Used to see lots of Hercs and very rarely the rumble of a flying fortress. Especially the night they flew to bomb Libya.
flying fortress. eh?
I assume that's a B52 (but could be a B1)
I watched the cold war jets last night, amazing seeing those 1950's planes batting about. Would love a go in a Jet Provost, and the Comet, wow how beautiful. Looking forward to the next installment with the V-bombers, the USSR long range bombers and I assume the interceptors...
Would love a go in a Jet Provost
My father flew JPs for many a year. My lottery winning shed will have a JP in it. A working one, too.
Two seater, perfect for a weekend getaway plane! 🙂
Tonight looks good - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hy7k8
Red Dawn
Historian Dominic Sandbrook takes us back to the strange years of the Cold War. For Sandbrook these are the years in which we were both more secure and prosperous that we had ever been - and at the same time, lived everyday with the very real possibility of nuclear annihilation. This is not just a story of the superpower arms race or daring spies, real and fictional, it is a story in which all we played a crucial part.In the first episode, Dominic brings his trademark mix of great archive and surprising storytelling to the first chilling years of the conflict, when we realised our democracy was facing a new totalitarian enemy: Soviet communism.
excellent programme.
Used to see lots of Hercs and very rarely the rumble of a flying fortress. Especially the night they flew to bomb Libya
Really?
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http://www.boeing.com/boeing/history/boeing/b17.page
maybe you meant the stratofortess aka B52?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress
Always loved them since being totally awed and dwarfed by the one at Duxford as a 12yr old.
I watched Apocalypse Now sitting under the wing of Duxford's B52 ... It was a Stella "Screen" Artois promotional thingy…. Really was a very good night, had an interval half way through the rather long film for hot dogs and bottles of Stella as we wonder around the museum for 20min looking at all the aircraft that were in the movie … Phatoms, Hueys etc
Anyone else get a sense from that program Friday night, that it was the US that were the aggressors in the cold war… certainly in the spook plane dept anyway…. Guessing the Russian used cheap people on the ground as opposed to expensive planes… (see earlier posts)
Tiny, I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that the B52 at least uses the word 'Fortress' in the name... We used upper heyford all the time at work, I've spun a V6 Carlton on the main runway 😀
It was the F111s that went to Libya, not the B52s or B1s, or even B17s
The Wrong Trousers is correct - F111's did the Libyan raid in 86(?)
There's something missing from this thread...
Fixed it...
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Yay!
*toasts his marshmallows on the afterburner*
Upper heyford [i]was[/i] an F1-11 base before it became storage for unsold cars... The hardened shelters are quite funky and I think much of it has listed status which has controlled residential redevelopment.
Didn't understand from the program why the Americans had to use British pilots for some of the spy plane flights, and why the British took the duty on.
the brits got to kiss ass by providing some sort of deniability to the yanks. i'm sure we also got some nice photos out of it.
Presumably those U2s piloted by the RAF still carried US markings and not RAF markings, like those RB45s did ?
Not so easily deniable for the US if that was the case.
The U2s were actually a CIA asset at the time rather than USAF. All of the US pilots were actually CIA too (officially).
This was in the era where the US didn't trust the UK, they had taken all of their (nuclear) toys away after a succession of spy scandals in the UK had resulted in all of the secrets crossing the iron curtain. The UK were desparate to get back in the US' good books, so I suspect there was plenty of ass-kissing opportunities that weren't overlooked.
RAF markings IIRC and they obviously trusted us enough to play with one of their very secret toys.
Looks like they removed the stars and stripes stickers... 😉
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Still don't understand why the Americans didn't want to fly their own planes. Presumably they were more concerned about the potential loss of technology than a dead American pilot so don't understand what they gained by putting an Englander in the cockpit.
No, they weren't black in the 60s, that was applied later. I believe they were left in polished aluminium. That photo is much more recent.
And they used to have USAF markings and 'Stars and Bars'
just read a wee bit more about it, effectively Eisenhower was getting more nervous about it and the CIA managed to sidestep the issue of getting his permission for overflights by employing brit pilots and then getting MacMillan to approve them.
prob just as much for deniability to his own side if anything happened.
as a sidenote these planes where anything but secret to the USSR they could see them clearly just couldn't reach out and touch them for a while at least, the US is happy to release pretty much all of the U2 material but the UK is blocking most of it and refusing to comment.
Lightning's are bonkers things.
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“Test pilot George Aird ejected from his English Electric Lightning F1 aircraft at a fantastically low altitude in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.“George was a test pilot with the De Havilland Aircraft. He was on finals for an emergency landing following a fire about 15 miles from Hatfield. At about 10 seconds from touchdown, at about 100 ft, the aircraft suddenly pitched nose up and, since there was no response to the controls, he ejected. The aircraft crashed on the airfield, broke up and caught fire.”
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[/img][i]George landed in a greenhouse sustaining several fractures. The hole where George and the ejection seat went through the glass roof can be seen in the above picture in the near end of the roof of the second greenhouse from the left. They landed in adjoining rows of tomatoes! The damage at the far end of the greenhouse was made by the arrival of the Lightning canopy. The remains of the Lightning can be seen on the left just into the airfield. George was back flying again within six months and on Lightnings a year after the accident.[/i]
Pah, RAF use of the U2 - just a PR exercise because they didn't want to give away the max altitude of the mighty Canberra 😉
Ohh, now having some great fun...As well as Vulcan's at Grandad's house at the end of Waddington runway, I also remember a holiday in Suffolk as a kid, with these things going over at tree height. Not a 'cool' plane, but amazing things.
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And can I go on to a favourite? Mainly because one had a problem and landed in the fields behind our house in Cumbria, on way into Warcop ranges...and then took off again after they fixed the thing. 8)
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PJM, see page two for the most orsum Lightning pictue you may ever see!
Awesome planes.
The Phantom ? NOT cool ??
I'm sorry Sir, but I'm going to need to ask you to step outside
🙂
Indeed. Phantoms are cooler than a penguin's pantry.
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*switches on tele*
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😆
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.
[i]The programme tonight was pretty poor despite having some good archive footage - it was just so disjointed and lacking substance.[/i]
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:
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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?
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.. 🙄