Indeed. Phantoms are cooler than a penguin’s pantry.

*switches on tele*

😆

Not jets tonight, Matt. A more general look at the early days of the Cold War.

Still looking forward to it.

It wasn’t the most inspiring of programmes tonight, good enough to understand the background of communism in the upper ranks of the Uk, but no toys, just humans. 😐

The programme tonight was pretty poor despite having some good archive footage – it was just so disjointed and lacking substance.

The programme tonight was pretty poor despite having some good archive footage – it was just so disjointed and lacking substance.

Which is why I loathe ‘critics’

I enjoyed it.

The F4 Phantom was probably THE coolest plane ever to grace the skies.

I thought last night was pretty good as a scene setter. I didn’t really know too much about the Dynamo tour before, so that was certainly interesting.

The Cold War wasn’t just about teh orsum planes, boats etc. There were people involved, too, you know! 😉

That Lightning picture with the pilot ejecting was in last months “Tractor & Machinery” magazine.

The Phantom flying pretty low:

Afterburners on too 😉

Careful, they work at the desk next to you….
Great scene setter last night.

And have we done the SR-71 yet?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N31eEXjNAUU[/video]

Ben, from PPrune;

The Home of the Phantomeers (http://www.phantomreunion.talktalk.net/lowfly.htm)

Traditionally, on leaving overhaul at Saint Athan, aircraft would do a fly-by for the benefit of the groundcrew who had worked on it. The pilot of this particular Phantom FG1, a retiring Wing Commander, was chatting to a member of the ground crew the day before the departure flight. He said he was going to fly between the hangars and that the guy should be ready with a camera to record the event. It was due to be his last flight, so he was going to do something ‘special’. The groundcrew weren’t too convinced of the pilot’s claim, but stood around as usual anyway watching as the F4 took off, destination Leuchars. As the photo shows, the pilot was not joking, you can see the afterburner diamonds quite clearly in front of the hangar. You can also see personnel standing underneath it. The recently tuned Speys allegedly shook a man working in the roof of one of the hangars enough for him to fall and break his leg. These hangars are set east to west, about 75 yards apart, and you can estimate the height from the length of the Phantom. Immediately after the event, the pilot was contacted by the tower and was instructed in no uncertain terms to ‘return and land immediately’. As I am told, he did so and was given a severe rollicking. I don’t know what action was taken, but it was his last flight in any case. What a way to go out, I wonder if it ranks as one of the shortest logged emergency-free Phantom flights?
This story is not exaggerated – I don’t know the original photographer, but the picture was taken on an ordinary instamatic camera, and then a blow-up was made. The original is, as a favour, temporarily in the possession of the current Station Commander at St Athan who is an ex-F4 jockey. From the enlargement I have made the Phantom as XV575. The aircraft was scrapped in September 1991, but its legacy has to be this photograph.

Dominic Sandbrook is a very annoying presenter. The constant exaggerated facial expressions really peed me off!

It did seem a bit disjointed a random as well.

Still worth watching mind.

The U2s were actually a CIA asset at the time rather than USAF. All of the US pilots were actually CIA too (officially).

I thought it went even further than that and officially they worked for Lockheed on some weather-related missions?

Yeah, maybe it was the presenter.. If Lucy Worsley was narrating it would have been muuuuch better. 😉

Funny how they used to equate being Gay and Upper Class to being a Communist. Seem to have been a lot of Bong Pipes and booze around when citing Political Theory..

Students hey.. 🙄

Funny how they used to equate being Gay and Upper Class to being a Communist

Think it was more just looking at anyone who was considered a “wrong ‘un’ in one way being obviously a “wrong ‘un” in any number of other ways. So, in the thinking of the day, of course left footers would be left footers. If you see what I mean!

They were still flying U2’s out of Akrotiri in Cyprus when I was there a few years ago. US air crew though I think.

They were never spoke about at all despite the noise they made at take off, I have heard an aircraft make a noise like it!

Yes, I saw that description of the F4 flypast – I’m not surprised he was given a stern talking-to 😉

Think it was more just looking at anyone who was considered a “wrong ‘un’ in one way being obviously a “wrong ‘un” in any number of other ways. So, in the thinking of the day, of course left footers would be left footers. If you see what I mean!

There was also a big element of anyone in a position with access to sensitive information being ‘open to blackmail’ given that homosexuality was still illegal, and to many shameful, at the time.

There was also a big element of anyone in a position with access to sensitive information being ‘open to blackmail’ given that homosexuality was still illegal, and to many shameful, at the time.

Very true. In fact, I think this may well still be true. There are myriad rumours about certain senior politicians in the UK at the moment. OK, so there’s no element of illegality nowadays, but the fact that someone in a position of power might want to keep it secret leaves them open to that very same blackmail potential.

A good example from then:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vassall

CFH – I think that if you viewed some of the more recent rumours along an ‘operation yewtree’ line of enquiry, you could very much see the potential for blackmail…

But, but does being Gay and in the “service” of HMtQ really mean you are open to Blackmail, nowadays?? That doesn’t seem to me to be a big deal. As for the Yewtree investigations, incriminations, finger pointing then yes, yes I can see that being a route for potential blackmail.. but would that ever get out?

As said, some good background knowledge there but I am looking forward to the next programme.

Bikebuoy – I think that if you have someone who is openly gay, then its clearly not a problem – it would clearly be much more of a problem if someone were keeping it secret from their wife and/or family.

Its worth commenting that the security services at the time very much prevented homosexuality being an absolute bar from service in a vetted post (as it was in Canada for example) and that the head of the department was able to make the call if in all the circumstances he felt there was no risk to security.

Regards Yewtree – its obviously hard to tell, there have been enough rumours about various politicians and people in power over the years that we’ll probably never know the truth – there’s certainly a lot of potential for all sorts of honeytraps and secretive goings on to have occurred, Elm guest house anyone?

if you have someone who is openly gay, then its clearly not a problem – it would clearly be much more of a problem if someone were keeping it secret from their wife and/or family

Agreed. It’s the ‘keeping it secret’ rather than the actuality of being gay that’s the issue here. Any time someone needs to keep something secret, there’s potential for someone to hold that secret over them as pressure.

The higher the position, and the deeper the secret (or lie, depending on how you choose to view it), the greater the pressure.

Just watching “strange days” now. Not withstanding his WWII achievements, Churchill was a bit of an arse, wasn’t he?

Phantoms are cool, but RAF Phanotoms were cooler as they were re-engined with Rolls-Royce Avons, a far better powerplant than the US engines the others had.

The U2 was actually a re-winged F4 Starfghter and something the Skunkworks knocked up in a hurry, the later U2’s had the stretched and more bulbous noses and I thought the black paint on the later aircraft was a radar absorbant paint?

Tomorrow, Friday 15th at 2100

As an ‘Iron Curtain’ fell across Europe, the jet bomber came to define how the Cold War was fought. Able to fly faster, higher and further than ever before, and armed with a devastating new weapon, Britain’s V Force became the platform for delivering nuclear armageddon.

Love this picture! It captures that strange mix of glamour and threat that only that period of history could conjure up! Streamlined, elegant things, designed to kill. Mad period of history.

^^^ ohhh good call Sir.

This is THE one.

How to deliver a bucket of sunshine to the Commies!

Churchill was a bit of an arse, wasn’t he?

Churchill was terrified of global communism and of Stalin.

Churchill wanted to attack the USSR in 1945. His argument was that we would of had to fight them at some point and we had all gear in Europe ready to go. The US also had nukes which is an obvious massive advantage.

However, the whole world was obviously very tired of war and nobody else was interested.

Phantoms are cool, but RAF Phanotoms were cooler as they were re-engined with Rolls-Royce Avons, a far better powerplant than the US engines the others had.

They were Rolls-Royce Speys, an engine not originally designed for a military Mach 2 aircraft. On paper, the Spey was a better bet than the American, J79 and was a political sop to secure British aviation jobs in the face of a significant foreign order for jets. British Phantoms also had UK designed avionics and BAe SkyFlash missiles too.

In reality, British Phantoms were slightly slower and thirstier than US versions, because the redesigned rear fuselage caused greater drag. In 1982 after the Falklands conflict, the RAF received a number of US spec Phantoms (F4J I believe) complete with J79 engines and US avionics, many were based on the Falklands themselves as a deterrent to Argentina.

Ah yes, I got my engines mixed up, but I thought they were better subsonic? and let’s face it, these old crates were very limited at supersonic speeds and would have only spent short bursts at supersonic speeds and would struggle to hit Mach 2 let alone sustain it with external fuel tanks and ordinance fitted?

Saw this production line/factory floor photo for the first time today and had to share:

I’ve just been reading about the RAF Phantoms, the Spey engine was one of Rolls Royce’s poorer designs plus when fitted to the Phantom gave sub Mach 2 top speed due to the 20% larger intakes causing more drag. Serviceability initially was very poor, infact we struggled to keep up with up with our NATO commitments because of it.
The Spey originally took around five seconds to get into re-heat whereas the J79 took less than 2, a big difference when you are in trouble!
Pilots preferred the Lightning but the Phantom had better range and greater weapons capacity.
Have a read of “Phantom from the Cockpit – Flying the Legend” by Peter Caygill (99p on Amazon for the Kindle version)

Ah yes, I got my engines mixed up, but I thought they were better subsonic? and let’s face it, these old crates were very limited at supersonic speeds and would have only spent short bursts at supersonic speeds and would struggle to hit Mach 2 let alone sustain it with external fuel tanks and ordinance fitted?

You’re right – most jet fighters of the day cruised at subsonic speed and used afterburners for supersonic dashes. Anything hung off the wings hurt performance too and as someone else pointed out, the Spey was slow to spool up. RN carriers were equipped with Buccaneers, which were also fitted with the Spey (in S2 form) so some parts commonality with RN air defence fighters was useful too. The Spey equipped Buccaneer was a legendary plane – able to outrun pretty much anything at low level. Even a Lightning would struggle to keep up.

Pilots preferred the Lightning but the Phantom had better range and greater weapons capacity

The Lightning also had the ability – F6 excepted I believe – to supercruise; ie it didn’t require an afterburner for the jet to travel faster than Mach 1, unique in it’s day.

My old man designed bits of Lightnings and he told me that at one point the RAF apparently forbade Lightning pilots from engaging RAF Phantoms in mock-dogfights. A Lightning would comprehensively outfly a Phantom…for a few minutes at least, until the tank ran dry.

It was also quickly realised that the extra weight and drag of a Lightning’s external fuel tanks ensured that they used much more fuel on takeoff and climb to altitude than a “clean” Lightning. They were often scrambled with the external tanks empty, to be refuelled once they were at cruising altitude.

Well the Spey was a turbofan engine originally designed for a different application so was probably never suited to the Phantom, so to say it was a ‘poor’ design is not completely fair. More of an inappropriate application of the engine, still cool though. In a way it was an engine ahead of its time with it being a turbofan at a time where military jets were all turbojet engines, but now they’re turbofans as with the EJ200 in the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Nothing wrong with political sops to secure British jobs. His do you think the yanks manage to keep their big industries going through the peaks and troughs of variable private demand? We could do with a bit more of it.

But we’re no strangers to applying the wrong tools for the job even recently. In the first gulf war RAF Tornado GR1s struggled to get to altitude with full fuel and weapons payload severely limiting the capability of joint Missions with US F16s, But then again the Tornado was never intended to be a high altitude bomber, it was designed as a low level Cold War bomber.

I love the Lightning.

There is a very strong whiff of British madness about the whole design.
The designers wrapped the smallest plane they could around the engines without really worrying about where the fuel would go

They even designed a rocket pack for it, just in case one day they needed even madder acceleration. It was never flown though. Apparently the Lightnings speed was considered sufficient without it.

There is a very strong whiff of British madness about the whole design.

That’s an understatement!

From what my father has told me of the Lightning’s development, there was a lot of even more insane ideas floating around – a swing wing variant for use by the Royal Navy, bolting on the American Genie nuclear tipped air to air missile, a strike version fitted with an advanced cannon capable of attacking tanks and numerous air to ground missles. The Saudi versions were a somewhat sanitized development of the strike Lightning plans.

It’s worth a trip to Cosford to oggle them all

[img]http://www.russellb.co.uk/Pics1/Cosford130712/P1000716.jpg[/img]

The Lightning was built to match a specification requirement issued by the MOD (or whatever they were called at the time..), all it had to do was get into a missile firing position after intercepting the target ( a Russian aircraft carrying nuclear weapons) as quickly as possible, there was no real requirement at the time for to be able to make multiple passes or even recover to base. Just like the V force, they were on a one way ticket.
The Lightning did what it was required to do exceptionally well (apart from the number lost due to engine fires!). it was when the requirement changed (ICBM’s etc) that the Lightning really struggled as they tried to adapt it to do things it was never designed to do.