralianAir Force B-25 operationsduring the war.

now known as the‘Psychedelic Monster’because of its high-visibility,multi-coloured paint scheme— flew with large formationsof CASA 2.111s and HispanoHA-1112s to capture some ofthe most spectacularsequences for this much-loved movie.In January 1969 it returned

to the USA, sinking intodereliction at Caldwell-WrightField, New Jersey. Acquired byTen Plus One Inc in March1975, restoration soon gotunder way. The aeroplane wasferried to Kissimmee, Floridain February 1979, where thenow famous B-25 builder TomReilly completed the work. Itwas operated by the B-25Bomber Group Inc fromOcala, Florida, with the noseart Chapter XI.During the summer of 1994,

Dan Powell of Boerne, Texas,acquired the B-25 andchanged the nose art to LuckyLady, but by the end of the1990s it had been withdrawnfrom use and parked atFranklin, Virginia. In its 16years at Franklin N6578Dsuffered corrosion andairframe damage, and ‘lost’ anengine.Other Reevers projects

include B-26 Invader44-35898, which is currentlyundergoing repairs andfurther assessment inQueensland. It is hoped toreturn it to flight within thenext couple of years, afterwhich it will be based in SouthAustralia. A collection ofvarious B-17 Flying Fortressairframes and parts alongwith technical drawings hasbeen acquired, and a largeshipment of B-17 componentsis being readied for transportto Australia. Following this,larger fuselage sections willbe recovered andconsolidated into thislong-term project.Reevers also has enough

material to form the basis forthe rebuild of a currentlyextinct type, the RepublicP-43 Lancer. This project is inits early planning stage, andas time permits and theallocation of resourcesimproves, the static rebuildwill gain momentum. Otherprojects currently ‘parked’ forthe moment include P-40Kittyhawk A-29-99 andSpitfire Vcs BS219/A58-84/VH-BZR and BS234/A58-95/VH-DQU.

‘Battle of Britain’ B-25 saved

The sameaircraft,with ‘Jeff’ Hawkeat the controls, atDuxford in the summerof 1968duringproductionof the ‘Battle of Britain’ film. AEROPLANE

B-25J 44-31508/N6578DChapter XI shortly after its arrival inAdelaide, SouthAustralia, duringAugust.REEVERS

The impressivenewWW2AviationHall beingbuilt at theOmakaAviationHeritageCentre. GMO

WacoUOCZK-AEL/ZK-ALAwith co-owner JayMcIntyre in the JEMAviationhangar duringAugust. GMO


Major Omaka museum developmentsConstruction of the new WW2Exhibition Hall is moving onapace at the Omaka AviationHeritage Centre near Blenheim,New Zealand. Among theairworthy aircraft that will go ondisplay in the building are theworld’s only airworthy Anson I,MH120, owned by Bill Reid,which made its maiden post-restoration flight from NelsonAirport in July 2012; the Chariotsof Fire Fighter Collection SpitfireXIV NH799/ZK-XIV, which flew

following restoration by AvSpecsat Ardmore, Auckland on 2 April(see Aeroplane June 2015); and,from the same organisation, FlugWerk FW 190A-8/N ZK-RFR,damaged in a landing accident atOmaka on 3 April. As seen in theadjacent WW1 building, theaircraft will be displayed intableau settings.Also currently under

restoration at Omaka is the onlysurvivor of three Waco UOCsbuilt, ZK-AEL/ZK-ALA. Originally

DragonRapide TX310/G-AIDLwas sold to anundisclosednewowneron12 September. BENDUNNELL

imported to New Zealand inMay 1936 by the MarlboroughAero Club, it was operated fromOmaka until being impressedinto Royal New Zealand AirForce service early in the war,when it was flown by the RNZAFCommunications Flight atRongotai. In 1946 it went back tothe Marlborough Aero Club asZK-ALA, but was written off atOmaka in a landing accident twoyears later. Upon repair it wasoperated from Rotorua on scenic

flights, but was written off againin 1958. The aircraft migratednorth to Australia, where it wasmoved around the easternseaboard for many years as arestoration project.During 2001, Jay McIntyre was

serving in Australia with 2Squadron, RNZAF, and trackeddown the Waco in Sydney. Theaircraft arrived back at Omaka inlate 2008, and is underrestoration to fly in Jay’s JEMAviation hangar.

Rapide and Chipmunk sell at Goodwood

for £110,000, with Chipmunk T10G-APLO realising £39,000. Theother Classic Aircraft Trust lots,namely Anson T21 WD413/G-VROE, Proctor V G-AKIU and

Vampire T55 U-1215/G-HELV,failed to reach their reserveprices.Meteor T7 WA591/G-BWMF,

Twin Pioneer 3 G-APRS and

Canberra B2/6 WK163/G-BVWC, mentioned in theOctober issue as being part ofthe auction, were not includedin the sale.

The auction of Classic AircraftTrust aeroplanes by Bonhamsat the Goodwood Revival on 12September saw DH89A DragonRapide TX310/G-AIDL selling


Against thebeautiful backdropof LakeBracciano, P-51D44-73451/MM4323 sits in the sunshineoutside the ItalianAir ForceMuseumatVignadiValle in early September. MAURIZIOMOSCATELLI/ITALIANAIR FORCEMUSEUM

The only surviving Italian AirForce P-51DMustang wentback on display at the ItalianAir Force Museum at Vigna diValle near Rome duringAugust, resplendent in thehigh-polish natural metalfinish it bore whenwithdrawn from service in1964.The Associazione Ali

Storiche group, now based atthe Volandia museum atMalpensa airport, renovatedthe P-51D, serial MM4323, inexchange for using it toconstruct jigs for an

Mishap in Kent for Spitfire MJ772The Air Fighter Academy’sSpitfire IXT MJ772/D-FMKNsustained damage during anemergency landing in a field

near Woodchurch, Kent, on 7September. The aircraft,normally based at Heringsdorfin Germany, was over in the UK

in preparation for Goodwood’sBattle of Britain 75thanniversary commemorationon 15 September. Althoughthe Spitfire’s port wing wastorn off in the incident, whichreportedly followed engine

News

Registered Charity No. 256434

Saturday 17th OctoberINDOOR SALE(up to 48 tables)

AEROBOOT /AEROJUMBLESALE 2015 www.newarkairmuseum.org

Follow us on Twitter:@NewarkAirMus

ItalianMustang completed

Spitfire IXTMJ772after its emergency landingnearWoodchurch.PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES

trouble, pilot Rob Daviesescaped unhurt. This wasMJ772’s first visit to Britain sinceit was exported by theStrathallan Collection to USwarbird owner Doug Champlinduring 1974.

44-73451, and served out thewar in the United States in thetraining role. It was deliveredto the Italian Air Force on 9October 1950 under theMutual Defense AssistanceProgram, and is known tohave served with 155° Gruppoof 6° Stormo Caccia (FighterWing) with codes 6-32. It laterwent to the Rome FlightTraining Centre, a unit thatprovided continuationtraining and liaison flights forstaff officers, and acquired thecodes ZR-11, later changed toRR-11. Its main pilot was Lt

airworthy restoration projectcurrently under way on behalfof a private collector. Afounding member of theItalian Air Force collection,this pristine Mustang hasnever been dismantled orstructurally restored, andtherefore provides a superbreference for dimensions,angles, the positioning ofequipment and othertechnical details.Built by North American at

Inglewood, California, thefighter was accepted by theUSAAF in March 1945 as serial

Gen Ranieri Cupini, a veteranof Italo Balbo’s mass flights,who applied his three-starpennant and modified thefighter by removing the wingarmament and fitting thebays as luggage and generalcargo compartments.MM4323 made its last

flight on 20 March 1964 andwas selected forpreservation, first in Turin(where the Italian Air Forcebriefly displayed itscollection) and then Vigna diValle, where it has been ondisplay since 1977.


28 Jan – 1Feb SWITZERLAND: 38th Int’l Hot-Air Balloon Festival, Chateau-d’Oex & Swiss Air ForceMuseum, Zurich. Awesome mass ascent, special shape balloons and the beautiful “NightGlow”! This tour is perfect for enthusiasts and non-aviation-minded persons.

12-31 Mar NEW ZEALAND WITH HONG KONG STOPOVERS: 20 day tour of both islands: airports,airfields, museums and collections; plus the spectacular warbird airshow at Wanaka.Plenty of opportunities for optional flights and sightseeing (whales, Arthur’s Pass, GlacierLanding/Take Off on Mount Cook, etc).

1-12 Apr USA: NAS Key West & Sun ‘ Fun Airshows & Aviation Sites Of Florida incl Piper AircraftFactory, Fantasy of Flight & Valiant Air Command Museums.

1-10 May RUSSIA: Moscow: Great Patriotic War Victory Day Parade, Red Square & AviationMuseums

8-19 May USA, MEXICO, CUBA & ST MAARTENS: Calling all airliner fans: Miami, Mexico City, Havana& St Maarten. Flying AAL & CUB (opt CUB An-148 flt). Ramp tours requested at MEX andHAV & Aeromexico & Cubana maintenance. Opt flt to St Bart from St Maarten

Mid May NATO TIGER MEET, ZARAGOZA AIRBASE: Zaragoza hotel. 5-day tour. In addition to SpottersDays we also include full day at end of runway.

Late May BELARUS: long weekend trip to fly in Soviet aircraft, eg, IL-18, IL-76, An-12 & Tu-134

Late May/Early Jun FINLAND: Airshow, Aviation Museums & Bear Spotting. Await confirmation of airshow.

27 May-5 Jun GERMANY: ILA Aero Exhibition & Airshow, Berlin; Minsk, Belarus; & Warsaw & Deblin,Poland. Optional long weekend just to Berlin.

5-17 Jun USA: ALASKA: Propliners, Airliners & Floatplanes. Flying Icelandair via Iceland; repeat ofour hugely popular and successful tour of 2014. Interest in this tour is already high.

7-11 June (tba) TURKEY: Anatolian Eagle, Konya. Hotel confirmed.

23-31 Jul/6 Aug USA: Oshkosh; 6 full days at the show. Opt Ext to USAF Museum, Dayton & Nat Air &Space, Udvar Hazy Museums in Washington D.C.. Hotel near the White House.

28 Jul-1 Aug HUNGARY: Hungarian Air Force Int’l Airshow. Back, this very popular airshow. 4 daysvisiting several museums in addition to “Arrivals Day” and 2 full days at the airshow.

Dates TBA REPUBLIC OF CHINA: Air Force Base Visits TBC

11-17 Sep BULGARIA: Air Force Bases: all the airbases of the Bulgarian Air Force (TBC), and militaryaviation museums and collections.

Sep TBA CANADA: Air Force Bases; tours of major airbases of all the major airbases; to coincidewith an airshow.

17-28 Nov FALKLAND ISLANDS: airfields & battle sites incl Agrentinian Air Force aircraft; local wildlife

26 Nov-5/12 Dec CHILE: Air Force, Army & Naval Aviation Bases: Opt 1 Week Extension to the FalklandIslands airfields & battle sites incl Agrentinian Air Force aircraft; local wildlife

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Aviation Tours

Historic Aircraft Association

Annual SymposiumRAF Museum Hendon

Saturday Oct 31st 2015Start 9.45

9:55 "3& A8A%< + /"';>>;#% 1& <;$7A< #%5& 6// .A'1A?> )2* -#%,'A'1A?> )0*+ 4%$5:"A> ?A@?A>='A%<#% 3??;835 3%" !?;83<A 1:@@A< 5:%$= 9#? <;$7A<> 3%" ;%@# 8;>;< (((+=33,:7+3A?#

Featuring-Epic Restoration -

The Return of The Blenheim

Imperial Air-Power-RAF Hunter operations in Aden

Grandad’s Bristol Scout -Veteran fighter re-born

90 Years of the de Havilland Moth -The Light Aeroplane that changed

the world

The sleekMauboussinM202, F-PAOI, under restorationwithLeCercle desMachinesVolantes at Compiègne. NIGELHITCHMAN


DavidReidflyinghis newly-completedChiltonDW1Areplica to the LightAircraft AssociationRally at Sywell on4 September. GEOFF COLLINS

“The engine is a brand-newWalter Mikron IIIAS suppliedfrom the Czech Republic. Theoriginal drawings for theaircraft were supplied by RoyNerou, owner of the OldWarden-based, CardenFord-powered Chilton DW1G-AESZ. The Ford engineproduced 38hp when new, the

more than four years afterDavid began construction.He says: “The Permit was

issued on the Saturday beforeflying to Sywell for the rally,so it was a close-run thingand the weather co-operatedwell. This [was] the completionof a lifetime’s ambition tobuild an aeroplane.

Chilton DW1A replica G-JUJUmade its first publicappearance at the LightAircraft Association Rally atSywell, Northamptonshire on4 September. Built byNorwich-based David Reidusing original plans for theracer, the aircraft had made itsmaiden flight on 7 July, a little

Mikron 65hp. At cruisepower ’ESZ today gives anhonest 100mph. I am getting110kt in normal cruise, butwith a little bit more power— less than max continuous— I am getting 120kt, a veryuseful turn of speed. I’venamed the aeroplaneBlack Magic.”

Rapid expansion for Compiègne groupAt Compiègne, 45 miles north-east of Paris, Fairchild 24WF-AYSE is now being operatedby the Cercle des MachinesVolantes, following importationfrom the USA in 2014. Afterspending 36 years in storage, the1946-built, Warner Super Scarab-powered machine was given aground-up restoration byFairchild 24 specialist Bob Woodsand his Wood Aviation team atMount Olive, North Carolina.There are now four Fairchild

24s in France. Two are Scarab-powered, the other pair gettingtheir motive power from thein-line, six-cylinder Ranger 6-440unit.Formed by brothers Frédérick

and Alexandre Collinot in2009, the Cercle des MachinesVolantes has a diverse fleet of

historic types, the mostsignificant of which are twoclassic parasol-wing Morane-Saulnier monoplanes. MS230F-AYMS (c/n 1076) will beremembered by Britishenthusiasts as G-AVEB, operatedby the Hon Patrick Lindsay fromBooker during the 1970s. Itsubsequently spent many yearsin the United States, and wasfreighted to France from FlandersField near Polk City, Florida inlate 2014. A very rare MS181F-AIYH can also be foundat Compiègne as part of theCercle’s fleet.Under restoration to fly is the

sole survivor from two examplesof the Mauboussin M200 seriesof single-seat racing monoplanesbuilt between 1938 and ’41. On 7May 1939, the 115hp Régnier

4E-powered M200 F-AROPestablished new records for anaircraft of its class, flyingat 158.5mph over a 1,000km(621-mile) course. The machinenow at Compiègne, M202

F-PAOI, made its maidenflight during June 1941. Despitehaving a less powerful 95hpRégnier engine, it was capable of166.5mph. Its return to the air iseagerly awaited.

News

New Chilton makes debut

Hidden Hearing F_P.indd 1 14/09/2015 09:11

Thenear-completedB-25KMitchell at Santa Lucia air base in centralMexico. HECTORMONTESDEOCA


Nowresplendent in anewly-applied early 1960sUnited livery, thefirst Boeing727,N7001U, is seenatPaine Field, Seattle in lateAugust. TOMCATHCART

years, clocking up 64,492 hours,completing 48,057 flights andcarrying more than threemillion passengers during its

Airlines, who originally tookdelivery of this prototypeaircraft in October 1964. It flewwith United for more than 27

Fifty-three years after it wasoriginally rolled out ofBoeing’s plant at Renton,Seattle, the very first Boeing727 is being brought back toflying condition at PaineField, Seattle, close to themanufacturer’s Everettassembly site. Once work iscompleted, the historicairliner will make a final ferryflight to Boeing Field, south ofSeattle, where it will go ondisplay at the Museum ofFlight.The machine, 727-22

N7001U, made its maidenflight from Renton to PaineField on 9 February 1963. Itwas the first of 1,832 Boeing727s built at Renton, a totalthat, for many years, placedthe 727 programme as themost successful incommercial aviation history,an accolade subsequently topass to the Boeing 737.N7001U has been painted

in the colours of United

service life. The carrierdonated the historic tri-jet tothe Museum of Flight inJanuary 1991.

B-25 restored inMexicoAt Santa Lucia Air Base in centralMexico, restoration for the basemuseum of a composite B-25KMitchell is nearing completion.The aircraft incorporates partsfrom two B-25s that had lapsedinto severe dereliction while ondisplay at the San Juan deAragón Park in Mexico City.The two aircraft, B-25N

44-29145/N9877C and B-25K44-30692/N9623C, wereoriginally built at Kansas Cityduring 1944. The formermachine saw combat afterdelivery to the Twelfth Air Force

in Italy in September of that year.The second aeroplane stayed inthe USA, being assigned to theAdvanced Twin-Engine PilotTraining School at La Junta,Colorado, in February 1945.Post-war, the two B-25s servedon second-line duties beforegoing to the storage yard atDavis-Monthan, Arizona duringthe summer of 1957.In October 1958 the combat

veteran left Davis-Monthan fordelivery to Aviation RentalService at St Paul, Minnesota,44-30692 having departed the

previous June for Maricopa,Arizona for use in an agriculturalcapacity with Maricopa Dustand Spray Inc. 44-29145 alsowent into the farming businessin October 1961 with CrowlCrop Dusters at Phoenix,Arizona, but in the spring of thatyear ’30692 had been convertedfor fire-bombing, and fitted witha 1,280-gallon retardantentering service with SonoraFlying Service at Silver City, NewMexico.Having survived their arduous

and varied civilian careers, the

First Boeing 727 to fly again

News

two B-25s were up for grabs onthe Allied Aircraft Sales lot atPhoenix in September 1965.Soon acquired by theInternational Civil AviationOrganization (ICAO), they weresent to the Civil Aviation TrainingCentre in Mexico City for use asinstructional airframes.Both Mitchells were donated in

1985 to the Mexico Citygovernment and moved to SanJuan de Aragón, ’30692 gainingshark’s mouth artwork on nose.Sadly, the complete tail sectionof the combat veteran, ’29145,was stolen while at the park, andboth aircraft were graduallystripped of parts and coveredwith graffiti.During 2001 they were

removed. Thought by many tohave been scrapped, all theremaining parts were eventuallydelivered to the 4th MaintenanceEchelon at Santa Lucia. The firstjob was to rebuild the fuselage of’30692, followed by the enginesand wings that had combat timeover Italy on ’29145. Currently,work is under way to construct aglazed nose for the aircraft. Aswell as being displayed at thebase museum, the B-25 will betowed out to the airfield tofeature in future airshows atSanta Lucia.


Following an extensivethree-year restoration, an AviaB-33 — a Czech-built IlyushinIl-10 ‘Shturmovik’ — wasdisplayed at the SlovakInternational Air Fest 2015 atSliac air base at the end ofAugust. The ground attackmachine, serial 5514/HL-01, isone of just four Czech-builtsurvivors. It has been restoredby engineers and enthusiastsat Prešov air base, home to aSlovak Air Force helicopterwing, with support from theMuseum of Military History inPieštany.

Prior to its arrival at Prešov inOctober 2012, HL-01 spentmany years on display outsidethe national monument at theDukla battleground in easternSlovakia, close to the city ofNižný Komárnik. Situated in theCarpathian Mountains, theclimate there had been unkindto the Avia and the base atwhich it was exhibited, wherethe airframe sustained damagefrom vandals. At some point ithad been painted in fakeRussian markings, to better fitin with the surrounding Russiandisplay items. It now wears its

original Czechoslovak Air Forcecolours, and even has a workingrear gun.Future plans will see the Avia

going back on display near thevillage of Vysny Komárnik,where a dioramacommemorating one of thebloodiest battles on the EasternFront, the Battle of the DuklaPass during September-October1944, is being constructed.Designed as a successor to

the immortal Il-2 ground attackaircraft, the Il-10 saw action atthe end of World War Two.Czechoslovak licence

production of the Avia B-33began at the Prague-Cakoviceplant during 1951. The finalB-33 rolled off the line during1955 — it is thought that 1,182examples were built, althoughthe exact number remainsunknown. The last recordedB-33 flight in Czechoslovakservice took place on 26 April1962.Other surviving examples of

the B-33 are one at the PolishAviation Museum in Krakówand another with the PragueAviation Museum at Kbely,Czech Republic.

Vampire T35N35DS sitting at Fairmont,WestVirginia, awaiting thestart of restoration. JASONVOSBURGH

AviaB-33HL-01ondisplay at the recent Slovak InternationalAir Fest. DRANDREAS ZEITLER

Czech ‘Shturmovik’ goes on show

Aussie Vampire for restoration in USAFlying Falcons, under theleadership of assistantprofessor of aviation JasonVosburgh.The machine, N35DS, was

donated to the college as aninstructional airframe by a

At Fairmont State Universityin West Virginia, restorationof a former Royal AustralianAir Force (RAAF) Vampire T35will soon get under way. It isbeing carried out by a teamof students, the University

local benefactor in 2009.Originally serialled A79-635, itis one of several ex-RAAFmachines imported to the USAcirca 1970. Some 110 Vampiretrainers were constructed byde Havilland Australia at PortMelbourne, Victoria, the firstT35 being delivered to theRAAF in 1952. A79-635 wasbuilt in 1958. The type wasoperated by No 1 AdvancedFlying Training School at RAAFBases Point Cook and Pearce,the Central Flying School, andNos 2 and 5 OperationalTraining Units. The T35s beganto be replaced by MacchiMB326Hs in 1968, the lastsortie being flown inSeptember 1970.With 1,964 hours on the

clock, A79-635 was put up for

disposal in June 1970.Acquired by WestairInternational at Broomfield,Colorado, it was registered asN11927. Two years later itpassed on to Dennis M.Sherman, boss of the famedSherman Aircraft Sales inWest Palm Beach, Florida. Itwas re-registered as N35DSto its final operator, theCountry Club Investment andDevelopment Co Inc, atFairmont in April 1977.Jason Vosburgh says: “The

fuselage pod wood needssome help, but other thanthat it’s all complete. Ifanyone can help with detailsof the Vampire T35, pleasecould they let us know?”E-mail [email protected].


I WRITE THIS just a few days after the ShorehamAirshow, so understandably my previous ideas for thismonth’s column now reside in the dustbin. Despitehaving been present on that sad day, I won’t commenton the accident and its immediate circumstances. Theworld does not need yet more inappropriate speculation.One viewpoint that was missing was that of perhaps the best

authority on displaying the Hunter. Jonathon Whaley has flownthousands of hours in the type, both with the Fleet Air Arm and asthe display pilot of the spectacularly-liveriedMiss Demeanour. His fullaccount of the likely process of investigating the Shorehamtragedy and of flying the Hunter are available on his website,www.heritageaviation.com, but I am indebted to Jonathon for lettingme publish some of his comments here.“What follows must be read in the context that an aircraft crashed

and not beyond that”, says Jonathon. “I would have written almost thesame words if the pilot hadwalked away from somethingother than a normal landing andno-one had been injured, fatallyor otherwise.“The AAIB will take what time is

necessary to gather all relevantand perhaps what others mightthink irrelevant information,before even starting to piecetogether events. Only then will they go on to draw conclusions.Following that, they will undoubtedly make recommendations.“They will look at the operator’s Organisational Control Manual

(OCM), which sets out how an organisation operates its aircraft. Theywill look at the maintenance records, the after flight and before flight(AF/BF) records which will show amongst other things the pre-startfuel state, oxygen levels, anti-G system, nitrogen gas levels, etc.“The flight authorisation sheet will show the details of the planned

flight, such as where the pilot intended to land after displaying. Theywill rebuild his planned flight as if they were flight-planning itthemselves. They will listen to the chain of radio communications fromthe departure airfield to starting his display. Just listening to what issaid and how it was said will be factors, ranging from absolutely

normal to there being intimations of other factors atplay. They will look at radar tracks alongside thosecommunications.“The AAIB will probably develop a computer model

of the display flight profile, from his positioning for therun-in until moments after impact. This they can do

using combinations of primary and secondary radar informationtogether with photos and video from the general public. Suchexternal factors as visibility, birds or anything that could havedistracted the pilot or physically affected the aircraft, photos andvideo of the jet exhaust, its heat haze — all can provide information.There will be things which I haven’t even thought of.“They will look at the pilot’s logbook and any video of his previous

displays in Hunters as well as displays he has flown in other aircraft.They will talk to people regarding personal details, medical history,occupational flying and to his display authorisation examiner. They

will interview other Hunterdisplay pilots. They will obviouslywant to interview the pilothimself as soon as he is medicallyfit to be interviewed.“Regarding Hunters in general,

they are one of the mostdelightful and simple aircraft tofly. Yes, more demanding than alight aircraft because things

happen more quickly. Their weight and speed makes inertia a bigfactor compared to a light aircraft. From a systems aspect, you couldlose all hydraulic and electrical supply (they have two generators andbatteries) and fly safely to land. In a Hunter in the UK, a suitablerunway is no more than five or 10 minutes away.“I would go so far as to say that the skill level required to fly a

Hunter is not as great as, say, flying a Spitfire. In a Spitfire or other bigpiston warbird, a pilot must have a definite feel for the aircraft, anaffinity for flying. The Hunter is at the peak of simplicity for allmilitary jets, of any type.”Perhaps Jonathon’s wise words might balance some of the

less-informed input. Thanks to him, and, to all fellow flyers,safe landings.

ABOVE: JonathonWhaley displaying his Hunter F58AMiss Demeanour at Duxford inOctober 2012. JOHNDUNNELL

“The AAIB will take what time isnecessary to gather all relevant andperhaps what others might thinkirrelevant information, before evenstarting to piece together events”

O u r m o n t h l y c omm e n t c o l um n o n t h e h i s t o r i c a i r c r a f t s c e n eO u r m o n t h l y c omm ee nn tt c o l um n o n t h e h i s t o r i c a i r c r a

Hangar TalkSTEVE SLATER

As well as being a private pilotand enthusiast, Steve Slater is

chief executive of the Light AircraftAssociation and chairman of the

Vintage Aircraft Club —www.vintageaircraftclub.org.uk

Tail-less tale

Skywriters


WRITE TO: Aeroplane, Key Publishing Ltd, POBox 100, Stamford, Lincolnshire PE9 1XQ, UKE-MAIL TO: [email protected],putting ‘Skywriters’ in the header

In going through the May issue of Aeroplane I noticed a familiarphoto of one of our German aircraft, namely the Horten Ho IVflying wing glider, which the pilot flew in a prone position.The Planes of Fame Air Museum’s Ho IV has an interesting

history. It was captured in Germany by the RAF and taken toEngland with many more ex-Luftwaffe aircraft. Unfortunately,many of these were scrapped. A few were given to the RCAFMuseum in Canada, the RAAF Museum in Australia and theSouth African Air Force Museum. I was told this Ho IV was latersold to an American soldier in England. He had it shipped to theUSA where he intended to fly it.Later it was entered in a glider contest in the state of Texas,

and subsequently purchased by the University of Mississippi. Itseems the US Navy was interested in aircraft that utilised pronepilot positions and hired the university to conduct some testson it. When the test flights were completed, the Horten was putup for sale. It was bought by a man in California who ran anaviation bookstore in Los Angeles. His name was John Caler.John was a collector of aircraft and artefacts. He owned thisaircraft in the 1960s and I saw it when I visited his bookshop.The Ho IV was mounted on a special trailer for easy transport.

Minor queryCongratulations on your Battle of Britainspecial issue. Reading the ‘Aircrew’ itemabout fighter pilot training, a question re-occurred to me: why, at this time (and all warlong), did de Havilland continue to build theTiger Moth and not the Moth Minor?This much more modern trainer was in full

production at Hatfield in 1939, andmanufacturing and maintenance wouldappear to have been simpler than for thebiplane with all its struts and wires. Why thedecision to go for complication oversimplicity, sluggishness over performance,and soloing from the rear rather than thefront seat? Hatfield production of the MothMinor was re-located to Australia, but MorrisMotors sub-contracted for de Havilland onthe Tiger Moth — why not for the MothMinor?René Jaloustre, Labenne, France

Righting radar wrongsWhile I was pleased to see David Halfordgiving due recognition in the September issueto Arnold ‘Skip’ Wilkins’ part in thedevelopment of the Chain Home radar

John sold the glider to a Redlands, California, collegeprofessor who was also a glider enthusiast. He wanted theHo IV to open a glider school in San Bernardino County.Unfortunately he was killed in another glider shortly afteracquiring the Ho IV.I read about the Ho IV being for sale in 1969, went out to see

it and purchased the aircraft. We restored the Ho IV in 1970and it is on display, hanging in our Planes of Fame Air MuseumForeign Aircraft Hangar at Chino Airport, California.Ed Maloney, founder, Planes of Fame Air Museum

The editor reserves the right to edit all letters.Please include your full name and address incorrespondence.

system, there are a number of errors in thearticle. A full and detailed record of Wilkins’involvement can be found in an excellentbook written by Colin Latham and AnneStobbs entitled ‘The Birth of British Radar’,published by DEHS (ISBN 0-9537166-2-7).The remarks about the acoustic detection

system seem to be misinformed. DavidHalford implies this was never pursued, whichis not strictly correct. Tucker developed aworking system and there are several of thesestill in existence, at Abbotscliffe and Denge(the latter is pictured). The Denge site is nearDungeness and, although not easily accessibleto the public, is viewable with permission.They are in a disused gravel pit and there arethree acoustic mirrors, one being a largeconcave wall and two smaller parabolicmirrors. Details of these are contained in thebook ‘Britain’s Shield’.Turning to the radio detection system, David

Halford mentioned Marconi’s lecture in theUSA as being in 1912. This is incorrect — it wasmade to the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE)in 1922. In the light of Marconi’s address, twoscientists at the US Naval Research Laboratory(NRL) determined that Marconi’s concept waspossible and, later that same year, detected awooden ship at a range of five miles using awavelength of 5m, employing a separatetransmitter and receiver with a CW wave. In1925, the first use of pulsed radio waves wasundertaken in order to measure the height ofthe ionospheric layers.These quotes are from the second edition

of my book ‘Amateur Radio Astronomy’,published by the RSGB (ISBN 9781-9050-8667-2).The engineer mainly responsible for the

ionospheric layer apparatus design wasArnold Wilkins of the National PhysicalLaboratory at Slough. He and his colleaguesdeveloped and operated the early British

research station — thus, they were a naturalchoice when radar was being developed, asthe technique used the same principles,namely a pulsed radio wave being sentupwards to be reflected off the ionosphere.However, historians generally consider that

the true ‘inventor’ of what we today know asradio direction-finding, or radar, was aGerman engineer. His name was ChristianHülsmeyer, and in 1902 he devised a radiolocation system to detect ships in poorvisibility. He not only designed and built thesystem but he also installed it on a bridgeover the Rhine near Cologne. This radioapparatus rang a bell when a shipapproached. He tried unsuccessfully tointerest the German authorities in thisinvention, and eventually took out a Britishpatent in 1903.John Fielding, Durban, South Africa

ABOVE:HortenHo IV LA-ACat Farnborough in 1945. AEROPLANE

ABOVE:DH94MothMinorproductionunderwayatHatfieldduring 1939. AEROPLANE

Letter of the Month

ABOVE:DH94MothMin du io

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Q&A


Are you seeking the answer to a thorny aviation question?Our ‘questions and answers’ page might help

COMPILER:MIKEHOOKS

THIS MONTH’SQUESTIONSHeinkel He 111 plateQ Tony Payne has submitted a

photograph of a Heinkel He 111constructor’s number plate,identifying it as Werknummer 1502.His father, when working for theForestry Commission shortly afterWorld War Two, found the plate insome wreckage in woodland close toKing Alfred’s Tower, Stourhead,Worcestershire. Can anyone furtheridentify this particular Heinkel andgive any details of its crash?

Chummy BooksQ Bruce Morgan (e-mail bruce.

[email protected]),while writing about the packs ofcards query featured separately, saidthat his father was publishing directorof Valentine & Sons and showed himwhen he was very young a collectionof small Chummy Books printed invarious languages, which he saidwere being parachuted/dropped intooccupied France. This waspresumably some sort of propagandaexercise but there are no copies ofthese books. Does anyone haveknowledge of this activity?The Chummy Books were intended

for children, and Bruce has anunpublished set of original paintingsby illustrator Roland Davis whichwere intended to be used for oneentitled ‘Knights of the Air’, featuringvarious war scenarios depictingmilitary aircraft.

RE8 requirementQ Paul Leaman (e-mail

[email protected])has been looking for details of theofficial requirement statement thatthe Royal Flying Corps submitted forthe design and construction of theRoyal Aircraft Factory RE8. A searchthrough the relevant files at theNational Archives in Kew has turnedup nothing, nor have enquiries tofellow historians. Can anyone help?

Mike Hooks waseditor of Airports

International during1967–75. He thenjoined the SBAC,where his duties

included managingthe press centre atthe Farnborough

Air Shows.

E-MAIL USERS:Please include apostal addresswith anycorrespondence

THIS MONTH’SANSWERSChipmunk rudderQ We had several comments on

the Chipmunk’s spinningproblems in earlier issues.

A Basil Evans adds a little more. Hewas a member of the University of

London Air Squadron from 1952 to1956, and all its Chipmunks had theoriginal rudders. On one occasionwhen an instructor and pupil wereflying at 4,000ft a spin was entered butthe standard recovery procedure didnot work. The instructor ordered“abandon aircraft”, but on leaving thecadet’s long RT cable snagged. Theinstructor leaned forward and freed itand the aircraft recovered at 800ft,being flown back to Booker, althoughthe cadet landed in a tree and broke aleg in the subsequent fall.The instructor, Flt Lt Ron Howard

AFC, was awarded a Queen’sCommendation. The Chipmunk wastaken to Boscombe Down for tests, andattempts were made to reproduce theevent but without success. Mr Evansthinks this may have been the triggerfor the 4in rudder chord extensionmodification.

Skeabrae SpitfiresQ A query in the October issue

asked about some unusualSpitfires seen at Skeabrae (notSkaebrae, as I quoted!)

A There have been several replies.David Horne says that in 1944

three Spitfire VIIs with pressurisedcockpits were based there with No 602Squadron to intercept high-flyingGerman reconnaissance aircraftattempting to photograph the fleetanchorage at Scapa Flow.Antoni Lachetta points out that there

was a shortage of MkIXs, which wereneeded by the 2nd TAF, and it wasconsidered that the Orkneys could bedefended by MkVs and a handful ofhigh-altitude variants. It was thepractice for resting squadrons sentnorth to have one flight based atSkeabrae on detachment, with the

other flight at Sumburgh flying MkVs.Over the course of a year the aircraftwere used by Nos 312, 118 and 602 and313 Squadrons, regardless of whichsquadron was operating them, andretained the codes DU belonging to312.Ian Hewins adds that, because of the

remoteness of the airfield, units postedthere took over aircraft already on thestation, so in 1943 when 312 wentnorth it operated a mixed bag of MkVsand VIIs. The Czech-manned unitsreceived three brand-new HFVIIs,MB763, ’765 and ’828, in August 1943just before their detachment ended.They were left behind and showed upas in Skeabrae Station Flight usage byNovember 1943, still with their DUcodes. Other HFVIIs shown byAir-Britain to be on the Station Flight’sbooks were MD118, ’122 and ’138.

Packs of cardsQ Fred Gordon asked in the

October issue about packs ofwartime aircraft silhouette cards.

A Chris Allen (e-mail [email protected]) has a boxed set of

these cards complete with thepaperwork published by the AirMinistry in July 1942. The red packcontains single-engined aircraft, theblue multi-engined with single fin andrudder, the orange multi-engined withtwin fins and rudders, and the greenmiscellaneous. The three views, front,plan and side, of each aircraftrepresent suits and each pack containsa joker with all three views. Thefour-page instruction sheet, each ofwhich measures approximately 5in x7.5in, describes how you can playvarious games including happyfamilies, rummy, clock patience, snapand banker. The key sheets which nameeach aircraft and give span and lengthare 14.75in x 9.25in and on rather thinpaper, folded several times to get theminto the box, so are now ratheryellowing with age. The packs aremarked “For Official Use Only.”Bruce Morgan adds that Valentine &

Sons produced these cards, and he hasan incomplete set of 42.

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Biggin Hill stages a memorable Battle ofBritain commemoration

SALUT ING THE‘ HARDEST DAY ’‘HARDEST DAY ’

famous of all RAF fighter stationsduring the ‘hardest day’ of the Battleof Britain.At 12.45hrs, the same time as

Biggin’s fighters were scrambled 75years ago, 18 preserved Spitfiresand five Hurricanes fired up to fly a

tribute to all of the pilots, engineers,armourers, operations staff and groundcrews who faced down the Luftwaffeon that epic summer’s day.

Planning for this one-off eventstarted back in May, when Peter Monkof the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar

pivotal moment inEuropean history wascommemorated in uniquefashion at Biggin Hill

Airport in Kent on 18 August, asgroups of Spitfires and Hurricanesre-created the sights seen at this most

AWORDS: TONY HARMSWORTH

BIGGIN 75

ð


— from where several Spitfires and aHurricane are operated — approachedthe airport management. Peter wasbrought up near one of Kent’s 1940fighter stations at Detling, nearMaidstone, and says: “We thoughtwe should be doing something forBiggin in this important year tocommemorate [this base] during theBattle. Looking at the calendar, theobvious date was 18 August.”The airport managing director,

Will Curtis, who flew a SukhoiSu-26 aerobatic aircraft on theairshow circuit for many years, wasenthusiastic, as was Colin Hitchinsof Synergy Events, who was for manyyears part of the team that ran the late,lamented Biggin Hill Air Fair. Colinsays: “We tried hard to do somethingdifferent. Sitting down with a blankpiece of paper, we set out how best tocommemorate the activities of thatone, crucial day, when more aircraftwere lost than during any other 24-hour period of the Battle of Britain. Itwas felt not really appropriate to stagean airshow: it was all about puttinghistory first and telling the story of 18August, with Spitfires and Hurricanesflying the courses they did while

intercepting the Luftwaffe, and passingover many of the Fighter Commandairfields that were operational in thesouth-east during the summer of1940. Telling a story is somethingwe have previously done during our‘flying proms’ Musical Salutes to theFew, here at Biggin, but what we setout to achieve on 18 August was notsomething that had been attemptedbefore.”

A total of 27 Spitfires andHurricanes were scheduled to attend,but serviceability and weather issuessaw that reduced to 23 on theday. Three Spitfires and a Hurricanefrom Germany had to turn back enroute, while Battle of Britain veteranSpitfire IIa P7350 and HurricaneLF363 from the Battle of BritainMemorial Flight were unable to makeit. Five Hurricanes and 17 Spitfireslined up on the hallowed Biggin Hillgrass, alongside one further WW2fighter, P-51D G-SHWN, which wasto be used as a camera-ship.Chief pilot for the commemoration

was Dan Griffith, whose final plan was

to get airborne three groupings of eightaircraft each. One section would headdown to Portsmouth and the Isle ofWight, another to Dover, and the thirdwas to overfly the key former fighterstations at Kenley, Gravesend, Detlingand West Malling. After returning toBiggin ahead of the others, the latterwould fly a standing patrol over theaerodrome before breaking off intosimulated attacks.Dan says: “The biggest difficulty we

faced was getting everyone back at theright time. If the Portsmouth elementand the Dover section had flown atthe same speed there would have beenseven/eight minutes’ difference inreturn time, so we put the Hurricanes,which were to fly at 150-160kt, on theshorter, Dover, route, and a group ofSpitfires, flying at 200-210kt, on thelonger Isle of Wight/Portsmouth leg.”The three formations were each

named after distinguished Biggin Hillpersonalities from the battle. The eightaircraft heading on the south-westerlyroute across Surrey and Hampshire tothe Isle of Wight were designated GriceFlight, after Gp Capt Richard GriceDFC, commander of the Biggin HillSector during the battle, and an RFC

‘We thought we should be doing something in thisimportant year to commemorate Biggin Hill duringthe Battle. Looking at the calendar, the obvious date

was 18 August’

BELOW: Theevocative sight offour Hurricanesin formationduring the 18August tribute.Leading is theBiggin Hill HeritageHangar’s AE977,appropriatelypainted as ‘P2921’of No 32 Squadron;with it are PeterVacher’s Battle ofBritain veteranR4118, ‘P3700’ fromthe Historic AircraftCollection, and theBBMF’s PZ865.MIKE RIVETT

❖

ABOVE: The pilotsinvolved on 18

August 2015. Backrow, left to right:Richard Verrall,

Peter Monk, BrianSmith, Dan Griffith,AlanWade, PeterTeichman, Wg Cdr

Justin Helliwell,Pete Kynsey, Sqn

Ldr Mark Discombe,Carl Schofield,‘Willy’ Hackett,

photographer KevinWills, Stu Goldspink,Stephen Stead, DaveHarvey, Matt Jones,

Charlie Brown,‘Dodge’ Bailey andPaul Bonhomme.Front row, left to

right: Dave Puleston,Richard Grace, SteveJones, Don Sigournay

and Clive Denney.JOHN GOODMAN/

FLYPASTS GUIDEBOOK

BELOW: TheHurricanes fire up

for their ‘scramble’.GARY R. BROWN

fighter pilot veteran of WW1 who hadwitnessed from the air the shooting-down of Manfred von Richthofen on21 April 1918.The Dover section was designated

Hamlyn Flight, named after Sgt (laterSqn Ldr) Ronald Fairfax Hamlyn, whoflew Spitfires with No 610 Squadronat Biggin throughout the Battle.On 24 August he shot down fourMesserschmitt Bf 109s and a JunkersJu 88, finishing the war as a doubleace.Mortimer Flight, which Dan

Griffith was to lead in Martin Phillips’Spitfire IX RR232, was named intribute to Sgt Joan Mortimer. On 18August, Mortimer was manning theswitchboard at Biggin during a heavybombing raid and, despite being urgedby her superiors to leave, remainedat her post, keeping the airfieldcommunications active.Before the ‘all-clear’ siren was

sounded, and with the airfield nowplastered with 90 delayed-actionbombs, Mortimer grabbed a roll ofred flags and ran out onto the grassrunways to mark each unexplodedbomb and assist the returning pilotsin making safe landings. Whileplanting one flag, a nearby bombexploded, sending Joan flying. Severely

winded and deafened by the blast, shecontinued to mark the locations of thebombs, the last one being right in thecentre of the aerodrome.Joan Mortimer lost 60 per cent of

her hearing as a result of the blast. Shewas discharged from the WAAF in1941, suffering from her hearing lossand pneumonia.

It was at 12.45hrs on 18 August1940 that the radar station near Doverreported six separate concentrationsof German aircraft heading for targetsin the south-east of England. In clearand sunny weather, a large forcefrom Albert Kesselring’s Luftflotte 2had been despatched from bases innorthern France to carry out a co-ordinated ‘pincer movement’ attackon the RAF’s No 2 Group airfields atKenley, North Weald, West Mallingand Biggin Hill.First to be hit was Kenley, in the

well-documented raid by nine DornierDo 17Zs from 9./KG 76, based atCormeilles-en-Vexin. Having crossedthe Channel at wave-top height, theDorniers attacked at very low level,destroying three of Kenley’s fourhangars, putting the operations room

at the Surrey station out of action, andwrecking several other buildings. Nineaircraft, including four Hurricanesand a Blenheim, were destroyedon the ground, and several otherswere damaged. The airfield was outof commission for two hours, butfour Dorniers were shot down, twoseriously damaged and three slightlydamaged. Two Hurricanes were shotdown by return fire from the Dorniers.Nine personnel were killed on theground, while six civilians were killedand 21 injured in the surroundingarea.

At Biggin Hill, Gp Capt Gricehad ordered all fighter aircraft stillon the ground to get airborne in an‘emergency scramble’. Spitfires fromBiggin-based No 610 Squadron andHurricanes from No 32 Squadron,plus Hurricanes from 615 at Kenley,were now patrolling above Biggin at25,000ft. At 13.45hrs, 60 HeinkelHe 111s from KG 1, stepped up information from 12,000 to 15,000ft,lined up for their attack on Biggin.Ten minutes later, Dornier Do 17Zsfrom KG 76 ran in to make a low-levelattack at 100ft.Biggin Hill’s parachute and cable

device rockets— the rocket liftinginto the bombers’ path a cable withan explosive device attached— werefired, bringing down two Dorniers,with several others being forced totake evasive action. This resulted inmany cargoes being released too early,the bombs falling into trees in thewood east of the airfield.Three minutes after the low-flying

Dorniers had departed, the Heinkelsbegan unleashing their bombs, butthe attacks from Biggin’s Hurricanesand Spitfires prevented what couldhave been a truly devasting result,with many bombs again falling inthe woods. Most of the personnel atBiggin had time to take cover beforethe bombers arrived, but two anti-aircraft gunners were killed, and threeother ground staff injured.One Heinkel was shot down and

another damaged by Spitfires from

❖

BIGGIN 75

BELOW:One ofthe people thecommemorationwas about: WAAFswitchboardoperator Sgt JoanMortimer.

ABOVE: Aspectacular viewof Grice Flight, ledby Richard Verrallin Fairfax Spitfires’LFVc EE602. Notablehere is the AirLeasing-operatedSeafire III PP972, inthe hands of DavePuleston.KEVIN WILLS

No 65 Squadron, but only two of theDorniers made it back to France. FiveHurricanes from No 32 Squadron werelost that day, all of the pilots balingout and surviving. Some of the bombsthat fell short of the airfield explodedclose to the Kings Arms pub at LeavesGreen, killing six civilians.The raid on Biggin had lasted barely

10 minutes. By the end of the day, theLuftwaffe had lost 69 aircraft destroyedor damaged beyond repair, and theRAF 34 fighters.The weather on 18 August 2015

was very different to that encountered75 years earlier, overcast with raincoming in from the east. Peter Monkwas leading Hamlyn Flight, routingover Kent and overflying the Battle ofBritain Memorial at Capel-le-Ferne,the fighter base at Hawkinge and thento Dover. He says: “A few miles outfrom Capel, we were confronted witha wall of rain, so sadly we had to turnback. Although it was amazing to leada formation of five Hurricanes andthree Spitfires, I had mixed feelingswhen we got back in the pattern atBiggin: being out front, I couldn’t seeany of the others, and I wanted tosee what all of this looked like fromthe ground!” Grice Flight, led byRichard Verrall in Fairfax Spitfires’MkVc EE602, had better luck, gettingto Portsmouth in more favourableweather conditions.

Having completed the tour ofNo 11 Group airfields, Dan Griffithand Mortimer Flight arrived back atBiggin first, the eight Spitfires then

flying a standing patrol in finger fourconfiguration. Dan explains: “Wewanted to evoke the sight of Spitfiresintercepting the Luftwaffe, so came inat two heights, with a lower elementof four Spitfires at 900ft and an upperelement at 1,800ft. I then called,“Random peel-offs— go” over theaerodrome. We hope it looked good!”Stephen Stead flew his Spitfire

LFXVIe TE184 in Hamlyn Flight.

He told Aeroplane, “I was impressedby the level of detail required in thebriefing for the pilots, everything fromstart-up to taxi, take-off, routing andreturn. It’s no easy task to manage somany rapidly overheating engines! Iwas struck by the simplicity of theevent, yet how much emotion itstirred in the pilots, ground crews,organisers and the public. I loved thecrowd at the end of runway 03 wavingUnion flags, and the feeling of prideI had at being a participant in sucha momentous occasion. The wholeevent was truly very British, the rightbalance of excellence, organisation andunderstatement. Simply wonderful.”Although Biggin got off relatively

lightly on 18 August 1940, anotherattack on 30 August resulted in far

greater damage to the airfield. Theoperations room was completelydestroyed, and 39 personnel werekilled, with a further 35 wounded.Following her heroic actions on

18 August, Sgt Joan Mortimer wasawarded the Military Medal. Thecitation stated that she: “Displayedexceptional courage and coolness whilstunder attack which had a great moraleffect on all those whom she came into

contact with. Her steadfast courage toboth remain at her post whilst underbombardment and to undertake actionto prevent further aircraft losses wasoutstanding.”During December 1940, Mortimer’s

fiance was shot down and killed overDover. She never married, and afterher discharge she returned to her homein Stowmarket, Suffolk, where shelived with her mother. Following hermother’s death, Joan bought the WaterRun Farm in nearby Forward Green,and developed an ecology garden.She also wrote a regular column forthe East Anglian Daily Times aboutbirds and their nesting habits. JoanMortimer died in hospital in thetown of Eye, Suffolk, on26 August 1997.

‘We wanted to evoke the sight of Spitfiresintercepting the Luftwaffe, so came in attwo heights. We hope it looked good!’


VULCAN XH558


ABOVE: VulcanXH558 flying offthe South Coast on12 September thisyear. RICHARD PAVER

2015, and the definitive conclusion toXH558’s airworthy career.To quote VTST’s own explanation,

“…having evaluated a great manyfactors, the three expert companieson whom we depend — known asthe technical authorities [MarshallAerospace, Rolls-Royce and BAESystems]— have together decided tocease their support at the end of thisflying season. Without that support,under Civil Aviation Authorityregulations, we are prohibited fromflying.

ð


o, it’s nearly over. Nearlyeight years after first it tookto the air in civilian hands,Avro Vulcan B2 XH558has all but reached the

end of its flying life. We thought wewere there before, of course— in late1992, when the RAF’s Vulcan DisplayFlight took its final bow, leaving justone delivery flight to Bruntingthorpethe following spring, and an uncertainfuture. Dr Robert Pleming had otherideas. Now, the Vulcan to the Sky Trust(VTST) is readying itself for October

S

The final flying season for Vulcan XH558 has brought forth numeroushighlights — and it’s not quite done yet

WORDS: BEN DUNNELL

VULCANFAREWELL

S

VULCAN XH558

BELOW:Overheadthe RAFMuseum at

Hendon duringthe ‘Salute the‘V-Force’ Tour’.

PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES

“At the heart of their decision aretwo factors. First, although we are allconfident that XH558 is currently assafe as any aircraft flying today, herstructure and systems are already morethan 10 per cent beyond the flying

hours of any other Vulcan, so knowingwhere to look for any possible failure isbecoming more difficult. These can bethought of as the ‘unknown unknown’issues, which can be impossible topredict with any accuracy. Second,maintaining her superb safety recordrequires expertise that is increasinglydifficult to find.“Our technical partners already

bring specialists out of retirementspecifically to work on XH558, a

solution that is increasingly impracticalfor those businesses as the necessaryskills become distant in their collectivememories. We have recently been madeaware that the skills issue is particularlyacute as our engines age and will

require a considerable amount ofadditional (and costly) inspection andassessment.”No wonder, therefore, that XH558

has been such a star attraction thisseason. Familiar it may be, but 2015has proved time and again, even to themost seasoned observer, that little elseon the display circuit commands suchpublic attention.By the time you read these words,

the Vulcan will have only a few

public flights left, including displaysat Church Fenton, Gaydon and OldWarden. They will set the seal on justabout XH558’s most extensive annualprogramme of appearances since itsdisplay debut in mid-2008, eventaking into account a small number ofcancellations for technical and weatherreasons. Included within have been,arguably, some of the aircraft’s mostmemorable showings.As the season reaches its climax, who

better to discuss the highlights withthan Martin Withers DFC? The ‘BlackBuck’ raid veteran, VTST’s chief pilot,is heavily involved with all aspects ofXH558’s operation even when not inthe cockpit himself. When Aeroplanespoke to him, he was in the throes ofplanning October’s ‘last hurrah’, butkeen also to look back on an excellentyear. We also talked to fellow XH558display pilot Bill Ramsey, who flew onseveral of these occasions.

SALUTE THE ‘V-FORCE’ TOURThe pattern was set from XH558’sseasonal debut at Throckmorton on6 June. The small charity show inWorcestershire had never attractedsuch crowds. Three weeks later, withseveral more displays by then under itsbelt, the Vulcan took part in a uniqueoccasion — the ‘Salute the ‘V-Force’Tour’. The objective over the weekendof 27-28 June was for XH558 to fly overall the UK sites where other complete‘V-bombers’ can today be found.“It was a wonderful idea”, says Martin

Withers. “Wherever possible, at thesame time we gave a little mini-display.The timing of it was [ideal], because itenabled four of the pilots, at least, to geta nice bit of practice near the beginningof the season. It all worked well, lots ofpeople saw us, and it was really enjoyed.

The only problem was that when wepromised a flypast and gave a mini-display, everybody then expected amini-display when we promised thema flypast!“We went to every single place that’s

got them. At Cosford, of course, there’sone of each, and they’re the only placethat’s got a Valiant. At Duxford we flewover the Vulcan that I [delivered] to themuseum in 1982 — it’s got my nameon the door.”The tour was not, Martin says,

unduly hard to plan. The fact of mostof the aircraft being located at currentor former airfields definitely assisted.“The good thing was that at some pointthey’d actually been flown in to anairfield, with the exception, I think, of[the aircraft at] Hendon. That made it

reasonably easy to organise if you talkedto the right person, and it all ran verysmoothly.”A full display also took place on the

Sunday. “It so happened that we wereable to accommodate Cleethorpes onthat day. It was stretching it a little bit,and asking rather a lot of the crew to dothat, but it was the last thing they didon their way back in to Doncaster. Italso helped cover some of the cost.”The weekend’s success was not in

doubt. Take, for example, the appearanceoverhead the RAF Museum Cosford.Just two weeks earlier, XH558 had givena full display at the sold-out CosfordAirshow. On the promise just of a flypast— which turned into a limited display— the people of the Midlands turnedout again in their thousands.

‘The tour enabled four of the pilots to geta nice bit of practice early in the season’

ABOVE:MartinWithers brings theVulcan round the OldWarden ‘bend’, infront of Shuttleworth’sbiggest crowd to date.DARREN HARBAR

ABOVE: CaptionCREDIT

BELOW: CaptionCREDIT

Some of XH558’s most impactfulappearances have been at smaller venuesless used to witnessing such a largejet aircraft displaying overhead. LittleGransden has been one such, and on 5July the Shuttleworth Collection at OldWarden became another. The promiseof both the newly-restored Blenheimand the Vulcan on the same bill at theMilitary Pageant Air Display led toShuttleworth’s first ever advance ticketsell-out.“That was very much my choice of

venue”, Martin comments, “and I did thedisplay there, because I love old aircraftand lots of old things — I relate well tothem!“It was quite a tricky site for the

Vulcan. I haven’t often had theopportunity to display somewhere that,effectively, has two display lines [owingto the Old Warden dog-leg crowd line],but I think it’s a lovely way to displaythe aircraft because you [can] do topsidepasses, which is very difficult normally.Of course, the normal way to display itis on a long, straight display line.”This was the first time XH558 had

appeared at a Shuttleworth show since itsRAF days. It hopefully won’t be the last.“Because they can only accommodate asmall number of people at Old Warden,and because they couldn’t take as manypeople as wanted to get tickets, we areplanning to go there again on 4 October.That, at the moment, will be its lastproper public display.”

In a year of unusual formations, theRNAS Yeovilton Air Day stagedanother on 11 July — a combinationof ‘V-jets’. All British-built, theycomprised Sea Vixen FAW2 XP924from the Fly Navy Heritage Trust,with Simon Hargreaves in command,the Vampire T55 and FB6 of theNorwegian Air Force HistoricalSquadron piloted by Kenneth Aarkvisla

and Per Strømmen, and the Vulcan,here captained by Bill Ramsey.Any dissimilar formation requires

a good deal of planning. “All thesethings take time, and they’re all donevery thoroughly”, says Martin Withers.“We can’t just pitch up and say, “We’llgo echelon left and tag on behind you”— it’s a lot more complex, particularlywith mixed types and different speeds.

BELOW: Yeovilton’s‘V-jet’ formation —Sea Vixen, Vampiresand Vulcan.STEVEN COMBER/VTST

DEBUT AT SHUTTLEWORTH

‘V-JETS’ AT YEOVILTON

ð


VULCAN XH558

ABOVE:Amemorable

flypast with theReds over RIAT.

RICH COOPER

Of course, on that occasion we alltook off from the same venue, so itwas pretty straightforward. When youare taking off from different places,you must ensure you get a full briefingand that everybody understands thebrief. To that end we have a proper

briefing pro-forma, even with picturesof the Vulcan and the sight-linesyou’re looking for.”At Yeovilton, the Sea Vixen led the

formation, with the two Vampires

outboard in vic, and the Vulcan tuckedin behind. Why this configuration?“What you have to remember withthe Vulcan”, Martin says, “is that youcannot see the guys on your wing,because of the visibility. Many yearsago [in 2009] I led the Red Arrows

around at Dawlish… They called thatthey were in formation, but I didn’teven see them at that point. I let downto fly past Dawlish, went into a bigorbit, back round and then reversed

the turn into a teardrop to fly downthe line. In the Vulcan we pulled upto the right to start our display andthe Red Arrows carried on ahead, andI never saw a bit of red. I had to see aphotograph of it afterwards.”Bill Ramsey says of the ‘V-jet’

quartet, “Compared to someformations that we fly, it was relativelystraightforward. I know SimonHargreaves really well— in fact, hewas one of the students that I taughtto fly many years ago. Simon was, ineffect, doing the operational planningfor that sortie, so we listened to hissage words and sat behind him. It wasinteresting because he warned us thatthe Sea Vixen has a tendency to Dutchroll, which it duly did. If we’d turnedour own yaw dampers off, we’d havedone the same thing!”


AWARD-WINNING RIATFrom Yeovilton, XH558 flew to RAFFairford for the year’s ‘big one’, theRoyal International Air Tattoo. Itproved a triumph. In the midst ofthe best RIAT for some years, theVulcan was far from overshadowed,and captained by Kev Rumens itrather stole Saturday’s show. His was adramatic sequence from the momenthe un-sticked, starting with a steeply-banked turn straight after take-off, andconcluding with a howling zoom climbinto the most vertiginous of wingovers.

That weekend, Martin Withersspent many an hour doing signingsessions in the Vulcan Village, buthe too was able to savour thosespectacular aerial moments. Hecomments, “I think Kev Rumens’display on the Saturday was the bestone I’ve ever seen, and probably thebest one I will ever see. I know itraised a few eyebrows, but it was flownas briefed and absolutely precisely.He really does fly the aeroplanebeautifully, everything he does is

calculated, and it comes out just as he’sbriefed.”Its solo completed, XH558 took

part in its last formation flybys withthe Red Arrows, on both days against aclear blue sky. As Martin says, “Flyingin with the Red Arrows in front of thatlarge crowd, that appreciative crowd,and so many Vulcan supporters, justadded up for me to the highlight ofthe season. The Vulcan is so nice to flyin formation— it’s so stable, and somanoeuvrable.”

‘Kev Rumens’ display on the Saturday atRIAT was the best one I’ve ever seen, and

probably the best one I will ever see’

As a former Red 11, the officercommanding the Red Arrows,no wonder Bill Ramsey describescaptaining that particular formation as“quite emotional”. He adds: “The waythat the Red Arrows do formations andcontrol formations hasn’t changed sincemy day a decade ago, so it was easy tounderstand what they wanted… All

ð


I had to do was put my head where Iused to put it when I was flying theHawk in the same position, and forgetthere was 100ft of aeroplane behindme with a 111ft wingspan.”The effort made by all was well

worth it. At the Sunday nightprizegiving, XH558 was awarded the‘As the Crow Flies’ Trophy for best

display as voted for by the enthusiastmembers of the Friends of RIAT. Theyhad enjoyed literally a grandstand viewof that take-off. Recalls Martin, “Wehad great fun in the evening passing[the trophy] around all the engineers— I think everybody had theirphotograph taken with it, because itwas in recognition of the whole team.”

A FLIGHT WITH EAGLESOn the Vulcan’s display season went,taking in most of the year’s majorUK displays. There were poignantmoments at Shoreham, of course —few there will forget the spectacle,much applauded by the audience, ofXH558 making a single pass as a markof tribute in the wake of the tragicHunter accident. But airshows wenton, and a few days later the Vulcanwas booked for the Clacton seafrontevent in Essex. En route, it took partin a very unusual formation over RAFLakenheath, Suffolk, with two F-15CEagles (plus a third as a photo chase)from the US Air Force’s 493rd FighterSquadron.Martin was on board XH558 that

day, with Bill as the pilot flying. “Myunderstanding is that the [Lakenheath]base commander is an aviation buff”,says Bill, “and he had harboured for along time the desire to see the Vulcan

flying at Lakenheath. Somehow thatword got to the powers-that-be, and itsnowballed from there.“I dealt with an American captain

who was very professional. We briefedit carefully via a telephone brief, and Ithink it went very well.”One surprise came in the way the

USAF pilots turned the F-15s information with the Vulcan. Recalls Bill,“I had forgotten that the Americansdon’t necessarily fly formation in thesame way as us— in other words, theytend to do what they call a ‘flat turn’,as opposed to staying up on plane, sogoing up or down depending on whatside of the turn you’re on. It meantthat the chap who ‘flat-turned’ onthe inside of the turn kind of rolledbelly-up to us, which, even with thelovely look-out from an F-15, wouldhave made it very difficult for him tosee us.”

Since then, hard work by the VTSTengineers returned the aircraft rapidlyto serviceability after a nosewheelproblem during the Scottish Airshow atPrestwick and a suspected fuel leak enroute to Goodwood and Old Sarum.Such things will occasionally happen,and safety, naturally, remains theprime concern. At the time of writing,XH558 was serviceable for Southporton 19 September, after which werescheduled displays at Church Fentona week later, and both the HeritageMotor Centre at Gaydon — a former‘V-Force’ base— and Shuttleworth on4 October.Confirmation that 2015 would

definitely see the end of flying forXH558 came not long before itsfirst display of the year. “We hadn’tplanned this to be the last season atall”, says Martin Withers. “With thatknowledge, we then were determined

BELOW: The Vulcanabove Lakenheathwith two USAFF-15C Eagles. USAF

VULCAN XH558

ABOVE:Manoeuvring

near Beachy Headduring a photo

sortie staged on theback of the Vulcan’s

appearanceat Airbourne,

the EastbourneAirshow.

STEVEN COMBER/VTST

mean that a lot more people saw us— we’ve done lots of little flypasts,mini-displays and different things likethe ‘V-bomber’ tour.”In the planning stages when these

words were written, two flights aredue to be made on the weekend of10-11 October (but check the websitefor confirmation). The aim, MartinWithers says, is “to try and give asmany people as possible the chanceto see the Vulcan for the lasttime”. Expect not a little emotion,for its like will never beseen in British skiesagain — but it’s beengood while it’slasted, hasn’t it?


FURTHER INFORMATIONFor further information on XH558’s final flights, howyou can support them, and details of VTST’s futureplans for the aircraft, visit www.vulcantothesky.org.

to get as much as we possiblycould out of the season. What hadhappened in the past was that we’vebeen limited to 50 hours’ flying [in ayear], purely based on the servicingintervals for the aeroplane. Kev ‘Taff’Stone, our chief engineer, was able tomodify the servicing programme tothe satisfaction of Marshall Aerospaceso that, just with a certain amountof intermediate servicing, we couldactually do more hours.“Instead of 50 hours, we’re going

to be hitting 70 hours for this year.Last year I don’t think we did muchmore than about 35 hours of flying.This doesn’t mean we’re doing twiceas many public displays, but it does

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BILLANCOURT RAID

almost 20,000 vehicles per year for theGerman armed forces, mainly lorriesas well as some armoured fightingvehicles. In addition, it was making alarge number of components for theaviation industry.The raid would be the first

undertaken by the bomber force with

Air Marshal Arthur Travers Harrisin charge, he having only becomeAir Officer Commanding-in-Chief(AOC-in-C) Bomber Commandon 22 February. The plan called fora maximum number of aircraft tobe concentrated over the target inas short a space of time as possible.


n the night of 3 March1942, the Royal AirForce launched its largestbombing raid of the

war to date. The target was the giantRenault works at Billancourt on thesouth-western outskirts of Paris. Thefactory was estimated to be producing

O

Bomber Command’s raid against the Renault works at Billancourt on3 March 1942 was a pivotal one for several reasons. Not only did it seethe first application of new operational techniques under Arthur Harris,but post-strike reconnaissance brought to the fore the outstanding

qualities of the new de Havilland Mosquito

TARGET:BILLANCOURT

WORDS: ANDREW FLETCHER

ð


To facilitate this, a number of newtechniques were to be employed. Allaircraft were to proceed to the targetusing a common route, the so-calledbomber stream, with each squadronadhering to strict take-off timingsspecified in the operations order. Theraid would be split into three waves totake account of the differing speeds ofthe aircraft types involved, so that theaircraft in each individual wave wouldbe over the target at the same timeand in rapid succession with the otherwaves. Experienced crews were used inthe first wave in an attempt to ensurebombing accuracy, the same reasonfor the extensive employment of flaresby aircraft in that wave to mark thetarget area. As minimal flak oppositionwas expected, the plan required theattack to be made from low level in afurther effort to render it more accurateand minimise collateral damage tothe surrounding area, much of whichhoused the Renault workers and theirfamilies.On the evening of the raid, just prior

to dusk, the first of 48 Hampdens,23 Whitleys, 89 Wellingtons, 26Manchesters, 29 Stirlings and 20Halifaxes from Nos 1, 3, 4 and 5Groups — 235 aircraft in total —began to take off from their bases innorthern England, the East Midlands

and East Anglia. Their flight plancalled for them to fly south towardsthe Bicester area and on to the southcoast between Shoreham-by-Sea andWorthing, all the time ensuring theykept clear of the London defences.Many aircraft in the first wave circledoff the coast of Sussex in order to allowthe light to fade and gain altitude priorto making for France.In good visibility and fine weather,

the first of the bombers began to crossthe Channel at approximately 19.30hrs,all the time climbing in order toarrive over the French coast at 8,000ftbetween Saint-Valery-en-Caux andDieppe before setting course for Paris.Some crews reported sporadic light flakfrom the Dieppe area and a little whilelater from Rouen, but nothing of anyreal significance.The leading wave had no problem

in picking out the River Seine southof Rouen and following it in towardsParis. The sprawling Renault factorywas located at the southern end of agiant loop of the Seine, spread alongthe north bank and on the Île Seguin inthe river itself, making it conspicuousto the crews as they descended tocommence their bombing runs.The attack was scheduled to start at

21.00hrs. Almost right on time, aircraftat the front of the first wave began to

release their payloads of marker flaresand bombs. For most of the nexttwo hours, tons of munitions raineddown on the target, with some aircraftbombing from as low as 1,400ft. Targetmarking was so accurate that crewsreported being blinded by flares as theymade their bombing runs. In the clearconditions and from the low altitude,they could see many other aircraftin the glare, and watched as bombsexploded amongst the confines of thefactory.Opposition in the vicinity was

practically non-existent, just alittle light flak being put up fromthe complex of airfields aroundVillacoublay to the south. In fact, suchwas the lack of interference from theGermans that, in marked contrast tothe usual practice of exiting the targetarea immediately, some aircraft stayedin the locality for extended periods,watching the progress of the raid asit unfolded. For most, however, withbomb loads released they charted acourse home, back towards theHaute-Normandie/Picardie coast beforecrossing the Channel.A Hampden from No 144 Squadron

reported being fired upon by a smallconvoy shortly after crossing out fromthe French coast, but on the wholethe return leg was largely uneventful.

ABOVE: A June1941, and thuspre-delivery, imageof Mosquito PRIW4051. The firstsuch productionexample, thiswas the aircraftflown by Fg OffVictor Rickettswith observer SgtBoris Lukhmanoffon post-strikereconnaissancefollowing the attackon the Billancourtfactory.VIA ANDREW THOMAS

BILLANCOURT RAID

ABOVE:No 311(Czechoslovak)

Squadronpersonnel relax at

East Wretham priorto the Billancourtraid of 3 March1942. Most of

the individualsshown flew laterthat evening. SgtBohuslav Hradil,front row secondfrom right, would

not return.J. ROZUMOVA

BELOW:WellingtonIc R1532/KX-R of No311 (Czechoslovak)Squadron, one ofthe eight aircraftdespatched by

the unit to bombBillancourt.

Z. HURT

Only one aircraft failed to return home,Wellington Ic Z1070/KX-Y of No 311(Czechoslovak) Squadron piloted bySgt Bohuslav Hradil. It crashed nearCreil with the loss of all on board.Another, sadly, was destroyed whenit landed at Marham in Norfolk. AsStirling I N3712/HA-Y of No 218Squadron touched down, a hung-upbomb detonated when it shook loose.All of the crew were injured, with twosubsequently dying of their wounds.Of the 235 aircraft despatched on

the raid, 223 claimed to have bombedthe target. In a little under two hours,461 tons of bombs were droppedon the Renault factory. At post-raiddebriefs the mood among the bombercrews was generally one of elation, witha real belief that it had been a greatsuccess. Most reported very accuratebombing. Numerous crews claimedto have observed their own bombs aswell as those of other aircraft explodingright on target.It was imperative for Bomber

Command that post-raidreconnaissance photographs beobtained as soon as possible, so thatthe results could be accurately assessedbefore the Germans could repair orcover up any of the damage caused.

Since July 1941 Bomber Command’sown dedicated bomb damageassessment unit, No 3 PhotographicReconnaissance Unit, had beenamalgamated and ultimately absorbedinto No 1 PRU, which was part ofCoastal Command. This was the causeof much friction between the twoorganisations, Bomber Commandregularly expressing the view thatits damage assessment requirementswere not given a high enough prioritywhen compared to other agencies,most notably those of the Admiraltyin tracking the movements of majorGerman naval units. In an effort toappease Bomber Command, the AirMinistry set up a channel wherebythe former could make requests forphotographic coverage direct toHeadquarters Coastal Commandinstead of via the Assistant Directorateof Intelligence (Photography) at the AirMinistry.To this end, the day before the raid

actually took place Gp Capt LawrencePendred, chief intelligence officer atBomber Command, had informed No1 PRU at RAF Benson in Oxfordshirethat a most important sortie tonorthern France for damage assessmentmight be required. Specific details were

not passed on at this stage and only theunit’s commanding officer, Wg CdrJohn Stratton, and the duty intelligencestaff at Benson were made aware of thepossibility.During the evening of 3 March,

when the first of Bomber Command’saircraft were taking off for Paris,HQ Coastal Command contactedNo 1 PRU to inform it of BomberCommand’s requirements. The taskwas considered so urgent that multipleaircraft were requested to be put onstand-by and be ready for immediatetake-off from 08.15hrs the nextmorning. The sortie was assigned thereference A/380.In contrast to the night of the raid

itself, the morning of 4 March broughtheavy rain, low cloud and very limitedvisibility. Under these conditions,normal photographic reconnaissancesorties would not be undertaken, butsuch was the importance placed on thistask by Bomber Command that No 1PRU remained on stand-by in the hopethat things would improve. Due tothe prevailing weather, it was plannedthat a Mosquito would undertake themission as the type was fitted withwireless equipment, something thatmost photographic reconnaissanceSpitfires lacked at this time.No 1 PRU was the first recipient

of the Mosquito in the RAF. It wascurrently operating a detached flight ofMosquitos, ‘H’ Flight, from Leucharsin Scotland but was in the process offorming a second flight, known as ‘J’Flight, at Benson.The crew detailed to undertake

sortie A/380 comprised Fg Off VictorRicketts and Sgt Boris Lukhmanoff.Pre-war, Victor Anthony Ricketts wasthe air reporter for the Daily Expresswho, together with New ZealanderArthur Clouston, broke the record forflying from Britain to Australia andback, landing DH88 Comet G-ACSSat Croydon on 26 March 1938 aftercompleting their epic flight in 10days, 21 hours and 22 minutes. Inthe process they established 10 otherrecords including the first round tripto New Zealand from Britain. Ricketts


TOP LEFT:MosquitoPRI W4051 picturedin 1942 wearing fullNo 1 PRUmarkingswith codes LY-U.VIA ANDREW THOMAS

TOP RIGHT: Flt LtVictor Ricketts andSgt Boris Lukhmanoffin a photo taken atBenson during theearly summer of1942. C. TOZER

ABOVE: Amass oftwisted metal andgirders in one of thefactory buildings thathadmanufacturedcrankshafts, valvesandmotors.AP/PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES

ABOVE LEFT:An entrance tothe bombed-outBillancourt factoryshows the extentof devastationwrought by BomberCommand.AP/PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES

became a member of the Royal AirForce Volunteer Reserve in March 1939and was called up in September uponthe outbreak of war. On completion offlying training he was posted to No 248Squadron early in 1940, continuingto fly with the unit until spring1941, when he went to the FighterInterception Unit. Ricketts joined No1 PRU early in 1942, completing hisfirst operational sortie with it on 20February when he flew a Mosquito tocover Toulouse and targets along theeastern Franco-Spanish frontier.He had recently crewed up with

George Boris Lukhmanoff, anAmerican citizen of Russian descent.Sgt Lukhmanoff was already anexperienced Mosquito observer/navigator, being a veteran of manysorties to Norway with ‘H’ Flight. In1941 he was a member of a No 206Squadron detachment to Gibraltar thatflew a number of special reconnaissancesorties to Vichy French territoriesin Africa. Since the start of 1942Lukhmanoff had become a member of‘J’ Flight, the new Mosquito elementworking up at Benson.Although it was intended that

Ricketts and Lukhmanoff shouldleave for Paris as early as possible, itwas not until 11.20hrs that visibilityimproved enough for Ricketts toget Mosquito PRI W4051 airborne.Almost immediately after take-off the

weather closed in again, as Rickettsrecorded in his post-flight report: “Lostsight of ground immediately after takeoff and climbed to 2,000 feet settingcourse of 157 degrees for Rouen. Flewby instruments in 10/10 cloud butwithout icing. Tried to find pinpoint onEnglish coast and descended at 11:35to 1,000 feet. Caught glimpse of fieldbut not enough visibility to establishposition so climbed up again to 4,000feet.”Even though they were unable

accurately to fix their position theycrossed the Channel in solid clag,climbing until at 6,000ft they emerged

from the top of the cloud layersomewhere near the French coast, withstill more cloud above. Lukhmanoffwas having to work hard to computetheir position by dead reckoning, andon their estimated time of arrival atRouen the ground was still not visible.Here they changed course for Paris andpressed on, descending slowly.Five minutes before ETA for Paris,

W4051 broke cloud over open countryat 700ft, and the Seine was observed.Three minutes later and withoutwarning Ricketts flew into a clear patch

at 1,000ft, somewhere north-west ofParis. He climbed hard, seeking toregain the cover of the cloud base at2,000ft, and did so. After a coupleof minutes Lukhmanoff informedhis pilot that they should be near thecity’s northern outskirts, so Rickettsdescended again and at 500ft theyemerged on the north-eastern edge ofthe French capital. Here they turnedonto a reciprocal heading, keeping justinside the cloudbase until the Seinecould be seen to the west.Once the river was reached it was

decided that they would track its courseto the target, so Lukhmanoff crawled

forward into the bomb aimer’s positionto give instructions to Ricketts. Hewas having difficulty seeing enough ofthe river from the pilot’s seat to followit in the very poor visibility. Witheach steep turn made by W4051 as itfollowed the winding Seine the gyrocompass would spin, meaning that itwas impossible for Ricketts to maintainany idea of what course he was flyingfrom his instruments. Coupled withthis, from 12.35hrs onwards accuratetime-keeping was not practicable so hefinally gave up on precise navigation,

‘Lukhmanoff was having to work hard tocompute their position by dead reckoning’

ð


BILLANCOURT RAID

ABOVE: A low-level oblique of the

Renault works atBillancourt takenon 4March 1942.Extensive damage

is visible to allbuildings, while

about 40 tanks andarmoured cars can

be seen strewnabout between the

wrecked sheds.C. TOZER

ABOVE: Captured from approximately 500ft, this photo is typical of the blastdamage caused to the works. It shows at least four direct hits. C. TOZER

RIGHT: A specialRDF plot was kept asthe progress of thesortie was closely

followed. As Rickettsrecorded in his photojournal, “They picked

us up going outand coming home

20-30 miles from theEnglish coast.” C. TOZER

having to rely on the very limitedvisibility to determine where he was.Suddenly they were upon their

target, as Ricketts continued in hisreport: “We came on the target at 500

feet. It had been passed before we hadtime to start the cameras and we flewon for a minute then turned steeplyto port around the approximate targetarea which was very difficult to seethrough low mist and turned on theoblique camera. Levelled out as SgtLukhmanoff shouted that the targetwas visible again and turned on all

the vertical cameras. Flew across themiddle of the target area at 400-600feet on altimeter and could see thatmuch damage had been caused to allbuildings in the immediate vicinity.Turned steeply to starboard and ranacross the target again from anotherdirection. At the end of this particularrun I caught sight of the base of theEiffel Tower. Made a third run, thistime forced to descend to 400 feetowing to lowering cloud. Attempteda fourth run but due to very poorand decreasing visibility and theMosquito’s speed (240mph) lost sightof the target. As we had been overthe target area for 34 minutes andwere confident that we had obtainedpictures as good as could be expectedunder the prevailing conditions setcourse for home, 332 degrees, andstarted to climb.”At approximately 5,000ft, W4051

broke out of the top of the low cloudlayer, which was still a solid 10/10ths.Lukhmanoff informed his pilot thattheir present heading would take themout very close to Dieppe, so Rickettsaltered to a more westerly course for

four minutes before reverting to theoriginal.The ETA for the French coast was

13.25hrs. At 13.28 the Mosquitobegan to descend through cloud totry and find the cloudbase in goodtime prior to arriving at the Englishcoast. About 10 miles off France theaircraft broke cloud at 1,500ft, but the

ceiling lowered steadily with decreasingvisibility. Ricketts changed course tocome in over the low beaches betweenBeachy Head and Selsey Bill, whileLukhmanoff made radio contact withBenson. He was informed that therewas no possibility of landing back atbase, as visibility was zero.Trying to bring his airspeed down

to 160mph, Ricketts lowered theundercarriage but was forced to reduceheight to zero feet indicated, at whichthe pilot could just see the water.Maintaining this altitude and speedthe crew sought to land at Ford orTangmere, but after coasting-in nearLittlehampton at 13.55hrs the pilotclimbed rapidly as it was immediatelyapparent that no landing could bemade in this area.Now at 2,000ft and still in 10/10ths

cloud, Lukhmanoff obtained a bearingfrom Benson and was informed thatconditions had improved, with theceiling lifting to 800ft and visibility at1,200 yards. About 10 miles south ofReading, Ricketts again started to loseheight in an effort to find the Thamesand follow it through the valley. Helevelled out at 850ft in order to avoidany possibility of crashing into theChiltern Hills, and caught a glimpseof hangars and aircraft in a temporarybreak in the clouds. On descending to500ft the aerodrome was identified asprobably being Woodley, near Reading.With Lukhmanoff again in the nose togive directions Ricketts attempted toland, but it was not until the sixth gothat he was able to touch the aircraftdown safely, doing so at 14.15hrs.Within minutes of W4051 taxiing

to a halt, Ricketts was talking on thetelephone to Sqn Ldr John Weaver,


‘It was the most successful sortie No 1 PRUhad accomplished under such conditions’

No 1 PRU’s chief intelligence officer.He was able to give a brief visual reportand confirm that extensive damagewas apparent to various parts of theRenault works. Weaver instantlypassed this information on to HQBomber Command and HQ CoastalCommand.Lukhmanoff unloaded the film

magazines from the Mosquito’s camerasin preparation for collection. By16.25hrs pilot, observer and magazineshad arrived at the Intelligence Sectionat Benson. The films were rushed to thePhotographic Section for development,ready for first phase analysis. At17.00 Gp Capt Pendred at BomberCommand telephoned the IntelligenceSection to say that his AOC wasmost impressed with the sortie andhad requested the names of the crewinvolved as he intended to write a letterof appreciation to Coastal Commandfor what he termed a remarkable flight.Bomber Command was informed

three quarters of an hour later that thenegatives were satisfactory and thatprints would be despatched once thePhotographic Section had finisheddrying them. At 20.10 a despatchrider left Benson for Medmenham andthen on to Southdown with multiplecopies. By 21.45 the photographs fromsortie A/380 were handed to the dutyintelligence officer at HQ BomberCommand.

When the photographs were analysedby the photographic interpreters it wasreadily apparent that the claims madeby the bomber crews had not beenexaggerated. The damage caused in theraid was at a level never before achievedby Bomber Command. Many parts ofthe Renault works showed extensiveblast and fire damage, with largenumbers of wrecked vehicles beingvisible in some of the photographs. Twoof the most vital sections, the powerstation and the Seguin tank assemblyshops, were particularly heavilydamaged. Other sections seen to havebeen badly hit were the engine shops,aircraft depot, chemical plant, rollingmills, gasometer, administrative officesand various repair shops and foundries.As well as covering the Renault

works on one of their runs, Rickettsand Lukhmanoff had photographed theeastern half of the factory aerodromeat Issy-les-Moulineaux. These obliqueimages revealed no fewer than 71Caudron C445 Goéland transports, 43of which were un-camouflaged. Theremaining camouflaged aircraft all hadservice markings, two of which wereidentified as Luftwaffe wing markings.On studying the photographs during

first-phase analysis, Sqn Ldr Weaverwas of the opinion that A/380 wasprobably the most successful sortiecarried out under such conditions thatthe unit had ever completed. This viewwas supported when, the next day, a

ð


signal was received by the CO of No1 PRU from HQ Coastal Commandstating that AOC-in-C BomberCommand wished to convey his thanksto Ricketts and Lukhmanoff.Subsequent analysis showed that

lorry production at the Renault plantwas halted for four weeks and that thebombing wrecked over 700 completedvehicles. Although as much as 40per cent of the buildings had beendestroyed or seriously damaged, themachine tools within proved far moreresilient, and in the space of fourmonths the Germans had the factoryback in full production.As well as the actual results of the

bombing operationally, the raid wasalso a great success with a recordrate of 121 aircraft per hour beingconcentrated over the target, easilybeating the previous best of 80 perhour. The widespread use of flares,dropped by experienced crews in the

initial phases to mark the target, wasconsidered a significant contributoryfactor in the accuracy of the bombing.This technique would ultimately leadto the formation of the specialistPathfinder units.One sad consequence was the high

number of French civilian casualties.Over 300 were killed, more than 300others seriously injured, and manymore made homeless. Even thoughlow-altitude bombing was employedin an effort to minimise damage to thearea around the factory, many bombsdid stray beyond the target and landedin nearby residential areas. Apparently,another factor adding to the levelof casualties was the fact that manycivilians simply ignored the air raidsirens and failed to take shelter, as theRAF had never previously launched alarge-scale raid on Paris.For Bomber Command, the success

of the Billancourt raid showed what

❖

BOTTOM: Fg OffRicketts speakingto de Havillandworkers at Hatfieldon 11March 1942,shortly after hisepic sortie toBillancourt.C. TOZER

BELOW: The signalfrom the AOC-in-CCoastal Command,Air Marshal PhilipB. Joubert de laFerté, stating thathis BomberCommandcounterpart AirMarshal ArthurHarris wished tothank Ricketts andLukhmanoff fortheir sortie of 4March. C. TOZER

BILLANCOURT RAID

ABOVE: The signalfrom Air Marshal

Arthur Harriscongratulating

Flt Lt Ricketts on theaward of the DFC.

C. TOZER

TOP:MosquitoPRI W4060, in

which Ricketts andLukhmanoff flew afollow-up sortie to

Billancourt on8March 1942.

W. HOGG

RIGHT: The Under-Secretary of State

for Air, HaroldBalfour (left),

visited RAF Bensonon 28March 1942.

Whilst thereFlt Lt Ricketts (right)

demonstrated tohim the capabilitiesof theMosquito andflew him to his nextappointment at RAF

White Waltham.C. TOZER

could be achieved. The destructioncaused to the factory received a gooddeal of coverage in the national pressand provided a much-needed boostto morale, both for the bomber crewsand the civilian population. It gaveHarris the evidence he needed to showhis political masters that the bombingoffensive could be effective at takingthe war to the Germans and that enemyproduction could be seriously hindered.The lessons learned on this raid

would be put to good use in the future,with the bomber stream, concentrationof aircraft and target-markingbecoming standard operationalpractice. However, Harris was acutelyaware that operating at much greaterrange over heavily-defended targets inGermany itself would be a much moredifficult task and a far sterner test.As for Ricketts and Lukhmanoff,

four days after their low-level sortieto Billancourt they were again boundfor Paris, this time in Mosquito PRIW4060. Unlike their sortie of 4 March,the weather was more favourable andthey were able to obtain photographsof the Renault factory from 23,000ft.In the next few months the pair were tocover Billancourt many more times, atbetween 4,000 and 23,000ft, in orderthat the progress of German efforts toeffect repairs could be monitored.Along with their regular visits

to Paris, Ricketts and Lukhmanoffranged far and wide across Europe,in the process flying a number ofnotable sorties. Since their first missiontogether on 20 February 1942— thefurthest south by a Mosquito to dateand the first to use the American K18

camera— they made the operationaldebut of the Mosquito PRIV on 29April, obtaining photographs from24,000ft of Le Touquet, Bingen,Augsburg, Göppingen, Stuttgart,Karlsruhe, Zweibrucken, Homburg,Neunkirchen, Saarbrucken, Thionvilleand Valenciennes. On 7 May, again in aPRIV, they flew the deepest penetrationof enemy territory yet made by No1 PRU when they covered targets atZeebrugge, Gotha, Erfurt, Chemnitz,Brux, Kladno, Prague, Pilsen,Schwandorf, Nördlingen, Stuttgart andKarlsruhe in a sortie that lasted justover six hours.It was announced on 30 May 1942

that Ricketts, now a Flight Lieutenant,was to be awarded the DFC for hisoutstanding Billancourt sortie of 4March. Similarly, Lukhmanoff wasalso notified that he was to receive theDFM for the considerable contributionhe made to its success. The next dayRicketts received a personal signal ofcongratulation from Harris.

The stellar photo-recce flying careersof Ricketts and Lukhmanoff wouldcome to an abrupt end. At 13.48hrs on12 July 1942 they took off from Bensonin Mosquito PRII W4089 with theobjective of covering oil installations inthe Strasbourg and Ingolstadt areas, butthey failed to return. It seems highlylikely that they were the victims ofObfw Erwin Leibold of 3./JG 26, whoclaimed a Mosquito near Licques in thePas-de-Calais area at 14.35hrs. On thisday Leibold was flying with Stab I./JG 26 and his claim for a Mosquito, his11th individual claim, was the first everto be made by the wing for this typeof aircraft. No other aerial claims for aMosquito were made by the Luftwaffeon this date and W4089 was the onlyexample to be lost.Neither Ricketts nor Lukhmanoff

survived Leibold’s attack, their bodiesbeing recovered and buried withmilitary honours. They now rest in theCalais Canadian War Cemetery atLeubringhen.


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F or the 1930 King’s CupAir Race, a one-day,750-mile circuit of GreatBritain starting and

finishing at Hanworth on 5 July, thede Havilland Aircraft Company’smain effort was centred on the newDH80A Puss Moth. Nine wereentered by pilots including CaptGeoffrey de Havilland, HubertBroad, Lois Butler, Commander GlenKidston and Wally Hope. Geoffrey deHavilland Jr was the nominated pilotfor Gipsy II-powered DH60M MetalMoth demonstrator G-AASL, but allhad stiff opposition from companychairman Alan Butler’s entry, a newDH60M, the significantly modified‘Moth Special’ G-AAXG.The aircraft, works number 1542,

was registered to the company in May.It was a DH60M built for high speed,with a Gipsy II engine installationlowered by 2in and encased within aspecially-designed close-fitting cowlingthat blended into the fuselage. Fourstub exhausts were cut off flush withthe top of the cowling on the port side.The steel tube frame was ‘rounded-off’by the addition of wooden formersand stringers to the sides and the topdecking before covering with fabric.The front cockpit was faired over witha transparent cover hinged on the portside. Fitted in the front cockpit wasan auxiliary petrol tank of 20-galloncapacity, from which fuel was hand-pumped to a slim gravity tank holdingnine gallons that occupied the cabanestructure. This was built to conformexactly to the profile of the wingsection and thus hardly noticeable oncasual inspection.

For the King’s Cup the aircraftwas fitted with a streamlined racingundercarriage with continuous axleand small-diameter, thin wheels. Thetailskid tube was streamlined andfitted with a new type of shoe. Eventhe pitot head was miniaturised. Themost obvious deviation from standardwas the cabane, in which the normalstructure was replaced with an entirelyoriginal and unique system: threesets of ‘V’ struts, all braced withstreamlined wires running verticallyfrom the carry-through spars to thefuselage-top longerons. The wings werenot intended to be folded.G-AAXG tipped the scales at 976lb

empty when weighed on 26 June,after which Alan Butler completed a40-minute maiden flight to qualifyfor a C of A, issued that same day. Helogged a further nine hours before 4July, when the aircraft was positionedto Hanworth for inspection by thescrutineers a day before the start of theKing’s Cup.

Much to de Havilland’s undoubteddispleasure, the handicap race waswon by an Avro Avian III flown byWinifred Brown at an average speedof 102.75mph, but Alan Butler wassecond at 129.7mph, the fastest officialspeed, just beating his wife Lois inDH80A Puss Moth G-AAXL whoachieved fourth place at 129.56mph.For a man who made consistentlygenerous contributions to the RoyalAero Club’s prize fund, Alan Butlermight have been amused to receive aclutch of cheques: £100 for his second

place, £100 for achieving the fastestspeed and £50 for beating his handicap,all presented by C. C. Wakefield onbehalf of Castrol Oil. In addition,there was £50 from Shell for what ittermed “publicity value”, £30 from theNewcastle EveningWorld newspaperfor the fastest time between Hanworthand that city, and a trophy presented bythe Bristol Evening Times for securingsecond place.The International Touring

Competition of 1930, starting fromBerlin’s Tempelhofer Feld on themorning of Sunday 20 July andorganised by the Aero-Club vonDeutschland, attracted 97 entries ofwhich 60 were starters. The Britishcontingent of seven aircraft includedfour DH60Gs. Alan Butler withhis ‘Moth Special’ was allocatedcompetition number K5, the letterelement indicating a British entry.Scheduled for a period of 16 days,

the 4,700-mile route round Europepassed through nine countries andended with the ‘technical tests’ (specificsof design and performance) due to becompleted by the survivors on theirreturn to Berlin. For Alan Butler, therewere no prizes. After making goodprogress, in the latter stages G-AAXGhad tipped forward when landing onsoft ground at Posen in Germany,breaking the propeller. He wasdisqualified on the grounds that he hadnot carried the replacement propelleron board with him from the start.Having acquired in June a new

Puss Moth (G-AAXL), which was asfast as his Moth Special, after somemodifications including fitment of asplit undercarriage Butler sold G-AAXG

SPECIALONE

In no way could a standard DH60 Moth be described as inelegant,but when seen amidst its conventional brethren the competition

pedigree of the ‘Racing Moth’ stands outWORDS: STUART McKAY

RACING MOTH

OPPOSITE:Ben Cox flying

Simon Kidston’sDH60M ‘Moth

Special’ G-AAXGnear OldWarden

this June.DARREN HARBAR

❖

ð

BELOW: G-AAXGas it was entered inthe 1930 King’s Cup

by Alan Butler.BAE SYSTEMS

to his friend Edouard Bret in Cannes.Bret subsequently put up the fastesttime of eight hours 44 minutes,equivalent to a record 122mph, forflying the 1,036-mile route laid downfor the 1930 Zenith Cup, choosingto start and finish at Bordeaux on 27September and landing at Tours, Paris(Orly), Lyons, Marseilles and Toulouse.The aircraft was registered in France

as F-AJZB on 23 October and thefollowing year won the Zenith Cupfor a second time, at a slightly fasterspeed. In later life Edouard Bret wrote:“F-AJZB was very different to fly fromthe standard DH60 Moth. She was oneof the most enjoyable aeroplanes I everflew with perfectly balanced controls,the others being the Nieuport 29 witha 300hp Hispano Suiza engine, theStampe SV-4B with a Gipsy Majorengine fitted for inverted flying, andthe early-type Spitfires.”In February 1933, the Moth Special

was returned to England and part-exchanged with de Havilland agentBrian Lewis and Company at Hestonfor a new Puss Moth, G-ABDG. It ismost probable that after sale to Home(pronounced Hume) Kidston, Lewisarranged for an engine top-overhaulto be completed by the AirworkCompany at Heston. The aircraft wasrepainted, acquiring a red fuselage,and the original British letters wereapplied. It seems likely that much ofthe ‘racing’ trim was removed at thistime and the wings re-modified toallow them to be folded.At the time he purchased the Moth

the 23-year-old Sub-Lt H. R. A.

Kidston, RN, was attending a course atthe Royal Naval College at Greenwich.He was the younger brother of Bentleyracing driver and airman Glen Kidston,killed in a Puss Moth accident in SouthAfrica in 1931, The aircraft was housedat Hanworth, and in 1933 Home flewit solo to Le Mans to watch the 24Hours race. On posting to Portland,he used to fly from Hanworth toWestland’s airfield at Yeovil, where hemaintained an MG saloon to drive tohis station at Bincleaves.

During the summer of 1933 he wasposted to the light cruiser HMNZSDiomede, a ship of the New ZealandDivision, preparing for a voyage fromEngland to the southern hemisphere.In addition to his bright red ex-TouristTrophy race Mercedes S-Type withits 6.7-litre supercharged engine, anda Vosper Jolly speedboat, Kidstonmade arrangements for the Moth tobe carried on board the ship. In JuneG-AAXG was delivered to the deHavilland factory at Stag Lane, whereit was dismantled and packed intowooden crates. The ship arrived inAuckland in August and the Moth wasassembled at Hobsonville, from where,after erection by de Havilland agentAir Survey and Transport, it flew on6 August.The Moth was carried on board

Diomede to Australia that September.It was based at Essendon Aerodrome,Melbourne, during the period in lateOctober when the majority of finishers

in the MacRobertson International AirRace arrived. HMNZS Diomede wasone of the flotilla of British, American,Australian and New Zealand vesselswhich illuminated Port Melbournewith a dazzling display of searchlightson the day the winning aircraft, DH88Comet Grosvenor House, flew in.The Moth landed back on New

Zealand territory on 26 November.Just over a fortnight later, on 12December, Home Kidston recorded aflight from Hastings to Mangere withhis friend Lt Terry Herrick, RN. In2003, Commodore Herrick, at theage of 92, flew in the same aeroplaneon a local trip from Masterton andremembered that in 1934 he was maderesponsible for pumping fuel from thetank, with which he shared space in thefront cockpit, to the small reservoir inthe centre section.The Mercedes car was damaged

when it skidded off the road nearBlenheim, South Island, after whichHome Kidston was convicted fordangerous driving and lost his licence.His ship was berthed at Wellington atthe time, and he flew the Moth southto the court hearing with his solicitoron board, subsequently winning hiscase.When Kidston returned to England

towards the end of 1935 to attendcourses at the Royal Naval Collegeat Greenwich, the Mercedes was soldlocally and the British registration ofthe Moth was cancelled. The lettersZK-AEJ were issued on 8 October toR. G. Tappenden, a new owner basedin Auckland who is believed to have

RACING MOTHRA


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LEFT: The originalhand-writtencaption to thisimage reads, “Moth,Mercedes andHome all lookingvery dirty buteach thoroughlyenjoying itself.AucklandAerodrome, March1934.”KIDSTON SA

paid £700 for the aircraft. A year laterit was sold to Jack Allen at Wairoa andwas based at Hastings until acquired byHamilton businessman Fred Butler.On 12 July 1941 ZK-AEJ was flown

by another new owner, Noel Brown,for his licence re-validation at Rukuhia.He was able to pilot the aeroplane onlyfour times more before 31 August,when ZK-AEJ was grounded for theduration upon suspension of all privatecivil flying operations. The Mothwas stored in a shed at Hamilton. Itescaped military impressment throughthe fact that its Gipsy II engine wasregarded by the authorities as ‘non-standard’.Post-war, ZK-AEJ is recorded as

taking to the air again on 20 December1945, though Brown’s logbook doesnot refer to his flying it until 12October 1946. His brother Howardhad returned home from the war witha DFC after flying Curtiss P-40s inthe Pacific. Together the two operatedZK-AEJ under the title of SnakeGulley Airways, offering joyrides fromWaihi Beach, Thames and Raglan. Onone occasion, when parked beside theclubhouse at Hamilton, the aircraft wasradiating an offensive stink. CharlieCrowe was brave enough to open thelocker where he discovered the rottingremains of three large snapper fish,traded for a joyride and subsequentlyforgotten.Noel Brown flew ZK-AEJ for the

last time on 2 October 1948, afterwhich it was re-sold to previous ownerJack Allen at Wairoa. In September1966 the Moth was acquired byGordon Reader, an Englishman livingin Palmerston North. It was registeredto Reader’s Earlybird Flying Ltd inMarch 1967 and named Racing (twoother members of the Earlybird fleetwere dubbed Rugby and Beer).The DH60M duly won the 1967

Rothmans Air Race at Wigram. OliverTapper, one of the founders of theAA’s aviation department, had flownG-AAXG in Cannes in 1932 during

a visit to Edouard Bret, and in hiscapacity as press officer at Hatfieldreceived the news of the victory directlyfrom Gordon Reader, who askedthat the result should be conveyed toAlan Butler. “The win caused a dealof surprise”, he wrote, “for it seldomhappens that an air race is won by theoldest aircraft!”When Reader returned to England,

an aviation magazine reported thatsurely the Moth Special would soonbe following, but that was not theplan. With wings folded, ZK-AEJwas put into store in a small garageon Paraparaumu airfield in January1971 and there it remained, obliviousto the many approaches with a viewto purchase received by its owner inEngland.

A frequent visitor to the neglectedMoth was a young New Zealandercalled Gerald Grocott. He hadlearned the secrets of the locks onthe garage doors, and made it hisbusiness to look after the welfare ofthe aircraft, maintaining close contactwith the owner. His own attemptsto purchase the Moth were parried,like all those previously, but in 1984

he sensed a change in attitude whenGordon Reader made a comment thatnone of the prices offered had beensufficient. Realising that this was asignificant difference, Grocott enterednegotiations until they reached whatthe owner agreed was an acceptableprice, and a sale was made in Octoberwith the registration restored inJanuary 1985.

The aeroplanewas dismantledand carried by roadto Temple Martin’sworkshop at BridgePa, Hastings. Itemerged in its 1930silver colour scheme two-and-a-halfyears later. Gerald Grocott, now acommercial pilot with Swissair, said hewas somewhat nervous when he madethe maiden post-restoration flight on 1July 1987 but it flew well and true.ZK-AEJ lived in a purpose-built

hangar at Te Onepu near Hastingsuntil 1990 when it was decided that,following the Tiger Moth Club of NewZealand’s rally at Mandeville, it wouldbe in the best place if it remained therefor care by Colin Smith’s de Havilland-orientated Croydon Aircraft Company.The Moth was maintained in airworthycondition at Mandeville until 2000when, on 9 February, the first day ofthat year’s club rally at Dargaville, itwas damaged. Grocott’s blunt self-assessment was that he “ground-loopedher into an open drain”, damagingan undercarriage leg and a wing-rootfitting, and breaking the propeller.The aircraft was returned to

Mandeville for repair, but during thelast week of May 2001 it was loaded

onto a lorry and delivered to Rangiora,where the job was completed by PatScotter and Des Lyons. Meanwhile,with his Swiss employer in financialtrouble, Gerald Grocott had decidedto return permanently to NewZealand. In 2002 he built a newhangar for the Moth, always knownas ‘An Everlasting Joy’ after itsregistration letters, at Napier.

wo-and-a-halfocott, now ah Swissair, said heus when he madeoration flight on 1

‘The Moth radiated an offensive stink fromthe rotting remains of three snapper fishtraded for a joyride and left in the locker’

ð


❖

During the DH60M’s two periodsof restoration the wings had beencovered with linen and the fuselagewith cotton, all in an effort to maintainmaximum authenticity. The doughnutwheels and tyres were replaced with1930-pattern 19in wire-spoked wheels,and the streamlined tailskid wasretained.Grocott decided in 2007 to wind

down some of his aviation interests.This included releasing the Moth,either selling ZK-AEJ outright orforming a syndicate around it, withpriority being given to prospectivecustomers in New Zealand. At first,advertising was confined to the

aircraft’s adopted country, but therewas little interest. After confirmationfrom the appropriate governmentdepartments that the Moth’s historywould not exclude it from export, thecampaign was widened.When mention of a possible sale

was first made, details were passed onto a contact in Switzerland. This wasSimon Kidston, son of Home Kidston,one-time owner of G-AAXG, whohad died in 1996. Simon showed mildinterest but, at that stage, allowed theopportunity to pass. Early in 2009he renewed contact and was curiousto know whether the aeroplane

had been sold. Realising it was stillavailable but, perhaps, not for muchlonger, Simon and Gerald establishedcommunications, set up a productivedialogue and quickly confirmed a deal.‘An Everlasting Joy’ would be returninghome.As G-AAXG, the aircraft was

restored to the British register on 28May 2009. Arrangements were madefor Colin Smith to dismantle it atNapier and pack it into a containeraddressed to Henry Labouchere atLangham, Norfolk, where the Motharrived in good heart on 31 July.Thanks to the understanding of theBritish CAA, aided by the meticulous

documentation maintained in NewZealand and assistance from thetechnical archive of de HavillandSupport Ltd, G-AAXG was flight-tested on 19 September 2009, and hasbeen active ever since.G-AAXG is a significant aeroplane

in de Havilland history, and theefforts of the many to ensure that itsurvived are to be applauded. Most ofall, congratulations are due to SimonKidston, who took a deep breath andmade the big decision to restore theaeroplane to family ownership. Itmight otherwise have been themissed opportunity of a lifetime.


RACING MOTHRA

SIMON KIDSTON: THE OWNER’S VIEW“Before my father died in January 1996 I asked him to write forme a list of all the interesting cars that he had owned over theyears. He duly did this on a word processor, despite being 85 —he was always fairly interested in technology — including, frommemory, all of their registration numbers, all of which werecorrect. He obviously couldn’t resist including in there his firstaeroplane, which was the ‘Racing Moth’.“I’d grown up with stories of various cars and I remembered

being told about this aircraft, but didn’t give much thoughtto it. Then, one day, when I was putting my young son to bedI happened to look at a little watercolour painting on hisbedroom wall, which I must have hung there a few years agowhen we moved in. It was of a little red aircraft with a silver tailand silver wings. I made a note of the registration and I thoughtI really should find out what it was — I had no clue.“So, I asked my ex-colleague Robert Brooks, chairman of

Bonhams’ auction house, who I knew had had Moths when hewas younger, who the person to ask would be. He said to speakto a chap called Stuart McKay, who knows everything there isto know about Moths… Stuart came back very promptly, sayinghe knew the aircraft well, that it was quite a well-known Moth,that it had been down in New Zealand for years and years, andit belonged to a chap called Gerald Grocott. I was amazed — Icouldn’t believe it.“Not with any specific purpose in mind, I asked whether he

would mind putting me in contact with this Grocott fellow. Itturned out that he […] was probably going to sell the aircraft.I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to bring it back into the family

ownership?” If my father was alive, he would have been verypleased, very proud. I mentioned it just in passing to my wife,who said something fairly unambiguous like, “You must bemad”.”“A year later, and a few bedtime stories under the bridge, I

wondered whether Gerald Grocott still had the aeroplane. Icalled up Stuart and wondered what had happened. Grocotthad agreed to sell it, but the buyer was messing him around. Iasked Stuart if he could find out and let me know.“Stuart came back to me — he said Gerald Grocott hadn’t sold

it, and that if I wanted it he thought he would be happy to letme have it at the same price. By this stage my wife wanted thegarden landscaping, so I sat her down with a bottle of chilledchampagne in the garden. An hour later she had got permissionto have the garden landscaped, and I had got permission to buythe aircraft!“That was in March 2009. Contracts were exchanged whilst

I was at the Villa d’Este concours in Italy, doing my annualcompèring job. I remember putting the signature on thecontract, sending it off from reception and being very, verypleased to think that finally the aircraft was coming back homeagain.“I asked who the best person to look after it was; I was told

that Henry Labouchere was the man. It went straight to Henry,and he duly re-assembled it. There was a fly-in down at Tistedin Hampshire, which happens to be where my father spent thelast few years of his life, in a little village called Sutton Scotney.I by this stage hadn’t seen the aeroplane, but I knew Henry was

‘Simon Kidston made the big decision torestore the aeroplane to family ownership’

FAR RIGHT: Today,the ‘RacingMoth’appears as it didupon starting the

1930 InternationalTouring Competition

from Berlin’sTempelhofer Feld,with identification

number K5.DARREN HARBAR


ABOVE:Henry Labouchere and Simon Kidston enjoyingthemselves in G-AAXG over the North Norfolk coast. KIDSTON SA

ABOVE:Henry Labouchere and Simon Kidston enjoying

going to fly it down there. I happened to be in the UK at thetime, and drove down in a little hire car. I pulled up, looked upinto the sky, and up above in a perfect formation of Moths wasG-AAXG. It brought a tear to my eye.“My flying in it has been a combination of passengering

with Henry and Ben Cox. We did a little video of the aircraftup in Norfolk a couple of years ago — highly self-indulgent,combining a Bentley that was also my father’s, which I hadtracked down and bought back, and this aircraft. My cousinPolly is married to Lord Coke, who has a nice house there, so weused that as a backdrop, and the grave of Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin[a fellow ‘Bentley Boy’ of Simon’s uncle Glen] is nearby, so weincluded that in the story too.“We took the aeroplane to Goodwood in 2010 for the Revival

meeting. Ben took me up in it at the end of the day, just as thesun was setting after a glorious day’s motor racing. He flew overBosham harbour, where my friends were all outside the pubwaving. Turning up at the pub afterwards, they assume you’rethe heroic pilot, and you don’t want to tell them any different!“All the time I find out new things about the Moth. My

father’s study chair at home always had an old leather cushionon it for as long as I can remember. It’s been lying around myhouse for years. Only fairly recently did I look more closely anddiscovered that it must have been Edouard Bret’s Moth cushionas each of his records is embossed on a different corner. Smallworld, and amazing it survived.“I’ve been taking flying lessons myself since January 2008, and

I’m probably up to about 60 hours of tuition, of which maybe

20 hours are solo… It’s definitely my ambition to go solo inthe Moth. It’s something I’m very proud to own, and I wish myfather was alive to see it.”

Simon Kidston was talking to Ben Dunnell. Simon runs Geneva-based Kidston SA, a ‘boutique’ advisory firm for motor car collectors— see www.kidston.com, where the short film ‘Full Throttle’ featuringthe Moth can also be viewed.

The Shuttleworth Collection’s Percival Mew GullG-AEXF and David Beale’s replica G-HEKL make for a

splendid pair — and an interesting comparison

MIGHTYMEWS

WORDS: BEN DUNNELLPHOTOGRAPHY: DARREN HARBAR

MEW GULLS

ð


W ith two Percival Mew Gullsnow gracing British skies,it was only natural to bringthem together. Thanks to

the Shuttleworth Collection and DavidBeale, several times their respectivemachines have displayed as a pair overOld Warden, paying tribute to theexploits of these exceptional,no-compromises racers.Yet the formation sortie mounted

for this feature was interesting inother ways, too. One would expectShuttleworth’s G-AEXF, in the lastof its many restorations returned toAlex Henshaw’s 1939 Cape recordconfiguration, to be the faster ofthe pair. It depicts the Mew Gull atthe peak of its pre-war powers, afterall. David Beale’s replica G-HEKL,meanwhile, is a precise re-creationof the long-lost G-AEKL as it was in1937. Even so, the ‘new Mew’ outpaces’XF. “We’re not really sure why”, saysShuttleworth chief pilot Roger ‘Dodge’Bailey — “whether it’s an engine ora drag issue. When we had them uptogether we did a bit of a ‘drag race’,and ’KL will leave ’XF behind. It’s nota startling difference, but it will walkaway.”Just one of the interesting traits you

discover in comparing the two MewGulls, aided by the men who fly them.Since late 2013, G-AEXF has been partof the Shuttleworth Collection, andone can think of few finer additions toits line-up. That the aircraft survivesis down to the efforts of many ownersand restorers keen not to see this mosthistoric air racer laid low. BehindDavid Beale’s creation of G-HEKL isanother story of remarkable dedication,one that started eight years ago. Thefounder of Cambridgeshire-basedautomation consultancy Innomech,David saw advertised for sale “somebits… basically a set of drawings, anengine and a part-complete fuselagethat needed to be rebuilt”. Thus begansomething not far short of a new phaseof his life.Derby-based restorer and replica

builder Ken Fern had got the projectunder way for a friend in the USA.He was aided by drawings made ofG-AEXF when Tom Storey rebuilt itafter one of its numerous mishaps.During 2007, the owner decided to sell,and David Beale stepped in. “The bigproblem”, says David, “was whether itwas a project that could be constructedand registered under the LAA [LightAircraft Association]. I then had tonegotiate with [LAA chief engineer]Francis Donaldson”. He liked what hesaw, and approval was forthcoming.Helping ensure accuracy was the

LAA’s proviso that David should adhereabsolutely to the original, otherwise allthe stress calculations would have to bere-done. However, he discovered, “therewere detail errors on the drawingswhen compared to original informationunearthed during the project”. Thesewere an inevitable consequence of

the number of times G-AEXF hadalready been rebuilt and re-configured,involving a good deal of reverse-engineering to take it back to its 1937configuration, before Tom Storey gothis hands on it.It goes without saying that exact

period materials and components wereused throughout. For the project tocome with an authentic engine was, ofcourse, a huge bonus. Even better, the1936 unit’s serial number was betweenthose of the powerplants used in theproduction Mew Gulls. “That was aKen Fern find. It’s a Gipsy Queen 1,which is a rare beast, and it had neverbeen used. It was overhauled andbench-run [for just six hours] by Hantsand Sussex, but it had never been in anairframe. It was bought from the RAF,and someone decided they wanted touse it in a Rapide. They paid for it to beoverhauled and then discovered it wasnot suitable for a Rapide, so it stayed inhis garage. I think the guy died, and itwent through various hands.“Sadly, it had been badly stored —

they had used wax preservative on thecylinders, and someone had turnedthe prop. On the four ports that wereopen, the cylinders had corroded, andthey were scrapped. I had to find fournew cylinders for it”. Easier said thandone, that, “especially as I wanted themstill within standard size. That was amajor headache and took quite a lotof sorting-out. I think I went throughabout 16 cylinders before I found fourgood ones.”

David alone spent about 10,000hours on the project, involving manylong evenings in his home workshop,but he did have some assistance. “KenFern helped sort the fuselage out. Imeasured it and found the fuselagewas too tall — Ken told me that it hadactually been built too tall, because theAmerican was a tall guy, but I wanted itas it was originally designed. I arrangedfor Ken to do some finishing-offwoodwork for me.“The wings were done by Roger

Burrows over at Watton. I asked him

initially to build the spars, because,as Tom Storey found, they’re horriblycomplicated. There’s not a parallelsurface on the things, and they’re acomposite of ash, spruce and ply. Itreally needed the proper woodworkingtools and set-up to do that. When he’ddone those, I asked him if we couldbuild the wing in his workshop. Weset it up there, and he did quite a lotof the precision work while I was the

‘gopher’, holding things, sticking thingsand double-checking for him. The pairof us skinned it, and it came over to mefor finishing.“The wing was finished off in a tent

inside the chicken shed that’s my hangarat Witchford. Working through thewinter was not fun! The fuselage andtailplane were done in my workshopat home, once Ken had finished thebasic woodwork. With the wing, I hadto make the undercarriage and the fueltanks. Obviously, I got the fuel tanksmade by a CAA-approved aluminiumwelder. They had to be fitted before thewing was assembled, so a lot of thatwas done early on. So were the complexundercarriage mounts, involving manyworkshop hours machining thin-wall tube of the correct dimensionsfrom solid bar as no suitable tubewas available. Also fashioned fromaluminium are the cowlings and spats,requiring me to learn the black art ofusing the English wheel.”David was keen to ensure that the

cockpit was as right as possible, “withonly a few minor compromises tomodern safety requirements — thevintage Pyrene brass fire extinguishercontains a modern extinguisher”. Hissearch for period items goes on, and thisAugust he was donated two more: “thecorrect-sized manifold gauge, whichneeds to be rebuilt, and the correct oilpressure gauge.”During 2013, completion came into

sight. “I started it as my retirementproject”, says David, “my means ofgetting myself out of work”. Gradually hestarted reducing the number of days hespent in the office, to the point where hiscolleagues could call on him if necessary.The airframe was finished with 32 coatsof period satin dope, each hand-flatted togive the correct smooth appearance. Finalassembly was carried out at Witchford,where the local farmer’s teleporter wasused to help install the engine. “Thatreplaced the cardboard engine I’d usedto do all the cowlings”, David recalls.“Luckily, it fitted.”Mating the wings and fuselage also

caused some anxious moments. “Therewere 56 quarter-inch bolt-holes to bedrilled, and they all had to be perfectly

aligned to go right through the spars,which are about 6in thick, lining upbrackets so that the hole went throughthe metal bracket, the spar, and outthrough the hole and the metal bracketon the other side. It took a lot of nerve!”It all worked, and test pilot Charlie

Huke took G-HEKL into the air forthe first time on 20 August 2013. Heflew out of Witchford, but landed atRAF Henlow, where the remainder of

❖

‘When we had the two Mew Gulls uptogether we did a bit of a ‘drag race’, and’KL will leave ’XF behind’

LEFT: David Bealein his replica MewGull G-HEKL leads‘Dodge’ Bailey atthe controls ofthe ShuttleworthCollection’s G-AEXF.

FAR RIGHT: CharlieHuke powers

G-HEKL into the airat OldWarden.

RIGHT: DavidBeale in the cockpit

of G-HEKL. Anengineer by trade,

David has nowretired from hisday job and can

devote more timeto aviation.

STEVE FLINT/AIRTEAMIMAGES.COM

BOTTOM: The twoMew Gulls at rest

on the OldWardenturf. They first

appeared togetherduring the Race Daydisplay in October

2014.

the flight-test programme was carriedout successfully. Now the Mew Gullis based at Fenland, as David’s strip atWitchford, 600m long with trees at oneend, is too limiting.“Since completion the aircraft has

performed exactly as per the certificateof airworthiness test flight reports from1936 and ’38”, David reports. “It is

fast, and could, if caution was thrownto the wind, achieve the average racespeed of 233mph achieved by theproduction airframe in the 1937 King’sCup. We’ve never got the ultra-highspeeds because people were tuningthe engines. It cruises comfortablyat 200mph using the de Havilland-recommended engine settings, easilyachieves a VNE [never exceed speed] of

265mph and a climb rate in excessof 2,000ft per minute.”

This brings us backto the slightly slowerG-AEXF. Althoughit had been basedat Old Warden inDesmond Penrose’sownership,‘Dodge’ Bailey did

not fly the aircraft until its acquisitionby Shuttleworth from Robert Fleming,who based it with the Real AeroplaneCompany at Breighton. “When wewere purchasing it”, says ‘Dodge’, “Iwent up to Breighton and spoke to‘Taff’ Smith, who was the current pilot.I got a very good briefing on it from‘Taff’, which I recorded and then wrote

up. That set me up quite well. I alsowatched his landing when he deliveredit to Old Warden, and videoed that.”A highly experienced test pilot with a

vast bank of knowledge when it comesto vintage aircraft, ‘Dodge’ offers atypically authoritative view of flyingthe Mew Gull. “The first impressionyou get is when you take off, which isperhaps unfortunate… it’s an aeroplanethat’s quite easy to over-control, andif you look at all the reports, goingright back to 1935, they all hint atthat tendency. In terms of axes, youcan easily over-control in pitch, and tosome extent in yaw, particularly whenthe tail comes up.“Both of those challenges are made

more difficult to sort out because ofthe restricted field of view, so it takes

you longer to spot that the aeroplaneis doing something you haven’t askedit to do. You have to keep it straightusing peripheral vision, and select asuitable pitch attitude, but unlike mostaeroplanes just selecting the right pitchattitude isn’t enough — it won’t staythere. The slightest bump, change ofairspeed or whatever will cause the noseto pitch. Although all the write-upscomplain about the aeroplane being toosensitive […] that’s the symptom. Theunderlying reason for it is that with fullpower the aeroplane is neutrally stableat best, maybe unstable in pitch. Inaddition, taking off with a significantright crosswind component must beconsidered carefully as the weathercockstability will join forces with theasymmetric blade effect, torque andprecession effects, and there is only adiddy rudder to counter them.“The stall is described variously

as [being] completely benign to asudden wing drop. Taking the worst-case scenario of a wing drop-proneaeroplane, as it gets airborne and startsto skip the wheels and bounce off littlebumps, the idea is to let it do that andnot try and haul it off the ground,risking a wing drop-type stall. Take-offsare made with one or two notchesof flap. The flaps are tiny, and it’s amystery to me that they do anything atall, but they do seem to help.

MEW GULLS

5mphof 2,000ft

Thisto theG-itat

OPPOSITE:G-AEXF gets

up close to thecameraship. ‘Dodge’Bailey says the MewGull, which joinedthe Shuttleworthfleet in October2013, is a “very

nice aeroplane information”.

‘The slightest bump, change of airspeedor whatever causes the nose to pitch’


ð

“Once airborne, the aeroplane isquite nice to control. It’s sensitivein pitch because there’s virtually nolongitudinal stability. The roll axis isfine— although the fin is quite small,the aeroplane has got lots of keel area inthe rear fuselage, which makes it verystable directionally. Having said that, itis quite easy to have the rudder in thewrong place, so that the aeroplane isout of balance. That does require a bitof attention, particularly at high power.“Away from the ground with the

airspeed building up, it’s a bit like the

Comet in many ways. That is, it’s quitenice to fly about, though the field ofview straight ahead is poor. And todisplay it’s pretty easy. Put the nosedown and it goes pretty fast. You canmanoeuvre it around in wingoversquite comfortably… and it gives youlots of confidence.“Indeed, I found the aircraft a great

‘lead-in’ trainer for the Comet. It hasvirtually the same powerplant, the‘up and away’ handling is similar, asis the stall, and the restricted field ofview we enjoy from ’XF pretty much

necessitates a curved approach likethe Comet. One can also practice theessential Comet ‘touch-down and pin’technique as a training exercise.”David Beale can testify to the Mew

Gull’s handling qualities. “In the air, it’sjust a delight”, he comments. “The soleexception is the view out. “You can’t seemuch ahead of you. If I sit up with myhead touching the canopy, I can just seethe horizon.”Landings offer their own challenge.

“I was told by ‘Taff’ Smith just to do


THE LIFE AND TIMES OF G-AEKLThe story of Mew Gull G-AEXF, and especially Alex Henshaw’sexploits in it, has often been re-told. That of G-AEKL, bycontrast, may be less familiar.Percival built a total of six Mew Gulls. The initial prototype,

the ungainly E1 G-ACND, first flew in March 1934. Havingnot produced the desired performance, it was broken upthe following year, when the much-altered E2 appeared — acompletely new aeroplane even though it, too, was registeredas G-ACND. This heralded three E2Hs, of which G-AEKL wasthe first. It was Edgar Percival’s own racing mount for 1935,subsequently modified in readiness for the September 1936Schlesinger Race from Portsmouth to Johannesburg. However,it did not take the start. On 19 September, 10 days before therace began, pilot (and MacRobertson race co-winner) TomCampbell Black was killed when an RAF Hawker Hart ran intothe Mew Gull at Liverpool’s Speke aerodrome.Nor, it must be said, was the Schlesinger itself a triumph for

the other two E2Hs built prior to the race. Both A. M. Miller’sZS-AHM (the future G-AEXF) and Stan Halse’s ZS-AHO retired,the latter being written off when it tipped over upon hittinga termite mound during a precautionary landing to allow thepilot to check his position.The Percival factory rebuilt G-AEKL for new owner Charles

Gardner. With it, he won the 1937 King’s Cup, his secondvictory in succession after his 1936 triumph in a Vega Gull. Inso doing, the Mew Gull set a new race average speed recordof 233.7mph. Incidentally, David Beale’s replica G-HEKLdepicts the design state of the original ’KL as it re-emergedfrom the works that year.Placed third was Edgar Percival in the sole E3H variant of

the Mew Gull, a one-off with further design alterations. It

and the two surviving E2Hs, G-AEKL and G-AEXF, went on tocompete for many of the major air racing titles of the era.Gardner sold ’KL to Giles Guthrie, whose exploits during the1938 season included second place in the King’s Cup. Theaircraft was then bought by Jim Mollison for a long-distancerecord attempt, but this was cancelled due to the start ofWorld War Two.G-AEKL was eventually destroyed in a German air raid on

Lympne aerodrome, while the E2 wing from G-ACND and theE3H were burned at Luton during a post-war Percival gardenparty. Only G-AEXF, spirited away to France for the duration,survived intact.

ABOVE: Percival technicians fettling the newly-built Mew GullG-AEKL and a pair of Vega Gulls, of which prototype G-AEAB isnearest the camera. AVIATION-IMAGES.COM

ABOVE: G-AEKL at Gravesend after application of the nameMissLiverpool for the 1936 Schlesinger race. The emblem on the nose isa Liver bird, that famous symbol of the city. AVIATION-IMAGES.COM

ABOVE: Philip Whaley — father of well-known historic aircraft pilotJonathon — working on G-AEKL. The red scheme was applied afterGiles Guthrie bought the aircraft in 1938. VIA JONATHONWHALEY

ABOVE: Percival technicians fettling the newly-built Mew Gull ABOVE: G-AEKL at Gravesend after application of the nameMissAB

ABOVE: Philip Whaley father of well-known historic aircraft pilot

MEW GULLS

Continued on page 57

Trains and Planes F_P.indd 1 10/09/2015 10:58

PercivalMewGull replica G-HEKL andMewGull G-AEXFDavid Beale and The Shuttleworth Collection

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ABOVE: Anotherimage thataffords a chanceto compare thedifferent lines ofthe twoMew Gulls.

three-point landings in the aeroplane”,says ‘Dodge’. “His rationale was that,if you’re doing anything else, you’re toofast, and the brakes aren’t very good.We come in at 75kt in ’XF, and the stallis about 10kt below that. When youclose the throttle it does float for a longtime, probably because the aeroplaneis so clean. Although it is perfectlypossible to wheel it on at this point,following ‘Taff’s’ advice, we generallywait for it to land on three points.Sometimes you get a slightly tailskid-first landing, but that just de-rotatesthe aeroplane onto the mainwheelsand then it rolls along straight. It’svery easy to keep straight on landing— it’s not an aeroplane that’s eager toground-loop, which is one of the betterfeatures.”For David Beale, getting G-HEKL

back to terra firma is not a favouritepastime. “I still hate landing it”, he

says. “I’ve got 60 hours in it now, andevery time I sit there on the runwayand open the throttle the thought goesthrough my head, “Now you’ve got toland it”. That’s the only negative. It’svery fast, and it floats. If it hits a bumpand takes off again, it drops a wing,quite viciously.”In contrast to Shuttleworth’s

technique for landing ’XF, both Davidand Charlie Huke prefer to performa wheeler, as opposed to three-point,landing. This is partly because they

have both experienced three-pointlandings where the aircraft has hit abump and then been in wing-dropterritory, and to minimise the risk ofannoying airfield owners as a result of

the tailskid acting like a plough, as ’KLhas a wider skid foot. “It also is lessvicious to the fragile skid”, says David,“and the idle on ’KL, for some reasonon the earlier carbs, cannot be reducedas low as on ’XF”. This somewhatrestricts the range of airfields fromwhich ’KL can safely operate, a 600-yard runway being the minimum.Two similar-looking aircraft, then,

but each very much with their ownindividual characteristics and foibles.Such would, of course, have been the

case when comparing the 1930s MewGulls. What a privilege to see thesetwo aeroplanes together, and what atestament to those who have madeit possible.


‘Every time I open the throttle, I think,“Now you’ve got to land it...”’

MEW GULLSME

Continued from page 52

COSMIC WIND BALLERINA


Of all the Formula One-class ‘midget’ air racers still flying in the UK, nonequite boasts the legendary charisma of Cosmic Wind Ballerina

RUN LIKETHE WIND

WORDS: BEN DUNNELL

soon took up aerobatics and air racing.At the controls of a Rider R-4 namedFirecracker, he placed second in the1939 Thompson Trophy closed-courserace. Joining Lockheed in 1941, duringwartime he ferried Hudsons, testedVenturas, made the maiden flight ofthe XP-80 and helped perfect the P-38Lightning, becoming chief engineeringtest pilot before hostilities were over. Allthe while his passion for competitionremained undimmed. When air racingresumed post-war, he used a surplus,modified P-38L, again claiming theThompson Trophy runner’s up spot in1946. LeVier’s displays in this brightred aircraft also became renowned.But air racing was changing. Types

such as P-38s and P-51s were out ofmost competitors’ reach, and therecame recognition of the need for alower-cost class, still able to provideexcitement while offering a cheaperway into the sport. What’s more,members of the Professional Race

Pilots’ Association were worried thatit had become dull. The September1947 issue of Flying magazine quotedPRPA president Art Chester assaying: “Spectators started leaving the[National Air Races] in 1946 beforethey were over, just because there wasno competition”. In the January 1948words of Popular Science, “they couldsee the time coming when the turnstileswouldn’t make music any more.”The specifications laid down by

the PRPA, and approved by theNational Aeronautics Association, werestringent. Foremost among them werea maximum engine displacement of190 cubic inches and a wing loadingno higher than 12lb per square foot.Airframes had to withstand 6g, whilepilot experience was to be checkedclosely by the governing bodies, forthey had no wish to see the fatalitiesexperienced in higher-poweredcategories. Sponsorship and US$25,000in prize money came from the

ð


o my mind, it is quitethe most exhilaratingsmall aircraft in theBritish Isles”. Those

words, written in 1963 by Flightmagazine’s tester Mark Lambert, mightjust have easily been penned today,for LeVier Cosmic Wind G-ARULBallerina is as wondrous a machineeven now.For its long-time custodian Pete

Kynsey, former British aerobaticchampion and current chief pilot ofThe Fighter Collection, Ballerina neverceases to delight. Fellow aerobatic andwarbird flyer Richard Grace said hemay even have been more excited tofly the Cosmic Wind for the first timethan he was the family Spitfire. Suchis the legend of this tiny air racer, oneassociated throughout a colourful careerwith some great names.The first, of course, is Tony LeVier. A

pilot since 1930, when he was aged just17, this young man from Minnesota

“T“T

BELOW:Pete Kynsey flyingCosmic WindBallerina betweenits Duxford baseand OldWarden inAugust 2015.HARRY MEASURES

ABOVE: All three ofthe original LeVier

and Associates-built Cosmic Winds

at Van Nuys in1948: from right

to left, Tony LeVierwith Little Toni,

‘Fish’ Salmon withMinnow, and

Vincent Ast withBallerina.

VIA PETE KYNSEY

BELOW: Ballerina’sowner Glenn

Fulkerson (left) andpilot Vincent Astwith the Cosmic

Wind at Clevelandduring the 1949

National Air Races.VIA PETE KYNSEY

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.Thus was ‘midget’ air racing born.No surprise, perhaps, that it piqued

the interest— as pilot and engineer—of Tony LeVier. He and eight fellowLockheed employees formed LeVierand Associates, their aim to build amidget race winner. Among them wasto be found a wealth of experience. Notjust LeVier, but the likes of engineeringtest pilot Herman ‘Fish’ Salmon(himself a pre-war air racer), P-80production test pilot Charles Tucker,and design engineer Irving Culverwere men at the cutting edge of 1940saerospace technology. Working,Popular Science said, “in six separategarages around Los Angeles”, theirvision came to life.The result they called the Cosmic

Wind. Powered by an 85hpContinental C-85 four-cylinderair-cooled piston engine, this sleek, all-metal, low-wing monoplane, just over4ft tall and 16ft long, was a stunning

example of the midget breed. LeViertook the first, registered NX67888, forits maiden flight on 3 July 1947. Thesecond, NX67889, followed soon after.By the time of the Cosmic Wind’s

debut at the 1947 National Air Racesin Cleveland, Ohio, LeVier’s ownmount NX67888 had been namedLittle Toni and given race number 3.NX67889, to be piloted by Salmon,carried number 10. It was un-named,but Flying’s contemporary reportalready used the monikerMinnow.Certainly, it bore the logo of magnetomanufacturer Slick.

Both reached the Goodyear Trophyfinal, and around 25 laps of the 2.2-mile course performed well if notvictoriously. Behind Bill Brennand,flying Steve Wittman’s modifiedpre-war machine Buster, and PaulPenrose on Art Chester’s Swee’ Pea came

Salmon and LeVier. The fastest CosmicWind posted an average speed of158.798mph, just over 7mph down onthe winner. The Popular Science articlereported that LeVier and colleagues“had to make the ship bigger to bring itup to the minimum and add wing areato hold down the loading”, reducing itsultimate pace.More was promised for 1948,

including a third Cosmic Wind. N22Cwas built for another member of theLeVier and Associates team, Lockheedflight test engineer Glenn Fulkerson.Its name Ballerina was down to the factthat Fulkerson’s wife was exactly that.With race number 5, Bob Downeyflew it into seventh place at the 1948Goodyear final.Ahead were both earlier machines.

Little Toni had been re-registeredas N20C andMinnow as N21C,while their looks had altered, too. Atail-heaviness problem was cured byextended engine mounts (and, thus,longer noses) improving the centreof gravity. More streamlined bubblecanopies further helped them along.LeVier had retired from racing, soit was Billie Robinson who tookLittle Toni to fifth, but the big prizewent to Salmon. Aboard Minnow hetriumphed, setting a new record averagespeed of 169.688mph.There was to be no such luck in

1949. In the name of still greater speed,Minnow received a new fuselage andmid-wing arrangement, but the lastGoodyear Trophy brought only fifthplace, right behind Vincent Ast inBallerina. Before long, Minnow hadreverted to its previous appearance.For the National Air Races, and thus

the Goodyear competition, 1949 wasthe end of the road. The consequencesof a P-51 crashing into a house, and

COSMIC WIND BALLERINACO


❖

BOTTOM: VincentAst took this shotof Ballerina beingtransported bytrailer behind aBuick Super.VIA PETE KYNSEY

BELOW:Withthe Tiger Club,Ballerina becamea very populardisplay aircraft. Inthis 1966 image, itis joined by fellowclub aerobaticmounts in the formof Stampe SV-4 and‘Super Tiger’.AVIATION-IMAGES.COM

the start of the Korean War, saw tothat. The initial three Cosmic Windswere sold to Pacific Air Races Inc,but midget racing — not for the lasttime — found itself temporarily on thewane. Soon the aircraft languished atVan Nuys.Enter a certain Milton Blair. At some

point, this California-based aircraftdealer and pilot boughtMinnow,Ballerina, tooling and spares fromLeVier’s original programme, which,period reports confirm, was to havemade five aircraft rather than three.Blair’s aim was to produce a CosmicWind-derived light counter-insurgencyaircraft, later known as the AmericanElectric Piranha and evaluated under aUS Air Force project codenamed ‘LittleBrother’. This abortive effort resulted inthe end ofMinnow’s flying life when itwas dismantled and had its wings usedfor structural testing. Our subject herewas luckier.

According to Ballerina’s records,Blair started flying the aircraft in1961. “It appears he flew it to Trinidadand back to California with a long-range tank in the back”, says PeteKynsey. Ballerina was then shippedto Britain, being re-assembled byViv Bellamy’s Hampshire AeroplaneClub at Eastleigh. There Blair put ona spectacular demonstration, and theTiger Club’s founding father NormanJones was much taken. As PeterPhillips, another of the aircraft’s leadingexponents, wrote in Flight, “Jones wasquick to recognise a thoroughbred andbought it on the spot.”His instincts were entirely accurate.

With the Redhill-based Tiger Club,Ballerina was to achieve some of itsmost notable feats. By the year’s end ithad been registered as G-ARUL, readyto join the UK air racing circuit andbecome a star performer at displays.In this it became a favourite mountof two true greats, Peter Phillips andNeil Williams. Both flew it duringthe Cosmic Wind’s British publicdebut, made in a Tiger Club show atPanshanger in April 1962. To Williams,as related in his book ‘Airborne’ (Airlife,1977), “As a handling machine she

approached perfection”. A favouritedisplay manoeuvre was a dead-stickoutside loop, so fast and controllablewas it.On the racing scene, that 1962

season brought class victory atShoreham for Williams and Ballerina.

The King’s Cup meeting at Coventryproved less successful, ‘Pee Wee’ Judgebeing eliminated in the Air LeagueCup qualifying race. But the big targetin ’62 was not so much air racing asaerobatics, for Phillips was due to flythe aircraft as part of the British teamat the World Aerobatic Championships(WAC) in Budapest. It was not tobe, Flight reporting: “The attempts toobtain from the USA parts with whichto modify the Cosmic Wind’s 85hpContinental engine for inverted flyingproved unsuccessful.”Its moments in the sun came in

1964. That August, BEA pilot DennisHartas flew Ballerina to victory inthe King’s Cup, enough to makehim British air racing champion.Weeks later the Cosmic Wind wasoff to Bilbao for its WAC debut, aperformance to go down in the annals.

Although full-span ailerons afford avery high rate of roll, it was not an idealcompetition aerobatic mount, even forsomeone as skilled as Neil Williams.Pete Kynsey, himself later a WACcompetitor, says: “It was too fast, really.Compared with the other aeroplanes

of the day, it would have used up quitea lot of airspace. It had quite a low-powered engine, and if you slowed itdown, say during flicking manoeuvres,it would take a little while to build upthe energy again.“But the worst thing was that the

inverted system he had was next tohopeless. It had a makeshift system, andhe had to turn the fuel off and on to tryand keep it running. Once the enginequit during the competition, and hehad to make a dead-stick landing infront of the judges.”No wonder Peter Phillips wrote in

Flight that Williams, taking part atworld level for the first time, “was theadmiration of all competitors for hiscourage in flying what is really a prettyhot ship for this kind of competition”.He failed to make the final round, butnot for want of trying.

‘It had a makeshift inverted fuel system,and Neil Williams had to turn the fuel offand on to try and keep it running’

ð

❖

ABOVE: The linesof the CosmicWind getting a

fine airing as PeteKynsey puts on a

scintillating displayat the ShuttleworthCollection’s WingsandWheels show.

BEN DUNNELL

Sadly, the association between theTiger Club and Ballerina did not havelong to run. On 29 August 1966, itwas competing in the Goodyear AirChallenge Trophy at Halfpenny Green,Wolverhampton, with Bill Innes at thecontrols. Rounding the first pylon turn,he stalled the Cosmic Wind into theground. Innes survived the crash, butBallerina was a write-off.The name, though, rose again. The

wreckage was acquired by formerKing’s Cup winner Paul Bannister,who used it to help re-create Ballerinawith a slightly more powerful 100hpContinental O-200A engine. The result

was allocated the same registration,G-ARUL, though the CAA lists theaircraft as being built in 1973, whenthe fruits of Bannister’s labours tookto the air.Ballerina ‘mark two’ found itself

thrust straight into the heat of battle.As Formula One air racing took off inBritain, so the Cosmic Wind enjoyedsomething of a competitive renaissance.

Joining in was Little Toni, brought tothese shores in 1970 by Ian McCowenand registered G-AYRJ. There was alsoa brand-new example— well, almost.Robin Voice’s G-BAER Filly was builtup from various parts, some emanatingfrom Minnow, others from the stockMilton Blair had brought to Britainwith Ballerina.Only in October’s final Teesside

round of the five-race 1973 HeinekenTrophy Series did the freshly-finishedBallerina make its presence felt, but itdid so in style, Bill Walker emergingvictorious by just four tenths of asecond from overall champion Tom

Storey’s Cassutt. Despite winningmost of the rounds, new owner Walkermissed out on the 1974 title by justhalf a point, Storey again the victor.Ballerina missed the 1975 season,but was back in 1976, and embarkedupon a remarkable run of success.Fred Marsh used it to win the BritishFormula One title twice in a row; thenJohn Mirley did likewise.

The pace of development still hadnot quite told against the CosmicWind. Graham Horder proved as muchduring the Cranfield event in September1981, setting a British category recordof 214.7mph over 5km. But thenBallerina seemed to disappear, and PeteKynsey, already one of Britain’s leadingaerobatic pilots, noticed. “It hadn’t beenaround, seen at any airfields or flyingat any races, for a while, and I justgrew curious as to why”, he says. “So, Itracked the owner [Horder] down, andhe revealed that some work had beendone on it that hadn’t worked out. Hewas in a tricky position trying to thenrepair it.”Having in large part been inspired

to get into flying and aerobatics by theexample of Neil Williams, Pete waswell aware of the Cosmic Wind and itsqualities. “The first one I flew was Filly,owned by Robin Voice. He asked me todo an airshow one day and I came backthinking, “I’ve just got to have one ofthese”. It was just the most delightful-handling aeroplane I’d flown, with aphenomenally high rate of roll. I’d flownlots of competition aerobatic aeroplanes,but although they are very capable andtheir performance is very good, theirhandling is not always particularlyfantastic.“I took a friend of mine, Geoff

Masterton, who was a very practicalengineer, along to look at it. He wasfairly convinced that he could findsomeone to come up with a repairscheme. Fortunately, having donehis apprenticeship with the RAE atFarnborough, he approached a retiredstress analyst who took on the project todesign a repair for the wing attachment.“I was able [in 1984] to buy it for

very little because it was definitely notairworthy. Fixing it was a challenge,because the access to the wing boltswas incredibly difficult, and usingthe limited equipment that we had itwas a miracle that GeoffMastertonmanaged to drill the new holes. Whenthe final bolt slid through, it was a greatrelief! We knew it was going to work.After about 18 months, the parts weremanufactured, the PFA [Popular FlyingAssociation], as it then was, approved it,and it was flying again.”Initially, Pete raced Ballerina in

the Formula One series. “By the timeI bought it”, he recalls, “the fastestCassutts had overtaken it, and itwas never going to win again”. So,since 1986, he has concentrated ondemonstrating the Cosmic Wind’sconsiderable prowess in phenomenalaerobatic displays. “You can fly it withjust a few fingers, really”, he comments.“The stick forces are very light.”A signature manoeuvre, as flown

by the likes of Peter Phillips and NeilWilliams in the 1960s, is a 16-pointhesitation roll. According to Pete, “It’sgot such a high rate of roll and suchlight ailerons that it’s very easy to do.But what is surprising to perform in itis a vertical eight, which it’ll do from


COSMIC WIND BALLERINA

‘The Cosmic Wind was just the mostdelightful-handling aeroplane I’d flown,with a phenomenally high rate of roll’

250mph. That’s a half-loop, a rolland then another half-loop. A lot ofaeroplanes would struggle with that.”The absence of an inverted fuel

system demands care and attention.“Three-and-a-half upward rolls are nota problem for it”, Pete continues, “butalthough I do vertical rolls in it, I veryslightly barrel them all, so it’s going upin a slightly spiral fashion just to keepthe engine running.”What of Ballerina’s idiosyncrasies?

“It’s got spring aluminium [landing]gear instead of spring steel gear, andit’s not great at absorbing rough grassrunways — it prefers hard ones. It’sgiven me some alarming times whenI’ve been thrown into the air belowflying speed. The take-off speed isrelatively high; you can’t get it airbornebelow 70mph. Racing across roughgrass on aluminium legs at 70mph isalways going to be interesting…“And it’s got an abrupt stall to it.

If you put it into stall buffet, there’sno warning— one moment it’s flyingand then it gives up. It tends to dropa wing. Keeping clear of the stall andnot pulling it into an accelerated stall iscrucially important. That’s what causedits accident at Halfpenny Green in the’60s.”Ballerina isn’t quite as rapid as once

it was. “When I first had it”, says Pete,“and [raced] it in Formula One airracing, cleaned-up in max level speed itwould get to around the 225-230mph


mark. Now I don’t clean it up forracing, so it does just over 200mph,maybe 210”. G limitations must, ofcourse, also be observed. “The LAA[Light Aircraft Association, successor tothe PFA] imposes quite low limits onit, but, in actual fact, a stress analysisdone by [American Electric] provedthat the airframe of the Cosmic Windwas capable of at least +6 and -3g at amaximum weight of 2,000lb. Well, theall-up weight of this aeroplane is only850lb. If you do the sums, you discoverthat it’s actually very strong.”For an experienced private owner

well-versed in the type’s performanceand quirks, the Cosmic Wind is a joy.Despite its diminutive size, the type is

surprisingly practical. “It’s had somefairly big pilots in it. The cockpit is verywide— if you’ve got long legs you’dprobably run into a problem, as yourlegs would touch the bottom of theinstrument panel.“It’s a great aeroplane for touring.

I’ve been to St Moritz in it, I’ve been toCourchevel in it. From the days whenyou could only bring 11 bottles of wineback duty-free from France, I can tellyou that you can get 11 bottles of winein the Cosmic Wind…”An aeroplane of many talents, you

might say. No wonder Pete Kynseyso loves it. Long may his Ballerinacontinue to dance throughBritish skies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The author expresses his gratitude to Don Berliner, past president of the Society of Air RacingHistorians. Photographer Harry Measures thanks cameraship pilot John Thurlow for undertaking the air-to-air sortie.

ABOVE: DennisHartas at thecontrols of Ballerinaduring the 1966King’s Cupmeeting.He placed thirdoverall. PETER R. MARCH

BELOW: Ballerina‘mark two’ hasnow been in PeteKynsey’s ownershipfor 31 years. Hemaintains theaircraft himself.HARRY MEASURES


ne of the joys of thehistoric aircraft sceneis the opportunity tosee flying examples of

types thought long lost from ourskies. Who, for instance, would haveimagined ever being able to witnessperfect reproductions of a RoyalAircraft Factory RE8, Albatros D.Vaand Sopwith Snipe getting British airunder their wheels? For that, we havein no small measure to thank GeneDeMarco. Working as general andsales manager for The Vintage AviatorLtd in New Zealand, this very skilledAmerican pilot and engineer hasbeen instrumental in making possiblea number of glorious aeronauticalspectacles.The results of TVAL’s labours can

be seen in collections across the world.Of course, Gene’s main focus is theorganisation’s manufacturing workshopin Wellington and its flying base atHood Aerodrome in Masterton onNew Zealand’s North Island, where heheads up a team of supreme craftsmenrenowned for their ability to restore andaccurately replicate aircraft from theearly years of military aviation. But hevisits Europe often, not least as the FirstWorld War centenary period focusesmuch attention on the conflict’s flyingmachines, with a new connection tothe World War One Aviation HeritageTrust (WAHT) and a desire to bringthese fantastic aeroplanes to Englandand Europe where they saw action.

It was during one of those trips thatGene found the time to meet, OldWarden being an appropriate venuegiven the close links forged between theShuttleworth Collection and TVAL.Says Gene, “I grew up on Long

Island, New York, the ‘cradle of aviation’— an amazing place. When I was ayoung boy, my dad worked for PanAmerican World Airways. I used tomake frequent trips to the airport withhim, and to other aviation places—Old Rhinebeck, the Smithsonian andlocations like that. I always had a love ofairplanes, like most boys who are borninto that sort of thing.“I was about 14 or 15 when I bought

a little Piper J-5, and started restoring itin our garage with my dad’s help. It wasready to fly around the time I was 16,and I started taking flying lessons. WhenI got my licence I decided to fly it half-way across the United States and back,and I absolutely loved it.“I had a love for Mustangs, Corsairs

and stuff without the credit line tobuy one. It was easier to think aboutrestoring a vintage airplane, or maybeeven building a World War Oneairplane. I had several projects—another Piper, a Luscombe, a Stampe,a Waco UPF-7— but then I started toget more seriously into World War Oneairplanes. I began tinkering with rotaryengines, building a Sopwith Cameland some bits for a Nieuport. Oddlyenough, I never finished them. I soldthem as projects, because I had all these

O

Now the most experienced pilot ofFirst World War aircraft ever, this

American aficionado, in conjunctionwith Sir Peter Jackson, has done muchto further interest in 1914-18 aviation

WORDS: BEN DUNNELL

GENEDeMARCO

meets

ð


ABOVE: Gene DeMarco in the cockpit of the FE2b built by The Vintage Aviator Ltd. LUIGINO CALIARO

airplanes at my disposal to fly, and onceI started volunteering and helping outat Old Rhinebeck I had a chance to flysome amazing airplanes there.”The late Cole Palen’s ‘living museum’

of antique and replica aircraft in upstateNew York, Old Rhinebeck gave Genethe chance to get his hands on numeroustypes that would otherwise have beenout of reach. “I started out on theCurtiss Fledgling, and ended up flyingeverything in the collection that we couldfly— the Camel, the Nieuport 11, theAlbatros, the Fokker Dr.I and so on”. Itwas a tremendously formative experience.While some of the Old Rhinebeck

fleet had (and have) more modernpowerplants, several are rotary-engined.How did Gene find the transition topiloting these very specialised machines?“Being around airplanes at OldRhinebeck was key, because I was ableto hear what the other pilots said aboutthem. You gained a tremendous amountof knowledge just being on the sameairfield, hearing what people say. Evenjust standing next to a pilot talking to anengineer about a rotary-engined airplanethat had just taken off, he might say,“That sounds a bit rich”, “That soundsa bit lean”, or, “That’s not running verywell”. You get a feel for what they’resupposed to sound like, and that’s aneducation in itself.“The other thing was that at Old

Rhinebeck we’d run up some of theengines as a pre-show activity. It wasoften some of us who weren’t flying inthe display— we were all pilots— whowould do that, to entertain the crowdand make sure they were running OK.It was a fantastic experience to be ableto run them on the ground and get usedto their operation. This was also a goodway to test the “aircraft temperament”,as Cole would say, and see if the engineswere running well or if spark plugsneeded cleaning and so forth.“Flying the World War One airplanes,

it’s not necessarily the flying skills [thatare difficult], because the controls hadevolved to a pretty standard form bythe First World War. Before that youhad some really crazy control systems— a stick for the elevator control and aseparate stick for roll, like in a Hanriot.But by the time World War One came

around, the control stick operatedailerons and elevators, you had a standardset of rudder pedals or a rudder bar, andeverything was pretty much standardised.So, for the rotary airplanes, it’s all aboutoperating the engine. Once you canmaster keeping the engine running,transitioning from low power to highpower, getting the knack for whetherit’s rich or lean, that sort of thing made

a big difference. Having the experienceof doing that at Old Rhinebeck for anumber of years made it second nature toeventually fly one of those airplanes.“The first rotary I flew at Old

Rhinebeck was a Nieuport 11 with an80hp Le Rhône— no brakes, tailskid,fairly easy to fly, and it doesn’t have ahuge gyroscopic effect from that engine.Obviously, most of these rotary airplanesdive when you turn to the right andclimb when you turn to the left. TheCamel is well-known for that; it had aterrible reputation for being a dangerousairplane, unstable and all. With a largerengine, either a Gnome or a Clerget,there’s a very pronounced gyroscopiceffect. Longitudinally, it’s unstable— youcan’t ever let your hands off. Many pilotsin the early days got into trouble withthe Camel because it had such a fantasticclimb rate. They’d zoom-climb, the nosewould be pointing up, they’d stall, gointo a spin and, lo and behold, crash tothe ground. Around 20 per cent of pilotstransitioning to Camels got killed intraining accidents just that way.”It wasn’t all about Old Rhinebeck for

Gene. He had also to be earning money,so he became involved with the famedGEICO Skytypers team of SNJ-2s.“I was their chief engineer, and then Iflew with them as a skytyper over theEast Coast, effectively as a big dot-matrix printer in the sky, and puttingon formation displays. I was their soloskywriter as well.”

After the terror attacks of 11September 2001, US airspace wastemporarily closed to all civilian aircraft.Upon its re-opening, Gene’s SkytypersSNJ was the first aircraft to get airborneout of Republic Airport on Long Island,as he had an unusual task to perform.“We had a message to do for YokoOno over New York City, and thenanother one over Boston. At the fourcompass headings, I wrote ‘Peace’, ‘Love’,‘Harmony’ and ‘Hope’. That was prettyamazing.”Already, though, Gene had made a

connection that was to influence thefuture direction of his life— with NewZealand film director Peter Jackson.

“He’d bought a [replica] Sopwith Camelto do ‘King Kong’, but then ‘Lord of theRings’ came along and he didn’t reallythink the CG technology at the time wasup to doing an 85ft gorilla, so he did thetrilogy first. Then he went ahead withmaking ‘King Kong’. But he had thisairplane sitting around, and a number ofpeople in New Zealand had asked himif he wanted to display it at an airshow.

They didn’t really have anyone who waschecked out in a Camel, so they got holdof me. I’d had probably 15 years of flyingthe Camel at Old Rhinebeck… I said,“Sure, I’ll do it”.“At the time I had a charter business

flying Cessna 310s, mainly in Florida.This was before all the airline security,so I could jump-seat on an airliner andfly out to New Zealand. That’s exactlywhat I did. I packed a bag, flew my310 to Atlanta, Georgia, hopped onan Evergreen Boeing 747 freighter,went across America and on to Hawaii,Pongo Pongo, Sydney, Melbourne andAuckland. I hopped off at Auckland andmet up with a friend of mine that I’dknown from the States. He loaned me his1929 Travel Air biplane, and I proceededto fly that the length of New Zealand,pretty much, to get down to Omaka tofly this Camel for a film director that I’dnever met.“First I met an engineer who worked

for him. He showed me the airplane,we discussed flying it and I made atest flight. It was really a tremendousopportunity. The people were nice,and I finally got the chance to meetPeter— not Sir Peter then. We talkedabout World War One airplanes and hispassion for them.”The Camel that Gene agreed to fly

had been built in the mid-1980s byGerry Thornhill and Carl Swanson, andwas imported to New Zealand by PeterJackson in 1997. Gene was to fly the160hp Gnome-engined machine for itspublic debut during the 2001 ClassicFighters Air Show at Omaka, whichproved an interesting experience. “A bigchunk of cowling came off and got stuckon the right wing. The airplane wouldonly really turn to the right, but I wasable to land it. Quite a spectacle.“My trip to New Zealand was only

meant to last about two weeks. Aftersix weeks I was exploring more andmore, going up north. Six weeks turnedinto eight weeks, and then 12 weeks…The people back home didn’t know ifI was coming back or not. EventuallyI had to leave, but upon my returnit was only shortly thereafter that 11September happened and changed flyingforever. That made it very difficult torun a charter business in Florida, and itchanged what we did with Skytypers. Ididn’t know what to do, and I decided,“Maybe I’ll go back to New Zealand”.I returned the following year, and I’venever looked back.”Given Jackson’s enthusiasm, the

next step seems a very natural one. “Italked Peter into allowing me to setup a company to build World WarOne airplanes the way they shouldbe built, just like the originals”. Thuswas born The Vintage Aviator Ltd(TVAL), now one of just two registeredaircraft manufacturers in New Zealand.Its craftsmanship is, rightly, world-renowned.From those small beginnings

has grown a company employingover 50 staff. “We now reproduce,

meets GENE DeMARCO

‘I talked Peter Jackson into allowingme to set up a company to build WW1

airplanes the way they should be built’


❖

TOP LEFT:In appropriategarb with OldRhinebeck’s FokkerDr.I replica.VIA GENE DeMARCO

ABOVE: Withcolleagues fromOld Rhinebeck andthe Nieuport 11on a US Air ForceC-5 Galaxy. It flewtwo Rhinebeckaircraft to 1997’sUS Air Force 50thanniversary showat Nellis AFB.VIA GENE DeMARCO

LEFT: Thesethree HispanoSuiza-poweredSE5as were the firstTVAL products.LUIGINO CALIARO

BELOW: TheSopwith Camelhas long been afavourite WorldWar One aircraft forGene to fly. It wasalso the machinethrough whichhis link to PeterJackson was forged.LUIGINO CALIARO

BELOW: One of the messages written by Gene in his GEICOSkytypers SNJ over Boston shortly after US airspacere-opened in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorattacks. VIA GENE DeMARCO

ð



meets GENE DeMARCO

ABOVE: At the controls of the Bristol F2B, acquired byTVAL from The Fighter Collection. LUIGINO CALIARO

LEFT: The RE8 and Albatros D.Va built for the RAFMuseum. DARREN HARBAR

ABOVE: In June 2014, Gene made the maidenflight of the LVG C.VI built by theMemorialFlight. On this sortie out of La Ferté Alais, it wasaccompanied by the Fokker D.VII. FRANCK CABROL

BELOW: Airborne near Masterton on a beautifulevening in the ‘early-model’ BE2c. LUIGINO CALIARO

BELOW: The two BE2e reproductions that came to Britain in 2014. ‘A2943’ is owned by OliverWulff and loaned to theWorldWar One Aviation Heritage Trust, while it is hoped to findsponsorship that will enable ‘A2767’ to be purchased for WAHT. LUIGINO CALIARO

I think, 10 different engines fromscratch, and we’ve done 21 differentairframes, soon to be 26. There are 39airworthy airplanes in the collection,and we have seven original WorldWar One airplanes”. While someform TVAL’s flying fleet and othershave gone to clients overseas, severalmore can be viewed on display at theOmaka Aviation Heritage Centrein Blenheim, where the ‘Knights ofthe Sky’ exhibition mastermindedby Peter Jackson provides impressivesurroundings in which to view them.TVAL started by building four Royal

Aircraft Factory SE5as, all using originalHispano-Suiza engines overhauledin TVAL’s workshops. “One’s in themuseum down at Blenheim, and threeare still flying”, says Gene. It was farfrom a simple design with which to start,thanks to certain airframe complexities,but the results spoke for themselves. AsGene commented after the first flight on26 March 2007, “It is the finest exampleof a WW1 fighter I have ever flown!”Right from the outset, alongside

much old-fashioned craftsmanship,TVAL took advantage of modern-dayadvances. “We use some of the latesttechnology in building 100-year-olddesigns. Everything that we build,whether it’s welded or cast, or evenmachined in some cases, undergoes non-destructive testing. We use di-penetrativeMagnaflux X-rays if we have to. We havea 3D printer for printing small castingpatterns and prototype parts. We havea five-axis machining centre, a CNC[computer numerically controlled] lathemill, a tool centre. We draw a lot ofthe airplanes in CAD [computer-aideddesign], so we can make sure the partsfit together before we even build it.We’re fortunate to have access to a lot oftalented people within a small group ofcompanies where we’re based.”Access to genuine period airframes is,

of course, of great benefit. “We boughtan original Bristol F2B Fighter [D8084,previously owned by The FighterCollection]. We had a set of drawings,but we were missing a few bits andpieces. With the original Bristol handy,we could fill in the gaps in our drawingcollection, and we’ve since built severalBristols as well.”The list of TVAL’s ‘products’, for

want of a better term, has grown andgrown. For the Fokker D.VIII was builtan Oberursel engine; for the FE2b, anoriginal 160hp Beardmore powerplantrendered the project possible, but mostof the airframe had to be made fromscratch. As ever, this used materialsidentical to those at the disposal of theRoyal Aircraft Factory in period, butwith the aid of modern techniques andmachinery. A long-running programmeof BE2 family aircraft resulted firstin a reproduction early-model BE2c,then restored original BE2f A1325,a pair of replica BE2es and a second,late-model BE2c. Then there have beenthree each of RE8s and Sopwith Snipes,four Albatros D.Vas and a stunning

de Havilland (America) DH-4, allreplicated to the utmost degree.“The Albatros was particularly

challenging”, comments Gene. “Nodrawings exist, and there are onlytwo originals in the world, one at theSmithsonian and one at Canberra. Wehad to completely reverse-engineer it.Not only that, but we had to makeeverything for that airplane— themetric streamlined tubing, the wheels,the tyres, the instruments. I had tohave special cable made to reproducethe original cables they used nearly 100years ago. And we built the Mercedes[D.III] engine. It was a phenomenalaccomplishment.“I’m blessed to have a really talented

staff. They’re very clever. We hadthe opportunity to digitally scan anoriginal airplane [the example at theAustralian War Memorial in Canberra]and produce our own drawings for thatairplane. The scans were so accurate thatyou can actually see the coat of painton it.”

Of the four D.Vas, one was TVAL’s‘prototype’, the second for KermitWeeks (who also commissioned the firstairworthy Snipe), the third for the RAFMuseum and the most recent for OliverWulff, who bases it in the UK withthe World War One Aviation HeritageTrust. The involvement with the RAFMuseum offers an excellent exampleof how TVAL works closely with otherorganisations. The Albatros replicaused an original Mercedes engine fromRAFM stocks, while production of theRE8, briefly flown with it before thetwo aircraft were grounded for displayat Hendon, was aided by a rudder, wingand fuselage parts from the museum’sholdings being employed as patterns.With them to the UK came the RAFM’sSnipe, completed for static exhibitiononly, which is a composite of originaland replica items.British skies are now graced by a

TVAL reproduction Snipe, brought hereto join the World War One AviationHeritage Trust (WAHT) fleet. SaysGene, “It’s great having the Snipe here,and I hope I can find a buyer for it

and the second BE2e, or a sponsor forit through WAHT, so it can stay. Wereally pride ourselves on bringing backthese types that have never been seenanywhere. It’s one of the things thatwe’ve started with the WAHT. A lot ofthese airplanes should be here in theUK, and should be flown where theyhave a real history.”Gene is one of the WAHT trustees,

the intention being to operate a rangeof Great War types from these shores

and thus remember the exploits of1914-18 aviators. It stemmed in partfrom the RAF Museum’s Albatros andRE8 being allowed to fly for a time.“So many people wrote to me to say itwas a real shame they were going to bestuck in a museum and never flown anymore. I thought they had a real pointthere. Our idea was to set something upwhere people could fund these airplanes,make sure that they came to the UK,make sure that they stayed here, andgive World War One aviation exclusivelya home.“We have a presence at Stow Maries,

we have a presence at Bicester. It’ll befantastic if we can base a collection ofaircraft here in the UK for people toenjoy for the next 100 years. With whatwe build, we have the parts and theengineering to support those airplaneswell into the future.“Any of us would be foolish to say

we know it all, and the idea of havingthese collaborations is that we can tapinto the knowledge that other groupshave. For example, the guys at La FertéAlais know French airplanes inside andout, they have a good handle on someof the World War One types that wereoperated by the French, so they havetheir own expertise. We do the samewith Kermit Weeks and Javier Arango.They also hold items in their collectionsthat are very handy for us either toduplicate or, sometimes, trade. Thesecollaborations are very important to us.”The experts of France’s Memorial

Flight, with its workshops at Dugnyand flying aircraft at La Ferté Alais, areamong those working closely alongsideTVAL. On trips to La Ferté, Gene haspiloted the Memorial Flight’s FokkerD.VII and SPAD XIII, and in 2014 hemade the maiden flights of the LVGC.VI replica built by the organisationfor TVAL. “The flying characteristicsleave a little to be desired, but it’scertainly a beautiful airplane. Theengine is spectacular, the big Benz Bz IVwith 240hp [overhauled by TVAL]. TheMemorial Flight association has done afabulous job.”Which of the First World War aircraft

does Gene most enjoy, then? “I dolove the Sopwith Camel. It’s one of myfavourites. A difficult airplane to fly,

since it’s quite short-coupled and a bitunstable. I like the original Bristol, too,with the Rolls-Royce Falcon engine. Werecently built a Bristol with a 300hpHispano-Suiza engine [for the Salisfamily’s Casques de Cuir collection at LaFerté Alais], and that’s phenomenal. It’sright up there with my favourite WorldWar One airplanes. Then again, on anice, calm evening there’s absolutelynothing better than one of the BE2s. Asmooth-running, 90hp V8 engine with

ð


❖

‘We use some of the latest technologyin building 100-year-old designs’

a big propeller, slow speed, two seats soyou can take somebody with you — it’sjust fabulous.“Flying the airplanes is great— you

can get out there on a beautiful eveningand have a spectacular flight— but it’snot as memorable as meeting somebodywho actually has a connection to theairplanes for real. Some of the mostinteresting [times] have been whenI’ve just displayed an airplane like theFE2b, for example, someone comesup whose grandfather flew them, andthey’ve brought with them a handful oflittle photographs. Those are the mostmemorable experiences for me.”One of the issues the historic

aviation world must confront is theneed to bring forth a new generation ofrestorers, engineers and pilots. TVAL’swork is addressing this. As Generemarks, “It takes a really dedicatedgroup to keep [these aircraft] going. I’vebrought one of the young fellas withme here — he’s been helping to pushthe airplanes around and fuel them.He’s a pilot, so we’ve just got him intohis first World War One airplane to fly.I’ve had Jean Munn, the chief engineer

here [at Shuttleworth], flying the Snipeas his first rotary airplane.”What of the future for TVAL? “We’re

expanding a wee bit, in that I’ve founda lot of other groups that need ourservices. I’ve had people like Bentleyand Rolls-Royce clubs wanting engineparts made, guys with World War Twoairplanes needing parts…We’re uniquelypositioned to do just that, because wehave a Part 148 manufacturing approval,we’re an ICAO country so I can issueForm 1s— it’s a very good positionfor us to be in. We’ve really masteredmanufacturing some very high-tech bits,stuff like engine castings, oil pumps,magnetos, carburettors, wheels, tyres.We’re at the point where we’ve beenbuilding airplanes for the last 13 years,we have a bit of an inventory so items areavailable for sale and trade, and I can freeup some manufacturing time for otherprojects.”First World War aircraft, though,

remain absolutely central to TVAL’sactivities. “I’m building another Bristol,I’m building another Snipe, I’ve a coupleof Pups available and I’m going to doanother Albatros. Oh, and we’re restoring

the Farman [F40] we got from the RAFMuseum, which is going to fly soon.”And what of those World War

One types Gene and his team are yetto tackle? “One of the twin-enginedbombers would be exciting— I’veseen that Caudron G.IV hanging up inthe Smithsonian with its two 80hp LeRhônes, and always wondered whetherthey blip the engines separately! At theCanada Aviation Museum I’ve seen theAEG G.IV, which looks magnificent. I’vejust been spending a lot of time flyinga floatplane in New Zealand, which isanother passion of mine, and there aresome really interesting World War Onefloatplanes which it might be good toexperiment with.”Even for a man whose flying experience

takes in such ‘heavy metal’ as the P-40and Corsair, First World War aircraftclearly remain central to Gene DeMarco’saeronautical passion. He and TVAL aredoing much to renew attention upon theflying machines of the 1914-18 period,an area often overlooked, but no longer.Above all, as Gene says of TVAL’s work,“It’s a fantastic opportunity to beable to see some amazing airplanes.”


meets GENE DeMARCO

ABOVE: Gene with Shuttleworth chief pilot‘Dodge’ Bailey (left) and New Zealand warbirdpilot Keith Skilling (right) shortly after re-assembly of the Albatros and Snipe at OldWarden this summer. DARREN HARBAR

ABOVE: Lowover OldWarden inOliver Wulff’sAlbatros D.Va,the latest TVALreproductionof the typeto have beencompleted.DARREN HARBAR

RIGHT: SopwithSnipe ‘F2367’is among theaircraft forwhich Genehopes to finda buyer orsponsor in orderto enable itsacquisition byWAHT.BEN DUNNELL

Hornby F_P.indd 1 15/09/2015 10:03

he seaplanes produced bythe Hansa und Branden-burgische Flugzeugwerkewere a remarkably

effective range of maritime combataircraft of the Great War, designed byErnst Heinkel.As well as the conventional N

biplane two-seater adapted with floatsas the NW (the W for ‘Wasserflug-zeug’ or water-aeroplane), there was

the single-seat Hansa-BrandenburgKDW fighter, also adapted to use afloat undercarriage. This was then‘stretched’ with a rear cockpit for anobserver gunner, to make the W.12,the first of the family to be identifiableby virtue of the trademark invertedrudder, this enabling an uninterruptedfield of fire for the gunner. Furtherdevelopment saw the monoplaneW.19, itself improved further into theW.33, which entered production justbefore the armistice. Few in number,these were some of the war’s mostoutstanding combat aircraft.

The German crews used them for aremarkable range of activities,primarily scouting reconnaissance,but they would attack whatever andwhenever they could, harassing shipsand submarines as well as aircraft— including airships as the opportu-nity arose. They liaised with U-boats,landing on the open sea whenconditions permitted. On occasion,they were used to attack and captureBritish shipping at sea, being able toland by the ship under examination.Nicknamed the ‘Hornets of Zee-brügge’, after their main occupied

T

AIRCREW: HANSA-BRANDENBURG


ABOVE:AHansa-BrandenburgW.29

of the ImperialGermanNavygetstheupper hand in afierce combatwitha Felixstoweflying

boat over theNorth Sea in 1918.

LEFT:Awealthof detail canbemadeout as the crewprepares to lower therunningfloatplanedown the ramp. VIA JAMES KIGHTLY

ABOVE:Aclassic shot of oneof theW.29monoplanes reveals the (for the time)clean cantileverwing structure. VIA JAMES KIGHTLY

HANSA-BRANDENBURG


Belgian base, they even ventured as faras British mainland ports and inland.After a bombing raid against English

southern ports on 19March 1916,Oberleutnant der Reserve derMatrosen-Artillerie FriedrichChristiansen was flying the Front-Seeflugstation commander, Kapitän-leutnant von Tschirschky undBögendorff, in Hansa-BrandenburgNW 521 when they were attacked bysurprise. Christiansen recalled: “Ahailstorm of hits on our aircraft. Theradiator line was shot away and avalve-rocker on one engine cylinderwas destroyed. In addition Kptnltnvon Tschirschky und Bögendorff wasshot in the shoulder and grazed on thehead, and therefore could no longeruse his Mauser automatic rifle— atthe time seaplanes did not yet havemachine guns.”They soon lost their attacker, who

thought they had been shot down, andstaggered along. According to oneaccount, Bögendorffmade “runningrepairs to the damaged engine” whilestanding on the wing. Eventuallyalighting on the water— in aminefield— they found that one floathad been holed by a shell, which

AircrewAircrewAircrewAircrew

FLOATPLANE

ABOVE:Pictured in 1933, FriedrichChristiansenhad reached the rankofKapitänleutnant derReservederMatrosen-Artillerie in 1918andwasthedoyenofGerman seaplanepilotswithmore than20victoriesover aircraft (includingoneairship)and10 ships. VIA JAMES KIGHTLY

I was there…Leutnant Fritz Stormer, observer“Our Hansa-Brandenburg aircraft were superior to theBritish flying boats in terms of speed, manoeuvrability andarmament… on the other hand, the drag of our twin floats putus at a serious disadvantage if we were ambushed by Britishor French land-based fighters. Our best defence was to fly intight formation, close to the water.”

Daily Mail, 1915The Copenhagen correspondent reported in December1915 on a recovered wreck: “It was equipped with wireless,photographic apparatus, and guns.”

Leutnant Fritz Stormer, observer“Since the submarine was now going full steam ahead, thatreinforced the thought that the boat had been renderedunable to dive when the five Hansa-Brandenburgs openedfire. As we later learned first-hand during a test on the docksat Bruges, the SMK [Stahlmantelgeschosse, steel-jacketed]bullets could penetrate the smooth pressure hull of asubmarine.”

Only one of the family survives. An IVLA.22Hansa, thepost-war Finnish licence-built version of theHansa-BrandenburgW.33, is on showat the Suomen ilmailumuseo(FinnishAviationMuseum) nearHelsinki Airport in Vantaa.Quotes via Peter Kilduff’s ‘Germany’s First Air Force 1914-1918’(Arms&Armour, 1991) and ‘Luftwaffe Fighter BombersOverBritain’ byGoss, Cornwell andRauchbach (Stackpole, 2010).

WANTTOKNOWMORE?

View from the office…Typical of the better two-seaters of the period, theHansa-Brandenburg’s crew flew back-to-back. The pilotsat aft of the upper wing centre section in the W.12biplane, and above the wing in the monoplanes. He hadan excellent view in almost all directions, excepting thelower wing. The aircraft was equipped with conventionalcontrols of the era for the inline upright engine and flyingsurfaces, and one ortwo fixed forward-firing machineguns. The observer/gunner stood behindwith his single gunmounted on thecockpit rim. Unlikeother aircraft ofthe era, the Hansa-Brandenburgs wereusually equippedwith wirelesstransmitters,enabling them tosend sighting reportsor summon help, fordefence or attack.

ABOVE:Aheavily-armedW.12shows the close cockpits of thepilot (note his controlwheel) andtheobserver. Visibility from themonoplane versionswas evenbetter. VIA JAMES KIGHTLY

thankfully had not gone off. With theleaking float causing complications,they repaired the hose, re-filled theradiator with sea water and managedto find their way back on what hadbecome a seven-hour return journey.Effective machines to the war’s end,

the Hansa-Brandenburg floatplanes

found wide post-war use and furtherdevelopment by the maritime forcesof Denmark, Finland Holland,Norway and Japan, some as lateas the 1930s.

WORDS: JAMES KIGHTLY

ARTWORK: IAN BOTT(www.ianbottillustration.co.uk)

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underwing drop tanks. Enduranceof at least two hours was requiredat 30,000ft (9,144m), in addition tofuel for 15minutes’ combat.Amock-upwas completed at

the end of 1948 and ArmstrongWhitworth at Bitteswell convertedT7 VW413 into an aerodynamictest prototype. It featured a 4ft(1.2m)-longer nose, and in thisformwas first flown on 28 January1949 by ArmstrongWhitworth testpilot Bill Else. InMarch the F8’stailplanewas added to VW413,extending overall length to 48ft 6in(14.8m). Sqn Ldr Eric G. FranklinDFC AFC, the company chief testpilot, took the re-configuredaircraft into the air on 8 April. Assuch, VW413was now consideredto be aerodynamicallyrepresentative of theNF11, thedesignation given to the new nightfightermark.The Aeroplane &Armament

Experimental Establishment atBoscombeDown performed brief

he deHavillandMosquito was a hugesuccess, but theadvancesmade in

military aircraft developmentfollowing the end of the SecondWorldWar soon rendered thenight fighter versions of thispiston-powered aircraftobsolescent. In fact, the need for areplacement became quite urgentbecause theMosquito wasincapable of dealing with the newjet bombers expected to join theSoviet Union’s air arms. Therefore,in January 1947 specificationF.44/46was raised to open aprogramme for a new night fighter— this eventually led to the GlosterJavelin. However, for a number ofreasons that aircraft’sdevelopment proved to be longand slow (the Javelin did not enterservice until 1956), so in due coursean interimMosquito replacementwith improved performancewasalso proposed to fill the gap. The

result was the night fighter versionof the GlosterMeteor.Gloster’s first night fighter

brochure was put together inOctober 1948. It described aconverted two-seatMeteor T7trainer powered by Rolls-RoyceDerwent 5 engines. The designshowed a 5ft (1.52m) extension tothe basicMeteor nose toaccommodate a 28in (71cm)-diameter airborne interceptionAIMkIXB radar scanner (thedevelopment of the AIMkIXB,subsequentlyMk9B, wasabandoned in 1949). The projectwas accepted, but at this timeGloster was full upwith single-seatMeteor work, so the night fighterdevelopment programmewasfarmed out to SirW. G. ArmstrongWhitworth Aircraft Ltd (AWA) atCoventry which, like GlosterAircraft, was amember of theHawker Siddeley Group. Thiscompany’s design teamwas led byH. R.Watson. Separate to this,

from September 1945Meteor F3EE348 had been used as a radartest-bedwith an American AN/APS-4 radar (called the AIMk15 inthe UK)mounted in its nose.Specification F.24/48 of

February 1949 covered the newMeteor interim night fighter,which, it was now decided, was tobe fittedwith the AIMk10 radar.This was the designation given tothe American SCR-720Bequipment. Two crewwererequired because this radar couldnot be operated just by the pilot,whichwas why the aircraft had tobe based on the T7. TheMeteortrainer’s windscreen and canopywere revised, and the pilot and anavigator/radar operator were tobe seated in tandem in a newpressure cabin; ejection seats werenot required. Performance had tobe comparable with that of theMeteor F4, and a speed of 435kt(806km/h) was consideredacceptable when carrying

New era for night fightingHow theMeteor became the RAF’s first jet night fighter

TABOVE:ThefirstMeteorNF11prototypewasWA546, flownat the endofMay1950. AEROPLANE

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handling, longitudinal stability andmanoeuvre tests on VW413 inSeptember andOctober 1949withthe objective of gathering advanceinformation on the night fighter’spotential flying qualities. In generalit was considered that the typewould have adequate longitudinalstability for night operations, but itwas recommended that lighterailerons should be fitted toimprove the lateral controlqualities and that the landingcharacteristics be investigatedfurther because of excessive ‘float’.Pilots considered that this wouldbe a hazard on a normal-lengthrunway at night, so an opportunityhad arisen to increase drag in thelanding configuration to thebenefit of the aircraft overall.With an F8-style tailplane and a

pressurised cockpit, the first truenight fighter prototypewasWA546, which flew on 31May1950. Franklin was again in thepilot’s seat. This was a completely

new airframe, although to savetimemany of theNF11’smajorcomponents were similar to oreven interchangeable with thoseof the single-seatMeteors. Inparticular, the wingwas verysimilar to that used by the PR10 orthe earlier F3, with rounded tipsand a span of 43ft (13.1m) becausethe higher wing areawas requiredto balance the additional weight.However, because the nose had tohouse the interception radarscanner, the four 20mmcannonhad been displaced to thewings.At one stageWA546 appearedwith wingtip tanks but these werenever standard.Every NF11 had a distinctive

fairing on the bottomof its radometo cover the lower bearing bracketcarrying the scanner, whichprotruded outside the line of thelower fuselage. The fuselage stillresembled the T7, with the pilotand navigator seated under amassive canopy, which hinged to

starboard. Cabin pressurisationcame from tapping theDerwent 8compressor to give an equivalentcabin altitude of 24,000ft (7,315m)at 40,000ft (12,192m).WA546wasused for radar development testingat Defford.The second prototypewas

WA547, and the thirdWB543,which featured a strengthenedcentre section, wings andundercarriage andwas identical tothe planned production standardexcept for a different radar, the AIMk17 (also carried byWA547).WB543was delivered in June 1952and the first productionNF11wasWD585, which became airborne on19October 1950.WD590 onwardsintroduced spring-tab aileronswhich considerably improved thetype’s flying characteristics, controlharmony between ailerons andelevator, and the rate of roll.Another aircraft fittedwith

wingtip tanks rather than thenormal underwing variety was

WD604, tested by the A&AEE inMarch and April 1952.Withoutexternal wing tanks theNF11’shandling characteristics with thestandard andmodifiedwingtips(with or without tip fairings) werefound to be near-identical, but themodifications required to fit tiptanks could not be introduced tothe production line for aboutanother year. Thatmeantretrospectivemodifications for alarge number of aircraft alreadydelivered, whichwould beexpensive, so the tip tanks wereabandoned. In future theNF’sinternal fuel capacity was usuallysupplemented by both ventral andunderwing tanks. Incidentally, forcombat theNF11would release itsexternal underwing tanks but keepthe ventral tank. In August 1951,AWA reported that extra landingflaps outboard of the nacelles hadbeen flight-tested and laterproductionMeteors wouldincorporate them.

night fighting


The first production contractwas placed on 31May 1949. Itcovered 200 aircraft deliveredbetweenNovember 1950 andDecember 1952with serialsWD585-WD634,WD640-WD689,WD696-WD745 andWD751-WD800. A second contract for 192examples followed on 22December 1950, but in the event40 of these were delivered asNF12s (see below). TheNF11serials wereWM143-WM192,WM221-WM270,WM292-WM307 andWM368-WM403,delivered from July 1952 untilMarch 1953. The first aircraft tojoin the RAFwasWD599withNo29 Squadron at Tangmere in 1951.

NF13The next night fighter variant tofly, though numerically third in thelist of designations, was theNF13,a ‘minimum-change’ aircraftexternally near-identical to theNF11 but specially kitted-out withtropical equipment for service intheMiddle East, a region towhichthe earliermark was not suited.Extra equipment took the formofa cold air ventilating or airconditioning systemplus a radiocompass (the lattermarked by aD/F loop aerial placed underneaththe cockpit canopy behind thenavigator). These changesmadethe new version 450lb (204kg)heavier than the original NF11.On 23December 1952, AWA’s

Flt Lt J. O. Lancaster DFC took thefirst example,WM308, into the air.The 40NF13smanufactured,serialsWM308-WM341 andWM362-WM367, were deliveredbetween January andMarch 1953.

The first squadron to re-equip onthe type, inMarch of that year,was No 39 at Fayid.

NF12The next development was theNF12. Here the nosewas evenlonger but better streamlined toaccommodate an AmericanAPS-57 radar. Another visiblechangewould in due course bethe fairing-in of the tail ‘acorn’, toimprove the airflow and help tobalance the additional side area ofthe nose.With the Britishdesignation AIMk21, the APS-57was a big improvement over thewartime AIMk10. It could detect

targets at twice theMk10’s range— up to 20miles (32km) for largertargets and 15miles (24km) for aMeteor-size aeroplane— and thenavigator was able to direct itsscanner with a joystick rather thanthe set of tilt-selectors providedfor the older equipment. Inaddition, the AIMk21 had an ASV(anti-surface vessel) capability,and experienced navigators foundthat theMk21 set would showrunways and airfield detail quitewell; consequently, that allowedthem to use the equipment as alanding aid.NF11WD670was re-fitted for a

trial installation as a prototype

and introducedwhat in the endproved to be a 17in (43.2cm) noseextension that took overall lengthup to 49ft 11in (15.21m). TheMk21also saw the removal of the earlierunder-nose fairing. The extraweight was compensated for bythe addition ofmore powerful3,800lb Derwent 9 engines, whichboasted an improved re-lightingcapability. This not only enabledthe powerplant to be revived athigher altitudes, but gave the crewthe added comfort ofmoreconsistent overall enginere-lighting characteristics.BoscombeDown acquired

WD670with its new nose (but atthe time still with Derwent 8s) forbrief handling trials in June andJuly 1952. Handling bothwith andwithout underwing tanks wasconsidered to be satisfactory andsimilar to theNF11. However, theextended nose had produced amarked destabilising effectdirectionally and rudder over-balancewas found duringsideslips at low altitude, while athigh altitude severe fin stallingwas encountered, described as “amost unpleasant and dangerouscharacteristic.”As a result a secondNF12

prototypewas produced.WD687was another formerNF11 re-fittedwith the extended nose tomake itaerodynamically fullyrepresentative of theNF12.However, it introduced amodifiedfinwith fillets both above andbelow the tail ‘acorn’ bullet, whichincreased the gross fin area byapproximately a square foot.These changes, together with a17.5° restriction eachway on the


ABOVE:Meteor T7VW413was givenfirst theNF11’s longer nose and thenan F8-style tail for aerodynamic trials. AEROPLANE

ABOVE:Early productionNF11WD597posed for a series of publicityphotographs.Note the cannonprotruding from thewing leadingedge. VIA TONY BUTTLER

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rudder travel, eliminated both thefin stalling and the rudderover-balance troubles — they alsoprovided satisfactory handling.The order covering 100NF12s

(and also 100NF14s) was placedon 28 February 1951, but at thatpoint it referred to additionalNF11s. It was subsequentlyamended, and theNF12production serials wereWS590-WS639,WS658-WS700 andWS715-WS721, all deliveredbetweenMay and September1953. Eric FranklinmadeWS590’smaiden flight on 21 April 1953,and the first unit to receive theNF12wasNo 238OperationalConversion Unit.

NF14The ultimateMeteor night fighterwas theNF14. It used the sameequipment as theNF12 butintroduced some improvements,not least in that the old ‘ForthBridge’ greenhouse canopywasdiscarded and replaced by atwo-piece, clear-vision, blownsliding hoodwhichwhenassembled showed all thecharacteristics of a framelesscanopy. The view out wasmuchbetter than on earliermarks, and

according to Flight this hoodwas“immensely popular” with thecrews of No 85 Squadron, one ofthe units to receive the new type.Themagazine’s article added thattheNF14was officially describedas “the fastest version of theMeteor yet produced” (oneassumes this referred to the nightfighterMeteors only).It had apparently been

intended to fit the AmericanAPQ-43 radar into the NF14, butby now theMeteor night fighter’sfuture was very short-term and itjust wasn’t worth the designeffort to undertake such amodification. The APQ-43’s dishwas also too large to fit inside thecurrent nose, although the noseon the NF14 itself was longerthan previously, a 17in (43.2cm)stretch taking the overall lengthto 51ft 4in (15.65m) andmaking

this the longest night fightervariant of all.ProductionNF11WM261was

used for a trial installation of theclear long sliding hood canopy,whichmade it a ‘prototype’ NF14.The A&AEE at Boscombe testedWM261’s new hood in the blowertunnel in 1953, the Establishmentstating that this feature was animprovement and had beendeclared safe. An auto-stabiliserwas used to eliminate highaltitude instability, and for the firsttime ejection seats were installedin a night fighterMeteor.The first production aeroplane

wasWS722. It made itsmaidenflight fromBaginton on 23October 1953, piloted by Bill Else.Deliveries started on 6Novemberand the first front-line unit to getthe newmarkwasNo 25Squadron fromMarch 1954

onwards. The 100NF14sproduced carried serialsWS722-WS760,WS774-WS812 andWS827-WS848, andweredelivered betweenNovember1953 andMay 1954. Strangely,development of theNF12 andNF14was notmade public untilDecember 1953 and April 1954respectively, some time after theirfirst flights had been recorded.Manufacture of the entire run

of night fighterMeteors wasundertaken by AWA at Baginton,and the type became the standardRAF night fighter until the Javelinentered service. Production forthe RAF amounted to 355NF11s(including three prototypes), 100NF12s, 40NF12s and 100NF14s.Suchwas theNF14’s popularitywithin the service that it becameknown as the ‘queen of the skies’,but sources also report that


ABOVE:No25SquadronNF12WS719ona training sortie out ofWaterbeach. KEY COLLECTION

AEROPLANE

BELOW:A three-shipofMeteorNF13s fromNo39Squadron.Nearest thecamera isWM308, thefirst exampleof themark. AEROPLANE


BELOW:TT20WD767 towing a target banner. KEY COLLECTION


ABOVE: SecondproductionNF14WS723 in the colours ofNo85 Squadron. CROWNCOPYRIGHT

during exercises the typewasincapable of reaching the flyingaltitudes of RAF jet bombers likethe Canberra, and so could notintercept them.After withdrawal from the front

line, the radars were removedfrom someNF14s and replaced byUHF radios, which gave them anew lease of life as trainingaircraft. As such, themodifiedtypewas known unofficially as the‘NF(T)14’.

TT20TheNF14 did notmark the end oftheMeteor night fighter story,because in 1956 theNF11wasturned into the TT20 target tug forthe Royal Navy. The Fleet AirArm’s piston-powered FaireyFirefly tugs needed to be replaced,while thoseNF11 airframesreplaced in the front line byNF14swere now surplus, so it provedideal to convert theMeteors.Specification TT179Dwas drawnup to cover the tugMeteor, andaltogether 50 examples weremodified to satisfy theNavy’srequirements for a high-speedaeroplane to tow targets for bothshore and ship-based ground-to-air gunnery practice, at home oroverseas.The conversion involved

mounting awind-driven(windmill)ML Aviation G-Typewinch on a pylon over thestarboard inner wing between theengine nacelle and fuselage. Thiswas used to pay out or haul in a6,100ft (1,860m)-long cable. A tailguard prevented any fouling ofthe rear control surfaces by thecable. The fact that theNF11was atwo-seat aircraft was importantbecause an operator in the rear

cockpit was responsible not onlyfor thewinch but also a cablecutter, which in the event of anemergency could dispose of thetarget.The TT20 could carry four 3ft by

15ft (0.9mby 4.6m) or 4ft by 20ft(1.2mby 6.1m) high-speed,radar-responsive sleeve targetsstowed in the rear fuselage andlaunch themwhile flying. Thetargets themselves carried‘near-miss’ recording gear plus aconductive cable and targetmicrophone, so that hits and near-misses could be signalled via thetowing cable to an indicator onthe rear cockpit control panel. Thefour targets were housed incylindrical canisters and the doorof a ‘D-section’ mouth projectingat the lower end through thefuselage skin would opendownwards to eject a target.Successive targets could bereleased in the air with new onessubstituted.Both the radar and all of the

gunswere taken out, but suchwastheweight of thewinch and itscable that the TT20’s all-upweight,

and thus its performance andgeneral flight characteristics,proved to be little different fromtheNF11.WD767 served as theTT20 prototype and first flew inthismodified formon 5December1956. Previously anNF14,WS844,had in 1955 trialled the towing of abanner target, and over aneight-year period starting in 1957TT20swere used to investigate thetowing characteristics of a rangeof targets. Twenty British and sixDanish aircraft were converted byArmstrongWhitworth atBitteswell, and the remainingBritish examples by the RoyalNavy Air Yard at Sydenham,Belfast.

ProjectsAWAmade at least five proposalsfor further developments of theNF11. Three had new engines— the AW60was to be poweredby Armstrong Siddeley Sapphirejets, the AW61 by Rolls-RoyceNenes and the AW62 by deHavilland Goblins (this third studyappears to have been drawn inOctober 1950 specifically for the

Swedish Air Force). On top of thisthere was the AW63 fittedwiththe APQ-43 radar, while the AW64introduced staggered side-by-side seating andwingtip tanks.There was a proposed study

into flap blowingwhere anNF11was to bemodified by the BristolAeroplane Company. FourTurbomeca Palouste wingtip jetswould be fitted, and run atmaximum rpm to blow airthrough a 0.04in (1.02mm)-wideblowing slot. All equipment notrequired for the trial would beremoved but the radar operator’sseat was retained in order toaccommodate an engineerobserver. It was proposed to fitplain flaps both inboard andoutboard of themain engines,provisionwould bemade fordrooping the ailerons, and theoptionwas there to blow air overboth the flaps and the ailerons orjust the flaps alone. The drawingwas dated 22 February 1955, andthe aircraft allocated for the testswas prototypeWA546, but thisproposal was not turnedinto hardware.

MMeettttttttteeeeeeeeooooooor niiigggghhhhhhhtt fififiggghhtteerrrsst ehhhhhttttttttt tgeee hhM gnM ggggfifirooo sreM i hhhhhhh fifi hhMeeteeeeeeor night fighterrsg ggg ggg gg

ABOVE:MeteorNF14WS841No264 Squadron, RAFCHRIS SANDHAM-BAILEY



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Anatomy of the Meteornight fighterThe rolemodifications produced an aircraft that looked verydifferent to its day fighter brethren

ABOVE:MeteorNF11WD617powers into the air, showingwell the long ‘radar nose’. AEROPLANE

heMeteor nightfighter had a long,slender fuselage, alowwing and a

tricycle undercarriage. Its wingwas tapered on both the leadingand trailing edges and thehorizontal tail was located highon the fin. The innermainplanesand fuselage were assembledfrom threemain units: a frontsection with the nose wheel, acentre fuselage and wing centresection which included thenacelles andmain landing gear,and the rear fuselage andempennage. Their structureemployed all-metal stressed-skinmanufacture throughout.The fuselage was built around

four longerons, with the frontmade up from a stiff internalbox-like structure, aroundwhich was attached a lightercontour-forming frameworkand skin. Along with the enginesand their nacelles, the centresection included themain fueltank and provided attachmentsfor the Dowty tricycleundercarriage. The fourlongerons were then carried onthrough into the rear fuselage

where they were built up toreceive the light alloy stressedskin.Themainplanes had a

conventional two-sparstructure, again with a light alloystressed-skin covering, and the

rear spar was provided withadditional depth toaccommodate the jet pipes in afeature known as the ‘banjo’. Sixmain ribs were employed in thewing centre section with bothspars and ribs built in stainless

steel, and the wing had simpleall-metal ailerons together with(between the nacelles andfuselage) hydraulically-operatedsplit flaps, plus slotted airbrakeson both upper and lowersurfaces. The all-metal tail usedtwo-spar stressed-skinconstruction; its fin wasintegrated with the fuselage, andboth the rudders and elevatorswere all-metal.The above all relates to the

Meteor single-seat day andtwo-seat night fighters andtrainers, but the NFs introduceda pressurised T7 trainer-typefuselage with an extended noseto house the radar scanner. Theyhad long-span wings with thefour 20mm gunsmountedoutboard of the engine nacelles,an F8-style tail unit and externaltanks which were considered tobe a normal fitting. The largeforward portion of the nose wasmade of dielectric material topermit the scanner to operateproperly, and in the cockpit thepilot was seated at the front withthe radar operator/navigatorbehind. All of the structurebetween the nosewheelbulkhead and the front wing sparbulkhead had been sealed toform a pressure cabin, withpressurisation supplied bytapping the Derwent 8 engine’scompressor.On the NF11, NF12 andNF13

the crewwere enclosed under asingle, heavily-framed hoodwhich was hinged for access andwhich, in an emergency, couldbe jettisoned by either occupant.The NF14 introduced thetwo-piece clear-view slidingcanopy on rails plusMartin-Baker ejection seats — the longdorsal protuberance on the NF14was a guide rail for the canopy.Themain internal tank held 325gallons (1,478 litres) of fuel, andthe night fighters could carry a180-gallon (818-litre) ventraltank and two underwingexternal tanks.

T

POWERPLANTSNF11 and NF13: two Rolls-Royce Derwent 8s, 3,700lb thrust eachNF12 and NF14: two Rolls-Royce Derwent 9s, 3,800lb thrust each

DIMENSIONSNF11 AND NF13 NF12 NF14

Span: 43ft 0in (13.11m) 43ft 0in (13.11m) 43ft 0in (13.11m)Length: 48ft 6in (14.78m) 49ft 11in (15.21m) 51ft 4in (15.65m)Height: 13ft 11in (4.24m) 13ft 11in (4.24m) 13ft 11in (4.24m)

GROSSWEIGHT (without external tanks)NF11: 16,542lb (7,503kg)NF13: 17,223lb (7,812kg)NF12: 16,990lb (7,707kg)NF14: 17,287lb (7,841kg)

PERFORMANCEMaximum level speed: NF11: 580mph (933km/h) at sea level, 547mph

(880km/h) at 30,000ft (9,144m)NF14: 585mph (941km/h) at 10,000ft

Ceiling: NF11 and NF13: 40,000ft (12,192m)NF14: 43,000ft (13,107m)

ARMAMENTFour wing-mounted 20mm cannon

METEORNF SPECIFICATIONS



Meteor NF14

Meteor NF11

Meteor NF14

Meteor NF14

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eplacement of theageingMosquito nightfighters began in July1951when the first

Meteor NF11was delivered toNo 29 Squadron at Tangmere. ByAugust this unit was fullyequipped, and had to performthe task of introducing a jetfighter to the role.By the end of the year three

more squadrons had converted.As of 1954 the UK-basedMeteorunits operatingNF11s withinFighter CommandwereNo 29Squadron still at Tangmere, 85 atWestMalling (which flew theNF11 from September 1951 toAugust 1954), 141 (Coltishall,September 1951 to September1955), 151 (Leuchars, April 1953 toSeptember 1955) and lastly 264 atLinton-on-Ouse (November 1951toNovember 1954). As it turnedout, 29 also proved to be the lastsquadron to use this version,relinquishing its final examples inNovember 1957.Within FighterCommand theMeteors sharedtheir night fighting role firstly withthe Vampire NF10 and later thefollow-on VenomNF2 andNF3.During 1952, the NF11made

its appearance in Germany when

it joined Nos 68 and 87Squadrons serving with the 2ndTactical Air Force. In due coursethe front-line squadrons toreceive themark were Nos 68and 87 based atWahn and 96and 256 at Ahlhorn. 68 acquiredits aircraft fromMarch 1952; theunit was re-numbered as No 5Squadron in January 1959 andkept the version until August1960, while 87 used the NF11betweenMarch 1952 andNovember 1957. 96 re-formed

on the night fighter in November1952 and gave it up in January1959. 256 re-equipped inNovember 1952 — another unitto see a change of number, itbecameNo 11 Squadron inJanuary 1959, and under its newidentity it kept the by then quitedated NF11 right through untilMarch 1962. At one point, 68 puttogether a three-aircraft displayteam on the NF11. Many surplusexamples subsequently foundtheir way to overseas air arms.

Since only 40 examples of theNF13were built, specifically fortropical use, no UK-basedfront-line units were everequippedwith themark. It servedonly withNos 39 and 219Squadrons, both of which, tobegin with, were based at Kabritin the Suez Canal Zone. Theyre-formed on theNF13 inMarchand April 1953 respectively (219had also used theNF11 brieflyfromOctober 1952), but with theBritish withdrawal from the CanalZone 219was disbanded inSeptember 1954 and 39wasmoved to Luqa inMalta; the latterlost its NF13s in June 1958. Surplusexamples were subsequentlyrefurbished by AWA anddelivered to Egypt, France, Israeland Syria.Although overall theMeteor

night fighters stayed in the frontline for a reasonable period, theearly NF11was itself replaced bytheNF12 andNF14with theirmoremodern airborneinterception (AI) radars. TheNF12reached Fighter Commandservice in 1954 andwent on toserve with eight squadrons: 25,first at Tangmere and laterWestMalling, operated theNF12 and

ABOVE:ThefirstMeteorNF11operatorwasNo29Squadronat Tangmere. It flew the type from July 1951. KEY COLLECTION

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R

In the heat ofthe nightNever ideal for the role, theNFMeteors nevertheless served the RAFwell

ABOVE:Asimulatednight scramblebyanNF11 crew. VIA TONY BUTTLER


theNF14 betweenMarch 1954andMarch 1959; 29 at Leucharshad theNF12 briefly fromFebruary to July 1958 (in fact,after it had begun to receiveJavelins); 46 at Odihamflew itfromAugust 1954 toMarch 1956(the squadron used theNF14 overexactly the same period); 64 hadNF12s at Duxford fromAugust1956 to September 1958; 72 atChurch Fenton flewNF12s andNF14s between February 1956and June 1959; theNF12 replacedtheNF11withWestMalling-based 85 in April 1954 andwasflown by the squadron untilOctober 1958, alongside theNF14for thewhole period; 152 atWattishamhad bothNF12s andNF14s from June 1954 to July1958; and, finally, 153 atWest

Malling employed both fromMarch 1955 to June 1958.Since theNF12 andNF14 used

the same type of radar, theywereoperationally interchangeable,and RAF units could employ thetwo versions together quite easily.Therefore, theNF14was flownalongside theNF12 byNos 25, 46,64 (which flew theNF14 fromDecember 1956 to September1958), 72, 85, 152 and 153Squadrons, but in addition itequipped two further others. 264at Linton-on-Ousewas the first,replacing theNF11 fromOctober1954— this unit was re-designated as No 33 Squadron inSeptember 1957 and thenmovedto Leeming, where it kept theNF14 until July 1958. SecondwasNo 60 Squadron at Tengah in

Singapore, which used theNF14betweenOctober 1959 andSeptember 1961.TheNF11, NF12 andNF14went

into service with the night fighterOperational Conversion Units,Nos 228 and 238OCUs atLeeming and Colernerespectively. Other training unitsto fly night fighterMeteorsincluded the Central FighterEstablishment’s All-WeatherNightWing and All-WeatherDevelopment Squadron, whileexamples also went to the EmpireTest Pilots’ School.The first time theMeteor NF

had a chance to prove itself camewith Exercise ‘Ardent’, heldbetween 4 and 12October 1952.The type’s task was, in themain,to intercept incoming Avro

Lincoln and BoeingWashingtonpiston-engined bombers, but theresults were not particularlysuccessful and suggested that thecontrol systems needed to beimproved. On top of this, manyaircraft suffered fromunserviceable radars, but the realworry was that a few EnglishElectric Canberra jet bombersalso took part and theparticipating night fighter force(which further included Vampire


ABOVE:A four-shipofNo85Squadron’sNF11s up fromWestMalling inMay1952. AEROPLANE

ABOVE:WD630, a TT20belonging toNo3CivilianAnti-Aircraft Co-operationUnit at Exeter. VIA TONY BUTTLER

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Meteor night fightersNF10s) was unable to interceptany of them. These flaws helpedprompt the arrival of the laterMeteor NFmarks.

In flight theNF11 proved to bevery heavy fore-and-aft, butlaterally as light as aMeteor F8single-seater. There were somedevelopment problems. Forexample, as noted, having theradar in the nosemeant that theguns had to go in thewings — infact, theywere spaced up to 26ft(7.9m) apart, whichmeant thatthe normal ammunition belt feedmechanismwould not fit.Consequently a new flatmechanismwas used, but thiskept stopping after just one roundhad been fired. In due course,better links improved thestoppage rate, but with the gunsso far apart their shooting rangeand harmonisation became acritical element in the success ofany interception.TheNF14was never involved in

a conflict and its UK operationsprimarily involved interceptionsof incoming unidentified aircraft,training, practice and exercises.No 46 Squadronwas the first tolose itsMeteors for the Javelin,while the last UK-basedNF 14squadronwas 72. However, in theFar East theNF14 had a new leaseof life, albeit a brief one, when itequippedNo 60 Squadron,replacing its day fighters toprovide all-weather defence forSingapore. This was theMeteor’sfinal front-line RAF service, andon 17 August 1961WS787performed the last operationalsortie by an RAFMeteor nightfighter, a patrol withNo 60Squadron.

TheNF11was also used byNo 527 Squadron, but not in afront-line capacity. Based atWatton, the calibrationsquadrons of the Central SignalEstablishment were in August1952merged and re-designatedas No 527 Squadron. Over thenext few years this unit flewseveral different aircraft types,including someNF11s betweenJanuary 1953 and August 1955.After their withdrawal from

front-line service, someNF14swere refurbished, having theradar taken out and replaced byUHF radio. As such, theseairframeswere used byNos 1 and2 Air Navigation Schools based atStradishall, where they stayeduntil 1965. The task of there-fitted aircraft, now known as


‘NF(T)14s’ (although thisapparently was not an officialdesignation), was to providepractice for navigators in fast jetoperations at low level and highspeeds, a situationwhere currentelectronic aids could notmatchthe human eyeball. Theseairframes had large areas ofday-glo added to the camouflage,or in some cases were repaintedin a silver/day-glo scheme.The TT20 target-towing

conversion of theNF11was in theend used by the RAF, the RoyalNavy, AirMinistry/MoDexperimental establishments, theRoyal Danish Air Force and aSwedish civilian target-towingcontractor. The typewas at firstintended for service with theRoyal Navy’s Fleet Requirements

Units to provide target-towingservices and radar targets for, andtomake other forms ofmockattacks against Royal Navywarships, enabling them topractice their air defence skills. Assuch the TT20 equipped 728Squadron at Hal Far inMalta andthe civilian-manned FleetRequirements Unit based at Hurnin Dorset (whichwas operated byAirwork Ltd).When the TT20entered RAF service it joined thecivilian-mannedUK-based CivilianAnti-Aircraft Co-operation Units(Nos 3 and 4 CAACUs at ExeterandNo 5 CAACU atWoodvale),and in the Far East No 1574 TargetFacility (TT) Flight in Singapore.From 1970 theNavy’s targettugMeteors were replacedby the Canberra TT18.

DATABASEBASE

ABOVE:No85SquadronNF14s airborneover the SouthCoast of England. AEROPLANE

BELOW: Impressive formationflyingby theNF14s ofNo264 Squadron fromLinton-on-Ouse. In the lead isWS841, its blackfinandrudderbearing the code lettersHMT for thenunit COSqn LdrH.M. TudorDFCAFC. AEROPLANE


ABOVE:NF14WS838 servedwith theRoyal Radar Establishment at Pershore, theA&AEEat BoscombeDownandRAEBedford. The attractiveoverall yellow schemedated from its timewith theRAE. PHIL BUTLER


Testing timesManymodifiedMeteor night fighters contributed a gooddeal to development programmes

nlike the single-seatday fighterMeteors,the night fighterswere not used to such

a large extent as test-bed aircraft,but a good number were stillemployed in research work. InDecember 1953, three NF11sjoined the Rapid Landing Flight atMartleshamHeath, a unit formedspecially to assess thepossibilities of recovering fighteraircraft in bad weather at veryclose time intervals. Better-known, though, are several NF11sthat took part in the firing trials ofnew and experimental air-to-airmissiles and other missilesystems. They proved idealbecause the type’s lengthenednose provided valuable space fora variety of electronicequipment.For example, the Fairey Blue

Sky beam-riding air-to-airweapon, eventually re-named

Fireflash, sawWD743,WD744andWD745 being allotted toFairey Aviation for trials. Theyoperated with the firm from late1952 until May 1959. To beginwith they were based at Cranfieldwhere the necessarymodifications were undertaken,but after Fairey’s Cranfield siteclosed theymoved on toManchester’s Ringway airport,close to the Heaton Chapelfactory where themissile workwas centred.Amore advanced air-to-air

weaponwas the de HavillandBlue Jay, which entered service asFirestreak. Threemore NF11s(WM372,WM373 andWM374)were used for trials with thismissile in Australia. Sent there in1954-55, all three were based atEdinburgh Field, fromwhere theyconductedmissile trials over theWoomera rocket range. For itstrials programmeWM374was

painted glossy white overall; thisaircraft was lost on 24May 1958,butWM372 andWM373continued in use until they werestruck off charge inMarch 1960.Back home, between 1953 and

1958WM232was employed byde Havilland Propellers atHatfield as a target for Blue Jay’sinfra-red homing head. For this itwas painted black overall andfitted with additional electronicequipment. WD604, after it hadlost its wing-tip fuel tankinstallation, was involved withthe Blue Jay trials programme atHatfield too.Blue Jay/Firestreak was

succeeded by the later-generation Red Top infra-redair-to-air missile also developedby de Havilland Propellers, andfor this programmeNF12WS635found employment as a targetaircraft from 1958 until 1962.More generally, the Air

Department of theTelecommunications ResearchEstablishment (TRE) based atDefford used NF11WM180 from1953 for general ‘homing eye’ andcamera development work.Other guided weapons to

recruit NFMeteors in theirdevelopment programmesincluded the Vickers Blue BoarTV-guided stand-off bombdesigned for the ‘V-bomber’force, which sawNF11sWM262andWM295 being delivered tothe Vickers airfield atWisley in1953. By the time Blue Boar wascancelled in 1954,WM262 hadgone to Australia to take part inthe weapons trials atWoomera.Themassive Vickers Red Deanair-to-air missile (also cancelled,in 1956) was another to have aNF11 operating with the TRE,which by then had become theRadar Research Establishment(RRE), in this caseWD686.

U

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ABOVE:NF11WM374fittedout to carry the Fairey Fireflash air-to-airmissile. VIA TONY BUTTLER

BELOW: Ferranti’sNF14G-ARCXondisplayduring anevent stagedat Edinburgh’s Turnhouse airport in June1968. ADRIANM. BALCH COLLECTION

Previously, WD686 had beeninvolved with the trials held atBoscombe Down of the GreenCheese anti-submarine weapon,and after Red Dean was droppedit moved on to RAE Bedford.There it took part in gustresearch, remaining until 1967.Staying in the field of radar

research, from 1952WD686 andWD687 took part in the AIMk17development programme at TRE/RRE Defford. WD687 was alsoused to test an AIMk18 radar.LaterWM295went to Defford forairborne interception radardevelopment work, and in duecourse NF14sWS832 andWS838were selected for AI radarresearch at Defford. The RREused NF11WD790 indevelopment of the Red Gartertail-warning radar device for the‘V-bombers’, but this equipment’s

performance proved to be sopoor that it was eventuallyabandoned.In 1958,WD790 joined Ferranti

Ltd at Edinburgh, where it wasused as a target for air-to-surfacemissile radars. Afterwards thisMeteor came back to the RRE toserve again as a test-bed for newradars, this time with theequipment under developmentfor the forthcoming PanaviaMRCA (Multi-Role CombatAircraft, later the Tornado).Ferranti fitted a long, pointednose radome to NF14WM261during 1960 for a Red Garterradar — the aircraft’s overalllength in this new form became57ft 8.65in (17.6m), whichmade itthe longestMeteor ever flown.The company hadWM261registered as G-ARCX inSeptember of that year for its role

as a radar development test-bed,but it was not flown as such untilJanuary 1963.Two further NF14s appeared

on the British civilian register.Rolls-Royce hadWS829registered as G-ASLW inSeptember 1963, using it as a‘hack’. When the decision wastaken to retire it in 1969, theaircraft was sold on and becamepart of an illicit effort to supplyMeteors to Biafra, boosting theterritory’s combat capabilitiesduring its civil war with Nigeria.G-ASLW nevermade it, crashingoff Cape Verde during its deliveryflight on 6 November 1969. Forthe same reason, that AugustWS804 had been registeredG-AXNE in the name of TargetTowing Aircraft Ltd. FollowingForeign Office intervention,it was impounded at Bissau.


Meteor night fightersgg ggg gg

November 1956 one NF13intercepted and attacked an RAFVickers Valiant, failing to inflictany damage on the bomber.Soviet designs had replacedtheseMeteors by 1958.

FranceA total of 32 NF11s were acquiredby the French Air Force to equipthe 30e Escadre de Chasse ToutTemps (All-Weather FighterWing) at Tours-St Symphorien,where once again they replacedtheMosquito. A further ninewere received for use as trialsaircraft, initially split betweenthe Centre du Tir et deBombardement (CTB) at Cazauxand the Centre d’Essais en Vol(CEV) atMelun-Villaroche. Theirformer RAF serials wereWD619,WD628,WD631,WD655,WD669,WD674,WD683,WD698,WD701,WD756,

NF MeteorsoverseasAlthough by nomeans so prolific as the single-seatMeteor,the night fighter was exported inmodest numbers


ustraliaAustralia acquired alarge number ofMeteor F8 day

fighters, but in addition one ofthe NF11s sent over for the BlueBoar weapon trials, WM262, hadRAAF serial A77-3 allocated. Thiswas delivered in August 1953, buton 16 September 1955 it crashedwhen taking off at Mallala andwas written off.

BelgiumBelgium acquired 24 former RAFMeteor NF11s in two batches of12, delivered in 1952-53 and 1956respectively. These were givenBelgian Air Force serials EN-1 toEN-24 and covered the formerWD726,WD775,WD777,WD728,WD729,WD730,WD727,WD731,WD732,WD733,WD735,WD736,WD602,WD724,WD622,WD594,

WD760,WD661,WD590,WD596,WD741,WD763,WM221andWM263. Just as in the RAF,thesemachines replaced theMosquito. They stayed in servicewith 10 and 11 Squadrons of 1Wing at Beauvechain for fiveyears, during which time aroundhalf of themwere lost. Unusually,although carrying their Belgianserials on the rear fuselage theykept their original RAF identitiesunder the wings. Ten survivorspassed into civilian ownershipfor use as target tugs. Given thenew serials NF11-1 to NF11-10,they lasted in this role until 1959.

DenmarkTwenty NF11s were ordered byDenmark early in 1952, divertedfrom an RAF contract. Serials 501to 520 were supplied betweenNovember 1952 andMarch 1953as new-build airframes (the

intended RAF serials had beenWM384 toWM403) and theyjoined Eskadrille 723, staying inservice in this role for six years.With their front-line service over,14 were scrapped, but serials504, 508, 512 and 517 to 519 werereturned to AWA to be convertedinto TT20 target-tugs for furtherservice with the Station Flight atKarup.

EgyptThe Royal Egyptian Air Force(soon afterwards the ‘Royal’ partwas deleted) ordered sixreconditioned ex-RAF NF13s.Former serialsWM325,WM326,WM328,WM338,WM340 andWM362were re-numbered 1427to 1432 and delivered betweenJune and August 1955. Relativelylittle is known about their servicewith the Egyptian Air Force, butduring the Suez campaign in

AABOVE:Afine studyofArméede l’Air-operatedNF14-747during its trials servicewith theCentred’Essais enVol. VIA TONY BUTTLER

Meteor night fightersg gg g

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WD783,WM153,WM164,WM235,WM243,WM265,WM296 toWM307,WM368 toWM371 andWM375 toWM383.Those fromWM368 onwardswere delivered as brand-newaircraft from January 1953 andgiven numbers NF11-1 toNF11-25 in order of their RAFserials. The rest (NF11-26 toNF11-41) followed in 1954-55after a brief period in RAFservice, but the relation ofFrench identities to the originalRAF serials for these later

for another 32 years, notentering the public domain untilJanuary 1989.

SwedenSweden had a small associationwith the long-nose night fighterMeteors. Originally, two T7trainers had been purchased fortarget-towing duties by SvenskFlygtjänst AB, a civilianorganisation under contract tothe Flygvapnet. In due courseSvensk Flygtjänst also acquiredfour TT20s from the RoyalDanish Air Force, the originalRDAF airframes 512, 517, 508 and519 being registered respectivelyas SE-DCF, SE-DCG, SE-DCH andSE-DCI. These were some of theaircraft previously used at Karupfor target-towing, SvenskFlygtjänst holding contracts toperform that function for theDanishmilitary as well as forSweden. The company flew thesesurviving TT20s until 1966.

SyriaInMay 1954, six surplus ex-RAFNF13s were supplied to Syria— the formerWM332,WM336,WM330,WM337,WM341 andWM333. In Syrian Arab Air Forceservice they were numbered 471to 476 and formed the country’ssole night fighter unit. Fewdetails are known of the careersof these airframes while in Syrianhands, but much of theequipment used by the SyAAFwas replaced fairly soonafterwards bySoviet types.


serials. The rest (NF11-26 toNF11-41) follo d in 1954-55

y soonb


NF11-41) followed in 1954-55after a brief period in RAFservice, but the relation ofFrench identities to the originalRAF serials for these later

afterwards bySoviet types.

machines has not beenestablished.During 1957 and 1958, EC 30’s

NF11s were replaced by France’sown Sud-Ouest Vautour IIN, butsome surplus airframes weretransferred to the Armée del’Air’s night fighter training unit,CITT 346, at Mérignac. The CEV’sMeteors were used for missileand radar development work—NF11-6 became a chaseaircraft for the Concordeprogramme, and one flew as anengine test-bed with a SNECMAS-600 ramjet under each wing.Two ex-RAF NF14s, WS747 and

WS796, were acquired by theCEV during 1955, being re-numbered NF14-747 andNF14-796. Then in June 1956 itreceived two surplus RAF NF12s,WM364 andWM365 (asNF13-364 andNF13-365), whichwere employed on researchwork at Brétigny. To round thedeliveries off, in November andDecember 1974 six surplus TT20s(WD649,WD652,WD780,WM242,WM255 andWM293)were supplied to France withtheir target-towing equipmentremoved, to be used as a sourceof spares for the NF11, NF13 andNF14 fleet. After their arrival theynever flew again.In the end, CEV operated quite

a considerable fleet of nightfighterMeteors, which it used forall manner of research duties.The last were not retired until thelate 1980s; NF14-747, forexample, was apparently still inservice in 1983.

IsraelTheMeteor night fighter wasacquired by the Israeli DefenceForce/Air Force (IDF/AF) in 1956in the form of six ex-RAF NF12s.However, because of theimpending Suez crisis three ofthese airframes were held backunder an embargo, their finaldelivery being delayed until wellafter the war had ended. Theairframes involved wereex-WM366,WM334,WM312,WM309,WM320 andWM335,given the new Israeli identities4X-FNA to 4X-FNF.WM312,WM320 andWM335were theaircraft embargoed. They werenot delivered until the spring of1958 — in fact, WM335was loston its delivery flight and neverreached Israel. The night fightersserved with 119 Squadron butwere already pretty wellobsolete, and within a couple ofyears they had been replaced.Even so, on 28 October 1956

one of the then newly-acquiredNF12s intercepted and destroyedan Egyptian Ilyushin Il-14 airlineron a flight from Syria to Egypt. Itwas known from intelligencesources that this aircraft wascarrying high-rankingmembersof the Egyptian general staff. Thisaction was called Operation‘Tarnegol’, and for Israel was apotential opportunity toincapacitatemuch of Egypt’shigh command on the eve of theplanned Suez campaign. It wasthe first aerial victory recordedby 119 Squadron, but Operation‘Tarnegol’ itself was kept secret

ABOVE:MeteorNF11501Eskadrille 723, RoyalDanishAir Force

CHRIS SANDHAM-BAILEY

ABOVE:MeteorNF12 serial 476of the SyrianArabAir Force at Bitteswell on1 July 1954. RAYWILLIAMS



Pilot and nav-radar insights into theMeteor NF family

MMeeteor nigght figghterrsst eht tge hM gnM gggfiro ssreoe g ggg ggg gg

PPiilloott aanndd nnaavv--rraaddaarr iinnssiigghhttss iinnttoo tthheeMMeetteeoorr NNFF ffaammiillyy

From the cockpit

espite lookingsomewhat ungainly,theMeteor nightfighter had a very

strong and well-built airframeand extremely reliable engines.The practical Mach number limitwhen not carrying wing tankswas 0.81 (it was 0.76 with tanks),but at such speeds hitting targetswas difficult due to ‘porpoising’and other airframemovements.However, at lower speeds thetype was very steady and a goodgun platform. It couldoutmanoeuvre contemporaryday fighters, and only theVampire and Venomwouldbetter the NFMeteor indogfights. Pilots report that as anaerobatic aircraft it wasdelightful, though spinning wasprohibited because it producedvery heavy control forces and aviolent pitching.One weakness was the NF14’s

maximum landing weight — if theaircraft was still carrying its fullload of gun ammunition, to keepthe weight down it had to belanded with under 125 gallons(568 litres) of fuel aboard.

DConsider also, in that context, thefact that a go-around could useup asmuch as 60 gallons (273litres).Fred Butcher flew the night

fighter versions for a fewmonthsduring his time at OCU. In all hepiloted theMeteor F4, T7, F8,NF12 andNF14, although he onlyaccumulated around 50 hours onthe latter two. He consideredthat by far the best for a pilot wasthe F8, but that the NF12 andNF14 were also quite pleasantand relatively easy to fly.However, their asymmetrichandling was similar to thatexperienced on all Meteors,which became very hard workon the legmuscles. Because ofthe large radar scanner in thenose, they were heavier than theequivalent day fighters, meaningthat they were down onperformance and not quite sonice to handle, despite beingstable gun platforms.Butcher recalled that one

could get the NF12 andNF14 upto 40,000ft (12,192m), but that itwas a struggle towards the end ofthe climb and theseMeteors

would wallow a lot once you hadgot there. For night work theNF14’s large, clear canopy didnotmakemuch differencecompared to the NF12’sheavily-framed version, but ofcourse it would have done hadthe type been used as a dayinterceptor fighter.

TheseMeteors were able tocope withmedium jet bombersof the 1950s like the US AirForce’s North American B-45Tornado and Soviet equivalentssuch as the Ilyushin Il-28 ‘Beagle’.The agile Canberra, however,proved an extremely difficulttarget to intercept. Heavy pistonbombers like the Avro Lincolnand Convair B-36 could also bedealt with.

Invariably, you wouldmeetthe target head-on and, at suchclosing speeds, a pilot had littletime to execute a turn to get ontohis tail. It was a lot easier if youwere vectored in from the sideby ground control. John Lewerconfirms this. His experience onthe NF14 came right at the end ofits service career when he wastraining as a navigator at

Stradishall. He remembered thatin some conditions themark’s AIMk21 radar had a poor pick-uprange, typically of the order of 12miles (20km). The NF11’s AIMk10radar at times had even lessrange, sometimes as poor as 2-4miles (3-6km). Therefore, if theMeteor and its bomber targetwere flying in opposite directionsthe fighter pilot would have tobegin his turn very quickly — at adistance of about 7miles (11km)— to enable theMeteor to get inbehind the bomber. It needed apretty exceptional pilot to beable to judge this manoeuvrecorrectly.Flying on a dark night, despite

not being able to see a thingoutside, didmake it a little easierto get onto a target’s tail. Afterhaving spotted the target, thecrew could use their radar tomanoeuvre into an attackingposition. Head-on interceptionsor attacks from above were thebest solution because directattacks from the rear usuallyinvolved a long tailchase.Fred Butcher’s navigator-radar

on the later Javelin was Peter

ABOVE:Crews generally liked theMeteorNF14, butwere awareof its performance limitations. AEROPLANE

Meteor night fightersg gg g

Jones, who from 1955 to 1958served with No 25 Squadron atWestMalling flying theMeteorNF12 andNF14. Peter observedthat the NFMeteors were purely“a first try and the best available”in an era when jet fighterairframes and engines had onlyrecently come into use. Initiallythe threat came fromthe Tupolev Tu-4 ‘Bull’, the Sovietversion of the B-29 Superfortress,which could be countered fairlyeasily, but pretty soon the SovietUnion introduced its high-performance Tu-16 ‘Badger’ jetbomber, which was potentiallytoo fast for the subsonicMeteor.The radar’s range was so poor

that the preferred “displacedhead-on set-ups” were not reallypracticable. Therefore, WorldWar Two-style 90° intercepts hadto be used instead — a groundcontroller wouldmanoeuvre theMeteor onto a course whichwouldmake the target cross thepath of the fighter at 90°, ideallyat a distance of about amileahead.With themajority of theMeteor NF squadrons usingNF12s andNF14s, whose AI

Mk21 was in general much betterthan the NF11’s AIMk10equipment, once theMeteor wasin position theMk21 set provedto be very good at ‘painting’ andtracking any kind of targetaircraft.Because theMeteor had only

gun armament, intercepts had tobe very tight to be classified assuccessful — that is, featuring a‘roll-out’ range of approximately200 yards (180m) onMach 0.9

targets. Such interceptions, ofcourse, assumed that any targetwould fly straight and level for along period, so if the bomberbeganmanoeuvres to try andshake off its pursuer during nightattacks the antiquated radarmight take some time before itpicked this change up. This wascertainly a problem for the NF11’sequipment, since the target blipmight be lost from the radarscreen altogether.

Other sources confirm thathigh-flying targets wereespecially difficult to deal with. Aclimb to an altitude in excess of40,000ft (12,192m) would take along time, and once there itproved difficult to keep theMeteor at this height. Even theslightest turn could induce a lossof altitude. The bombermightrelease chaff to try and obscurethe radar blip, while theslipstream from piston bomberscouldmake for a very rough ridein the fighter.The wing guns were normally

aligned to concentrate at around400 yards (365m) ahead, so therewould be scatter at lesser andgreater ranges. Some pilotsconsidered that the wing gunposition prevented theMeteorNF from being a truly successfulair-to-air platform because therewas a theory that the wingswould flex under g loads while inthe firing pattern, but unlike theday fighter versions there was notendency to snake. That muchwas proved by air-to-groundfiring, a secondary role for theNF variants.The high level of training of

RAF aircrew helpedmake themost of the aircraft, goodco-ordination between pilot andradar operator of course beingessential. All in all, despite usuallyhaving to be flown to their limitsto secure an interception and thefact that they were inferior tolater-generation jet bombertypes, during their period inservice with front-line squadronsthe night fighterMeteors — thelast such aircraft to serve theRAF, as from the Javelin onwardsthe term ‘all-weather fighter’came into use —were consideredto be “operationallyadequate”.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Theauthor wishes to thank theNational Archives at Kew,Phil Butler, Flt Lt Fred Butcher,Flt Lt Pete Jones and Plt Off JohnLewer for their assistance.


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ABOVE:The thirdproductionNF14wasWS724, here takingoff fromChurch Fenton. ItwaswithNo72Squadronat the time. VIA TONY BUTTLER

ABOVE:Beforedelivery,NF11WM239goes vertical. AEROPLANE


Events

The sun-drenched island of Jersey, and aline-up of aircraft as tantalising as the seasonwill produce— oh, if onlymore airshowscould be like this…As the Swedish Air ForceHistoric Flight’s

silver Saab four-ship of SK 60E, J 29F ‘Tunnan’,SK 35CDraken and AJS 37 Viggen flew past inconcert, one had the feeling of this being theJersey International Air Display’s crowningglory, for themoment at least. Event organiser

MikeHiggins was the first to bring theSwedish vintage jets to Britain, and every timethey have offered something different. In thequartet came for a spectacular head-on fanbreak, spraying Saabs across the sky. For halfan hour they took centre stage, offering asequence of characterful solo displays in thelate afternoon blue.Marvellousmoments.Yet rarer still, arguably, was the earlier

pairing of the J 29Fwith a former ColdWar

adversary, theMiG-15, here represented bytheNorwegian Air ForceHistoricalSquadron’s two-seat SB Lim-2. Never in themodern era had these types flown together,something not lost on pilots Olle Norén andKenneth Aarkvisla.The Scandinavian flavour was indeed

strong. Also over fromNorway, CyrusBrantenbergmade a landing and take-offfrom thewater of the St Aubin’s Bay displaysite in his DHC-2 Beaver floatplane LN-NCC,an ex-Air Americamount. It was, in fact, oneof two South-east Asia veterans on theprogramme, as the Postbellum Foundationfrom Teuge in theNetherlands brought ex-USAir ForceO-2A Skymaster N590D for itsBritish show debut.Jersey has a great reputation for ‘firsts’, and

another came in the formof Remko Sijben

ABOVELEFT:ColdWar classics cometogether—SB Lim-2 leads J 29F. BENDUNNELL

ABOVE:CyrusBrantenberg lowoverStAubin’s Bay inhis Beaver. BENDUNNELL

BELOWLEFT:The SwedishAir ForceHistoric Flight’s SK60E,AJS 37Viggen,SK35CDrakenand J 29F in four-shipformation. BENDUNNELL

TOP:AfineentrancebyRemkoSijbenwiththeBoomerang. BENDUNNELL

10 September Reviewed by Ben Dunnell

JERSEY INTERNATIONAL AIR DISPLAY


4-6 September Reviewed by Tony Harmsworth

THE VICTORY SHOW

The 1,200hp from three Continental R-975nine-cylinder radial engines began to kick upa huge dust cloud, their bellow drowning outthe Rolls-RoyceMerlin in a Hispano Buchónwhichwas getting airborne a couple ofhundred yards away. But seeing as we are atthe Victory Show, at Foxlands Farm nearCosby, Leicestershire, the site of the UK’sbiggest combined historicmilitary vehicle andhistoric aircraft gathering, it comes as nosurprise that the R-975s are heaving a trio ofSherman tanks off into the arena for whatmustbe themost authenticWorldWar Two battlerecreation you can see anywhere.The show is now in its 10th year, and this

particular ‘Johnny-come-lately’ will notmakethe error ofmissing another event at Cosby.The aerial componentmay have been smallerthan youwould see at a dedicated airshow, butany organiser would have the participantsseen here at the top of their wish list. The twomost celebrated newcomers to the 2015historic aircraft scene, the Bentwaters-basedSeafire IIIc PP972 and the Aircraft RestorationCompany’s Blenheim, were both present onthe lush Leicestershire turf. The Seafire wasgiving its first public solo display, the previoustwo post-restoration appearances havingbeen in the Spitfire tailchase at Flying Legends,and as part of the Biggin Hill ‘Hardest Day’commemoration (see page 22).An unrestricted, but discreetly supervised,

flightlinewalk (just £3!) gave visitors the chanceto get right up close to the assembledwarbirds,and photograph or study some normallyunavailable details, such as the catapult-spoolmountings and arrestor hook on PP972. TheSeafire was flown byDave Puleston, who alsoflew one of the two Trig Aerobatic TeamPittsS-1s alongside Richard Grace. Richardwas laterto close the showwith a scintillating display inthe family Spitfire IXTML407.The Victory Show saw the debut of Sussex-

basedWill Greenwood in his Allison-poweredYak-3 D-FLAK, flown in a dogfight sequencewith Cliff Spink in the ARC’s Buchón. PeterVacher’s Battle of Britain veteranHurricane I

R4118was flown by Carl Schofield informationwith the Blenheim, before thelatter broke away for John Romain to againshow just how attuned he is to the handlingof this early-warmachine, the fully-glazednose helping it appear considerablymorelithe than in its former incarnation as aBlenheim IV bomber.The Royal Netherlands Air ForceHistoric

Flight B-25JMitchell Sarinahwas

accompanied byMaurice Hammond’s twoP-51DMustangs for several passes, and thenflew a solo display. Although the headliningVulcan scratched after nose gear retractionproblems at the Scottish Airshow at Prestwickthe previous day, vintage jet enthusiasts didget to see a rare appearance by the Classic AirForceMeteor T7.An absolutely outstanding event, and highly

recommended for next year.

ABOVE:RichardGrace andDavePulestonflying Spitfire IXT andSeafire IIIc respectively,banking round theCosby ‘bend’. CLIVEHUBBARD

BELOW:BlenheimandHurricane Imade for a choicepairing.MIKE SHREEVE

with his CA-13 Boomerang. The littleAustralian fighter gave a spirited performancein its owner’s hands, its inaugural appearanceat anymajor event since Sijben imported it toEurope. Hopefully, where Jersey leads, otherswill follow.While RAF involvement is a shadowof its

former self, headlined as ever by the Red

Arrows on a record-breaking 50th visit to theisland, the chance to see Sea King search andrescue demonstrations fromboth the RAFand Royal Navywas not to be sniffed at,given the helicopter’s impending retirement.And if military fast jets were lacking, no-onecould have gone home unhappywith theclassics, not least the Fly NavyHeritage

Trust’s Sea Vixen. In themighty twin-boomedfighter, SimonHargreaves gave a superbdemonstration of restrained power.In an era when all toomany civilian airshows

can appear decidedly similar, Jersey alwaysshines out, and the 2015 editionmust go downas one of the finest. Best British display of theyear, perhaps? It’s certainly right up there.


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Harrier Boys: Volume One

Subtitled ‘Cold War Through the Falklands 1969-1990’, this is the firstvolume of a two-part work; Volume 2, covering the second-generation

Harrier GR5/7/9, is scheduled for 2016. While the text follows the now time-honoured series formula, a change has been made to put a photo ratherthan a painting on the cover. Most appropriately (and most impressively),this depicts the author hovering in a GR3 overhead Gütersloh in 1984.Within the 18 chapters are some great stories of pilots pushing the

boundaries, confronting emergencies, defending British interests in theFalklands, practising to provide NATO’s only truly survivable close air

support force in West Germany, and organising the odd inter-squadron orinter-service beer-drinking race. There is, though, a more serious theme,namely that flying the Harrier was an extremely demanding business andthat too many pilots died in the course of duty. Indeed, a whole chapter is

devoted to Harrier ejections.It would be invidious to pull out one particular story as a favourite, as thereare many to choose from. Heinz Frick’s account of his test flight in GR3XZ994 from Dunsfold on New Year’s Eve 1981, when virtually all militaryairfields were closed, is just one such gem. After suffering a severe engineproblem, he was forced to make the quick decision to conduct a glideapproach — at 230kt — into a dark and air traffic-less Boscombe Down.

Having used all 3,000 yards of the runway, he made his aircraft safe. Exitingthe cockpit and sliding to the ground down the wing, he walked in searchof habitation. After a while, he located a police post with lights inside.Frick introduced himself with a cheery “Anybody home?”, to which a

policeman replied: “What the f*** are you doing here? Sarge, there is a blokedressed as a pilot on the wrong side of the fence”. Exhibiting a similar state ofdisbelief, the sergeant suggested: “Tell him to get back over the fence. The

fancy dress do in the mess does not start until 8pm.”This is a goldmine of stories. The only slight down-side concerns the

illustrations; while the selection is good, the standard of reproduction hoversjust above ‘acceptable’. Nevertheless, this one fully justifies its five stars.

Denis J. Calvert

ISBN 978-1-909808-29-4; 9.5in x 6.5in hardback; 192 pages, illustrated;£20.00

★★★★★

by BobMarstonpublished by Grub Street

ReviewsRating

Outstanding

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Enough said

Mediocre

False Dawn: TheBeagle Aircraft Storyby TomWenhampublished by Air-Britain Publishing

The latest blockbuster fromAir-Britain is another book nomainstream publisher would haveever considered, but it is welcome asthe first detailed account of theBeagle company and its antecedents,Miles and Auster.The situation for Beagle was not

easy. The new company was taskedwith unrealistic production figures —for instance, 500 A109 Airedales, anaircraft of which just 43 were built.Miles studies led to severalprototypes, but only the B206entered production. Throughout thelong story of those times it becomesevident that the engines used werenot producing enough power, soperformance suffered and made theBeagle types uncompetitive with thesurge of American Piper and Cessnaimports. Later came the B121 Pup,which achieved useful export sales —a country-by-country breakdownlists these, together with B206s soldabroad. The military developmentof the Pup, the Bulldog, attracted agood deal of foreign interest butonly the prototypes are coveredhere, production being undertakenby Scottish Aviation.Eventually Beagle went into

receivership, a sorry story describedin depth. The final pages aredevoted to individual aircraftproduction histories with tablesdetailing registration cross-references, military Austerconversions and biographies of someof the main individuals involved.National Archives references arequoted to enable readers to carry outtheir own research.This has not been an easy book to

review because of its extreme detail— some may say there is too much —but it is a definitive history, wellillustrated with colour andmonochrome photographs,drawings and colour adverts for thetypes. If one is being ultra-critical, itcould be said that there are anumber of pages unrelieved byillustrations, making for a rather hardread, while captions are in anextremely small typeface, somewhattrying even for a Specsaverscustomer!Mike Hooks

ISBN 978-0-85130-479-3;8.5in x 12in hardback; 454 pages,illustrated; available fromAir-Britain at £59.99 (£39.99 toAir-Britain members)

★★★★★

Books


★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

ð

‘A definitivehistory, wellillustrated’

Book of the Month

structure, aviation ranks, a mapshowing 49 Finnish airfields andaerial victories.The book is splendidly illustrated

with photographs and a largenumber of colour drawings byKarolina Hołda — the yellow I-153 inGerman markings is particularlyinteresting. A loose slip-in pageshows in colour MPM kits of aircraftin Finnish marks.This is a first-class treatment of its

subject, and we look forward to theforthcoming ‘Finnish Bomber Colours1939-1945’.Mike Hooks

ISBN 978-83-63678-44-9;8.5in x 12in hardback; 206 pages,illustrated; £35

★★★★★

Polish Spitfire AcesbyWojtekMatusiak andRobert Grudzienpublished by Osprey

While it is a well-known fact thatPolish pilots made a significantcontribution during the Battle ofBritain in summer 1940, thatcountry’s involvement with theSpitfire goes back to June 1939 whena team of Polish test pilots arrived inthe UK to fly a number of aircrafttypes.This volume follows the familiar

‘Aircraft of the Aces’ formula withfirst-hand accounts, excellentcolour artwork and usefulappendices, but here the text isparticularly interesting and, in just afew places, whimsical and offbeat.A contemporary report describeshow Flt Lt Tadeusz Koc was shotdown near Dunkirk by Fw 190s butmade it back to the UK and hissquadron in record time (via Spainand Gibraltar) without recourse tothe French underground. In April1943, the Northolt Wing undertooka number of ‘RAG’ missions, theirpurpose being to act as a Russianfighter squadron flying over theEnglish Channel in an attempt toconfuse the enemy. Some of thePolish pilots spoke the languagefluently and all radiocommunications had to be inRussian; the exact purpose ofthese sorties, though, remainsunclear.Also included is an official 1940

report by the Station Commanderat RAF Northolt on the typicalqualities of ‘The Polish FighterPilot’. Marked ‘Secret’, it underlinessome well-known characteristicsbut debunks others: they are“imbued with the determination toexterminate Germans”, “their senseof humour is quick and akin to ourown” and “Polish pilots seldom takealcoholic drinks”.


Republic P-47DThunderbolt auxcouleurs françaisesby Jean-Jacques Petitpublished by l’Association pour laPréservation du PatrimoineAéronautique

This is a very good French-languageaccount of the Thunderbolt in Frenchservice with units both at home andoverseas, as far afield as Oran andRabat. Many aircraft are illustrated incolour side-view drawings togetherwith unit badges. Armamentarrangements are shown, as arelong-range fuel tank configurations.The large number of interestingphotographs will delight ‘Jug’ buffs, butknowledge of the French language isnecessary to get the best out of it.Nevertheless, recommended.Mike Hooks

No ISBN; 8.25in x 11.75in softback;120 pages, illustrated; available fromThe Aviation Bookshop at £24.99plus £4 p&p

★★★★★

Finnish FighterColours 1939-1945:Volume 2by Kari Stenman andKarolina Hołdapublished by MushroomModelPublications

This is one of Mushroom’s biggerseries of hardbacks — we have notseen Volume 1, which appeared inSeptember 2014, and the pagenumbering carries on the sequencefrom there at page 211! The aircraftcovered here are the Hurricane,Caudron-Renault CR714, CurtissHawk, Bf 109 and the indigenous VLMyrsky, plus some captured types.Text describes the aircraft andoperating units with detailed tablesgiving serials, delivery andstruck-off-charge dates, hours flown,remarks and in some casesconstructor’s numbers.Perhaps the most fascinating types

here are the captured Russian ones,such as the Polikarpov I-15 and I-153biplanes, of which 21 were operatedwith 14 being written off. Three I-16monoplanes were captured, one atwo-seat UTI trainer, and there werethree LaGG-3s. A single P-40MWarhawk force-landed in Finlandand was thought to be a Kittyhawk; itwas only used for practice flights.The final section details various

units and their aircraft and has someinformation on Fokker D.XXIs,Brewster B-239s (both of which werefeatured in Volume 1) and othertypes. Appendices list fighter units,

The photo selection deservesspecial mention for the number ofimages evoking the comment ‘notseen that one before’, andreproduction can be classed as good.Denis J. Calvert

ISBN 978-1-4728-0837-0;9.5in x 6.5in hardback; 184 pages,illustrated; £13.99

★★★★★

Royal NavySearch and Rescueby David Morrispublished by Amberley

The sub-title ‘A CentenaryCelebration’ is explained by the factthat the first successful militaryrescue using an aircraft took placeon 19 November 1915, when SqnCdr Richard Bell-Davies, OC No 3Squadron, RNAS, landed hisNieuport 12 in Bulgarian territoryto rescue a downed fellow aviator.For this action he was awardedthe VC.David Morris, as curator of

aircraft at the Fleet Air ArmMuseum, is no stranger to thewriting of aviation titles and herecovers the 100 years of Royal NavySAR in commendable detail andwith unquestionable accuracy.While the earlier years, includingWorld War Two use of theubiquitous Walrus, are wellrepresented, it is the post-waremployment of RN helicopters —Hoverfly, Dragonfly, Whirlwind,Wessex, Wasp, Sea King, Lynx and(briefly) Merlin — that occupies thegreatest number of pages.The aircraft themselves receive all

due attention, but it is the stories ofthe crews and their sometimesincredible rescues that are the mainfocus of the text. Photos arenumerous, mostly from officialsources and well reproduced. Noneis more surprising (to today’sreader, accustomed to the surelywell-intentioned impact of healthand safety regulations) than the shoton page 33 of a Hoverfly trainingflight at Gosport in 1949. Thehelicopter is in the hoversome distance above the ground,while a ‘survivor’ is seen climbingup a precariously-dangling ropeladder attached to the side of thecockpit. The pilot, meanwhile, canbe seen in the right-hand seatwearing full naval uniform, completewith peaked cap.Denis J. Calvert

ISBN 978-1-4456-3463-0,6.5in x 9.7in softback; 126 pages,illustrated; £17.99

★★★★★

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1032/15

‘PATRICIA LYNN’ RB-57s

On 6 May 1963, two RB-57Eslanded at Tan Son Nhut in SouthVietnam to form Detachment 1 ofthe 33rd Tactical Group. These werespecially-modified B-57Es, previouslyused for target-towing. Directed bythe USAF’s ‘Big Safari’ programmeoffice, General Dynamics fitted are-designed nose to contain a 36inKA-1 forward oblique camera and aKA-56 panoramic camera. The bombbay was altered to accommodate aKA-1 vertical camera, a K-477 day andnight camera, a Reconflex infra-redline scanner and a KA-1 left obliquecamera.The RB-57s commenced operations

as soon as they arrived at the Saigon

base. On 7 May, the inaugural missionwas flown by one of the ferry crews,pressed into service because the regularcrews had not arrived. The ‘PatriciaLynn’ aircraft performed day and nightphoto-reconnaissance of Viet Congtargets with marked success. Initially,they operated both north and southof the border, though this changedlater. Results proved excellent, andvery soon the two aircraft were flyingregular sorties.US forces in South-east Asia were

thus provided for the first time withan efficient night reconnaissancecapability, albeit a limited one. Anattempt was made in August 1963similarly to equip the RF-101 Voodoo,


he role of the Canberralight bomber in South-east Asia has been welldocumented. Martin

B-57Bs of the USAF’s 8th and13th Bombardment Squadrons,and English Electric Canberra B20sof 2 Squadron, Royal AustralianAir Force, played a significant rolein efforts to contain Viet Conginfiltrations into South Vietnam.However, less is known about thesmall number of RB-57Es that flewphoto-reconnaissance and electronicintelligence (ELINT) missions underthe codename ‘Patricia Lynn’, namedafter the wife of the project’s leadengineer.

T

During the Vietnam War, reconnaissance was a hazardousbusiness. Among the US Air Force assets that ran the gauntlet were

the clandestine ‘Patricia Lynn’ RB-57Es

LYNNPATRICIA

WORDS: DOUG GORDON

ð


not unlike the ‘Toy Tiger’ modificationtried briefly in 1962, but this provedof negligible value. Until the advent intheatre of the RF-4C Phantom II, theRB-57 would be obliged to performvirtually all night recce.There was, of course, a good deal

of co-operation between the differentcomponents of Detachment 1. Ifone of the daylight RF-101 missionsproduced photos of a suspected truckpark on the HoChí Minh trail, forexample, then an RB-57E nightmission would be tasked to check itout using infra-red (IR).Aerial reconnaissance in South-east

Asia was fraught with many difficulties,whether day or night. The RF-101s

worked primarily over South Vietnamas single ships. Sorties over Laos wereusually, but not exclusively, two-ships.The RB-57s always flew singly. Bothtypes were involved in various missionprofiles, but the majority of daylighttaskings in the early days involvedmedium-altitude vertical photography.When weather was a limiting factor— and it frequently was— the aircraftwere obliged to adopt a ‘high-low-high’ profile in order to fulfil therequirements.The night mission performed by

the RB-57s was, at that time of theconflict, arguably, the most hazardous.By day, in bad weather and overmountainous, forested terrain with

inadequate maps, simply navigatingand locating the IP (initial point)was difficult enough. This wascompounded at night, when all thecrew had to guide them were theirrespective instruments. An efficientterrain-following radar (TFR) had notyet been developed. Pilots often reliedon their standard pressure altimetertelling them how high above sea levelthey were. It was incumbent on themto factor in terrain elevation.The ‘Patricia Lynn’ RB-57s

continued to operate throughout1964. That December, Detachment1 received two further aircraft. Bothof them carried a TFR under thestarboard wing.

ABOVE: RB-57E55-4264, flownin this photo byGene Durden andErnie Perkins. Thisaircraft was shotdown in October1968. HANK HOLDEN


RIGHT: Detachment1 aircrew in June1965 with Lt Col

RoyMarsden, whowas the commander

at this time.GAYLE JOHNSON

A new role came in early 1965,when the RB-57s began regularnocturnal bomb damage assessment(BDA) missions into Laos. Codenamed‘Steel Tiger’, these sorties teamed theRB-57s with B-57 bombers flying outof Bien Hoa and a C-130A flare shipfrom the 6315th Operations Group.

The C-130 dropped flares and theB-57s attacked any exposed targetssuch as trucks, bridges and boats onrivers. The RB-57E subsequently madea BDA run over the target area.For mission planning purposes, the

operational areas of north Vietnamwere divided into zones called Route

Packs. RP I was below the 18th paralleland RPs II, III and IV above it. Themost dangerous areas were RPs V andVI, the former bordering Laos to thewest and the latter centred on Hanoiand Haiphong.The predictability of the sortie

timings posed as much of a problem

LEFT: A view ofRB-57E 55-4243at Tan Son Nhutin 1963. This wasone of the first twoaircraft deliveredto Detachment 1 inMay 1963. It waslater lost to smallarms fire while ona low-level nightrecce mission on 5August 1965. Notethe Royal Lao AirForce Beaver in thebackground.DAVID KARMES

for the RB-57 pilots as it did forthe RF-101s. So-called route targetmissions down rivers, roads and trailswere generally performed at altitudesof between 3,000 and 8,000ft. Theywere flown day after day, or nightafter night, at the same time. Nowonder, then, that the ‘bad guys’often set up traps to shoot down theaircraft. Night area cover missionswere flown along parallel lines, andaircrews experienced a significantamount of small arms fire.On 5 August 1965, the ‘Patricia

Lynn’ RB-57E detachment sufferedits first loss. Serial 55-4243 washit by small arms fire while on alow-level night recce duty. The crewwere close to home and ejectednear Tan Son Nhut. Both menlanded safely, but the aircraft wasdestroyed. A further RB-57E arrivedin November, bringing the fleet backup to four.Upon activation at Tan Son

Nhut in February 1966, the 460thTactical Reconnaissance Wingtook control of all relevant assetsin theatre, including the RB-57Esof Detachment 1. These were soonsubject to systems improvements.RB-57E 55-4249 returned toGeneral Dynamics at Fort Worthearly that May for an update to itsrecce suite, soon a regular occurrencefor all the detachment’s aircraft.This first upgrade enhanced theIR system with a re-modelling ofthe Texas Instruments RS-10. Inaddition, a KA-2 split vertical cameraconfiguration was installed, together

with TFR, a TV viewfinder, a 5,000ftradar altimeter and a magnetic recorderfor the IR system.The ‘Patricia Lynn’ RB-57E pilots

began flying night recces over thenorth in the early months of 1967.Bill Reeder, who completed 36 suchsorties, was assigned a number ofspecial missions that often took himand his back-seater as far north as RPIII. “The night missions had somebuilt-in problems”, Reeder recalled.“Most were IR missions, and due to[the] resolution [of the equipment] we

had to fly them at 2,000ft or lower.In most of our target areas there weremountains much higher than that. Theonly thing we had to navigate with wasvisual, and often that was under a lowcloud deck. When doing IR at nightI would turn my cockpit lights nearlyoff so I could see the ground. Thiswas much tougher for the back-seater,because he had his eyes in the IR scopeand he was blind when he lookedoutside…“One night I flew with a back-seater

who had never flown with me and hadnot done much night work. We gotover the target area at about 8,000ft,with an undercast up to 7,000ft. Theweatherman had told me that theceiling would be 2,000ft, so we did thebest we could to locate our positionby radio and then I started a slow,turning descent in the soup. We brokeout at about 1,600ft and did ourtarget cover.”

In September 1967, Hank Holden,a navigator with the ‘Patricia Lynn’detachment, was assigned to a taskforce looking into the problem ofexecuting successful night interdictionson targets along the HoChí Minhtrail, particularly the Mu· Gia· andTchepone (Xépôn) passes and theA Shau valley. The main issue wasnot how to locate the target but howbest to guide fighter-bombers to itand show them where to drop theirordnance. After much deliberation‘Combat Skyspot’, as the programmewas designated, was ready for testing. Adate was set for late November 1967.Hank Holden says: “The programme

called for the use of Strategic AirCommand’s TSQ-81 bomb scoringradar to guide attack aircraft to pre-determined target co-ordinates forordnance release. [One] differencebetween this and other combat testprogrammes was that the target for themission did not require identificationimmediately prior to the strike. The

target was determined based onreconnaissance flown [for] severalnights in progression before the actualattack. The other difference in theprogramme was that bomb damageassessment would be conductedimmediately following the attack,before the enemy could removeevidence of the relative success orfailure of the mission. The assessmentwas to be done using infra-redreconnaissance. The responsibilitywas assigned to the 460th TacticalReconnaissance Wing.”

The target area selected for thecombat test was the region innorth-eastern Laos known by plannersas ‘Steel Tiger’. This was the areawhere the HoChí Minh trail exitedNorth Vietnam through the Mu· Gia·pass and wound its way down throughthe mountains to various entry pointsinto South Vietnam, beginning withthe Tchepone pass and then theA Shau valley.The mission was flown as scheduled.

F-4Cs were guided to the target area inthe Tchepone pass and dropped theirordnance. An RF-4C from the 16thTRS was to fly a BDA mission twominutes after the strike, with a ‘PatriciaLynn’ RB-57 in the hands of Holdenand Reeder as a back-up if somethingwent wrong. The target was a truckpark just west of the pass. A 42ndTactical Electronic Warfare SquadronEB-66 provided stand-off radarjamming. In the event, the Phantomhad to abort, and the RB-57E flew theBDA through a wall of anti-aircraftand small arms fire.The recce suites and camera

configurations of all the photo-reconnaissance aircraft were constantlychanging and developing. The Det1 RB-57Es received regular updates.55-4264 was given two new cameras:the 12in-focal length KA-82 and 24inKA-83 high-resolution panoramiccameras, developed for the LockheedSR-71.Unfortunately, ’4264 was shot down

in October 1968. Its pilot on thatmission was Capt James J. Johnson,with Maj Phil Walker as navigator.“Our call sign was Moonglow 11”,recalls Walker. “All Det 1 missionsused the call sign Moonglow. The firstmission of the day would start with 11,then 12 [and so forth].“We departed Tan Son Nhut at

about 10.00hrs for a series of reccestrips along canals and area covers oversuspected areas of VC [Viet Cong]activity. The first target was a 10 or15km strip along a canal about 30miles north-west of Saigon. The camera

‘We had to fly night missions at 2,000ft orlower. In most of our target areas therewere mountains much higher than that’

ð

www.aeroplanemonthly.com 101

❖


BELOW: Ill-fatedRB-57E 55-4264

sits in the concreterevetments at DaNang in January1964. By now,

the ‘Patricia Lynn’aircraft had been

painted blackoverall.

USAF

was the KA-56 lo-pan. At the time,all our missions were restricted to nolower than 4,500ft AGL to avoid smallarms fire. The weather was overcastat about 5,000ft, with the ceilingdecreasing as we progressed down thetarget run.“Everything seemed to be going well

as we pulled off the target to the rightand started climbing out to our nexttarget. The ‘Pat Lynn’ aircraft had theflight controls removed from the rear

cockpit, and as a result the back-seaterhad nothing much else to do exceptoperate his equipment, most of thetime. My head was in the cockpit and Iwas checking out the camera to be usedon the next run.“In what must have been a very

short time, ‘JJ’ asked me to checknumber two engine for fire or smoke.I looked and could see none, but evenfrom the rear seat I could only see partof the engine. He then said, “Get readyto bail out, bail out”. Between the “getready” and “bail out”, I rememberthinking, “Dammit, ‘JJ’, stop goofingaround. I’m having trouble getting thiscamera to operate properly… Oh shit!‘JJ’ doesn’t goof around in the airplane,this must be for real.”“I then put on my gloves and, after

trying to remember the proper ejectionprocedure for the RB-57, decidedto use the procedure for the nav seatof the RB-66, which I had flownpreviously. Fortunately the proceduresare the same, pretty much. Anyway,I closed my eyes, pulled up the lefthandle, the right handle and squeezedthe trigger. I heard a lot of noise, feltthe ’chute open and opened my eyes,wondering what the hell I was doingthere. I heard and felt the airplanego in and explode, and saw ‘JJ’ in a

’chute very close to mine. I asked himif he was OK; he couldn’t hear me andtook off his helmet, so I figured he wasOK…“Looking down, I saw that I was

going to land in a small, round pond,so I tried all the sideslip parachutetactics I had ever been shown. I simplymanaged to rotate myself 360 degreesand landed in the pond, at the veryedge, where my ’chute flopped overonto a large bush. I was in about 3-4ft

of water, and in a mild state of shock.I eventually took off my helmet, whichsank into the pond, listened to oneof my two survival radios, and thenrealised that I had to disable my ownseat beeper. After doing that I tried acall or two on the radio, and got noresponse, so used my signal mirror on apassing aircraft.

“Sometime during the 45 minutes toan hour we were on the ground, I heardan AK-47 shooting at something butsaw no bullet impacts. My only thoughtthen was, “Boy, ‘JJ’ is in deep trouble”.He later told me that he heard the shotsalso, and, seeing no bullets impactingnear him, thought, “Boy, Walker is indeep trouble”. We never did find outwho was shooting at whom, nor did itever occur to me to un-holster the .38revolver I was carrying.“We got picked up by an Army

‘Huey’, and were carried to theircamp — Cu Chi, I think. We werefed, saw a medic and changed clothes.After we got to Cu Chi, I found outthat the airplane had been in a hard,uncontrolled roll to the right with afire warning light and other indicationsof bad things happening out there in

the right wing. The final finding — abest guess, actually, since there wasno physical evidence to view; theaircraft impact was in VC territoryand the only crash site investigationwas to bomb the wreckage to ensureno evidence of the cameras we carriedsurvived— was that the right winghad taken a small arms hit, caught fireand burned through the torque tubewhich controlled the right aileron.”Roger Wilkes flew with Det 1 from

September 1968 to September 1969 asoperations officer. He says of the reccecameras: “[They] came out with superdetail, but you had to fly slow to keepthe image motion compensation and toprovide a 60 per cent overlap. I didn’tlike the idea of flying slow at 4,000ftabove the ground, flying at 200kt, soI went to the intelligence people andsaid, “Do you really need 60 per centoverlap? Why don’t you designate, andon some of these flights I can go at400kt and get you 20 per cent overlap.That makes it a hell of a lot better forme as far as ground fire is concerned”.”Wilkes was responsible for

developing another of the systemsused in the RB-57E. “I visited anarmy unit, and they had a night scopewhich was about 4.5in in diameterand about 2ft long. They used it inthe helicopters and so on, and it madenight almost day. I got specs from thatand I corresponded with the RomeAir Development Depot at GriffissAFB, New York. They gave me a shortversion and I was able to put it wherethe gunsight of the B-57 normally was,but the ‘E model’, of course, did nothave a gunsight. The only thing I didn’tlike with it was when somebody wouldbe up popping flares from an airplane.You had to close your eyes. But it didmake it easier to see that you were onthe flight line that you drew on themap that night.”Det 1 began performing ‘Moon

River’ missions in April 1968. Thesewere night sorties using the RS-10Ainfra-red scanner and the VR-7 real-time viewer. Flown in co-operationwith the US Navy, their purpose was

‘I remember thinking, “Dammit, ‘JJ’,stop goofing around... Oh s***, ‘JJ’

doesn’t goof around in the airplane”’

❖

to detect Viet Cong activity alongthe waterways in the Rung Sat areasouth of Saigon. The accent was onreal-time recce and real-time response.This region was chosen because it wasa major water traffic supply route forhostile forces, and because it was flat,with the land/water contrast facilitatingeasier navigation.RB-57E real-time reconnaissance

operations were problematic. Theð


aircraft really needed an up-to-datecomputerised navigational systemwith a rapid read-out capability inorder to work effectively. The needfor the navigator to divide his timebetween navigation and scope-viewing meant that partial coveragewas the most that could be hopedfor. Nevertheless, ‘Moon River’ wasgenerally deemed successful andrewarding.

Night missions at 2,000ft over theMekong Delta are described by ColRobert Broughton, who flew withDetachment 1 from 1969-70. “Tracersare fancy fireworks when they aregoing down, but can be deadly whenthey’re coming up at you. We had anight vision scope that mounted onthe centre of the glare shield. It lookedlike a long 500mm camera lens. It wasrather heavy and had to be removed

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: This photograph was taken by an RB-57E over the Mekong Delta in May 1969 — the aircraft was heading westin the early morning, hence the long shadows. Its altitude was not below 2,000ft AGL, and the camera was the KA-82, scale 1:3000. Thephoto interpreter (PI) analysing the images saw something in the village square, highlighted it, and made the enlargements, revealing asomewhat gruesome scene. The detail is a testament to the quality of the camera. DOUG GORDON COLLECTION


ABOVE:MaxMinorand Phil Walker

return to Tan SonNhut after Walker’s

100th mission in1968. 55-4245 had,as can be seen, by

now acquired somenose art.JOHN HARRIS

BELOW: Passingthrough ElmendorfAFB, Alaska, during

August 1967 wasRB-57E 55-4245.

USAF

from the mount during take-off andlanding. The eye-piece protruded overthe back edge of the glare shield andguaranteed a harsh emasculation in theevent of ejection. The question was,what do you do with it when it’s notmounted? Put in your lap, I guess!“The night runs on the Mekong

proved to be more hazardous thanthey were worth. We could spot thesampans [small wooden boats] anddraw small arms fire, but co-ordinationwith the gunships [USAF AC-47s] andclearance for them to do their job wasdifficult and time-consuming.”Col John Harris, commander of

Detachment 1 from December 1968 toNovember 1969, remembers how theoperations were not to everyone’s taste.

“At night we flew the canals and riversin the delta and southern part of SouthVietnam. The sampans were easy tospot with the ‘real-time’ IR if the crewcould keep over the canal— quite afeat on a dark night. Some got quitegood at it. The Army objected becausethat was their thing. They used OV-1Mohawks, but we could get detail thatthey couldn’t. They had to bring backtheir film, develop it and have it readby an interpreter, but we could seeimmediately what was going on.”Larry Champion, a back-seater

who was with the detachment from1970-71, recalls an unusual mission:“The target planners wanted us to flyeven lower than we had ever done withthe KA-82 and -83 cameras. To do so,

we had to fly at a very low speed to meetthe speed compensation and overlapcapability of the systems. As we plannedthe mission, we really worked at theedge of the envelope. To accomplish therequirements we needed to fly at justabove stall speed, at about 1,000ft abovethe ground with gear and flaps down.“During planning, we noticed an

Army airfield a few miles from thetarget co-ordinates, so we simulated alanding attempt at the field in orderto avoid tipping off the enemy if therewas indeed a PoW camp there. For thesame reason of not alerting the enemythat we suspected a PoW camp there,we were only allowed one pass. So, welaunched and headed for the target.On approach, the front-seater loweredlanding gear and flaps, I turned on allcamera systems at highest rates andwe completed a missed approach atthe Army airfield. Then, max speedback to Tan Son Nhut to get the filmdeveloped. I wish I could tell you ifthey found the camp, but the pictureswere classified in a compartment thatwe weren’t cleared to view.”

The RB-57Es of Detachment 1flew thousands of missions during theSouth-east Asia conflict: over Northand South Vietnam, Cambodia andLaos. As newer platforms becameavailable, the former ‘Patricia Lynn’— by now re-designated as ‘RivetLock’ — aircraft were phased out,operations finishing during August1971 with the de-activation of the460th TRW. In eight years ofoperation, they had produced a greatdeal of vital reconnaissance materialand sought to pioneer new technologies.All the more reason, therefore, tobring this once highly-classifiedprogramme into the limelight.


❖

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