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Cool, Harriers are one of thise aircraft that look a bit ungainly on the ground, but in their element, low level attack profile, look properly functional and just, "right".
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Seems wrong [I]just[/I] to have the two Lancasters together without adding a Vulcan into the mix...
Rachel
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I still find it amazing that the first in-service dates for the Lancaster and the Vulcan were only 14 years apart; 1942 and 1956 respectively.
What is probably more amazing is that in 1982 the Vulcan's which attacked the Falklands did so using navigation techniques and tools that a WW2 navigator on a Lancaster would have been familiar with.
Was going to mention the Catalina, but someone's already done it, so instead how about the Pilatus Turbo Porter:
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Mainly because I could land one in my back garden 😀
I still find it amazing that the first in-service dates for the Lancaster and the Vulcan were only 14 years apart; 1942 and 1956 respectively.
Tells you when the golden age of aviation was happening, so much new stuff was tried between 1930 and 1960.
Nowadays, the new stuff isn't necessarily what the aircraft looks like. C'est la vie.
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Thought I'd resurrect this thread after I came across a whole load of photos of my parents, myself and other relatives, while clearing out all my step-dad's stuff.
I had no idea they were around, my mum had stashed them away in a cupboard, and my stepsister found them, and this photo was in among them:
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Short SC1, first British fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing aircraft, powered by five RR RB108 jets, four for lift and one for forward flight. First fixed-wing VTOL aircraft to transition from vertical to forward flight modes and first VTOL aircraft with fly-by-wire.
I'm guessing taken at Farnborough*, I know my dad went there, he took me once, and he did take photos of various things but mostly family.
Thrilled he took this one photo, though.
I scanned it using Pic Scanner on my pad.
*Just wiki' it, it was at Farnborough in 1958, I'd have been four...
Finally retired this week, and gone to Duxford:
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http://das.org.uk/duxford-aviation-society-wishes-to-announce-the-arrival-of-its-new-baby/
Trislanders have given about forty years service as a lifeline (literally) for the locals - hearing the engines at night and knowing immediately that something bad must have happened,
I reckon anyone who has ever visited Alderney must have a soft spot for the plucky Trislander. Truly one of the best flying experiences going, gone
ninfan - Member
Finally retired this week, and gone to Duxford:
That Britten Norman Trislander is such a beautiful plane. Sad to see it go. 🙁
Back in the far east my favourite is De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter. 🙂
Jerrys, fond memories of that very BAC 1-11 from my time at Boscombe. Was lucky enough to get a pax trip in the Harvard too!
I went to Bruntingthorpe for the Cold War Jets day at the end of May.
There was a lot of stuff up and running, including several Buccaneers, the Victor, a couple of Hunters, a Nimrod and most impressively of all a Lightning going full bore down the runway.
I could clearly see the air turning to vapour around the Lightning's intake cone, but nothing prepared me for how loud it is. I've stood a few feet away from an early 2000s V10 F1 car at full chat, but that doesn't come close to the noise of a Lightning!
As I lived under the flightpath to Eastleigh Airport the Trislander and its very distinctive noise was part of my youth.
I was surprised however to read of an incident with one in an AAIB report which showed just how marginal the power was when fully loaded. If any one of the three engines failed and the prop couldn't be feathered it couldn't maintain height on two.
Pilatus Turbo Porter:
Somewhere there's footage of one of those dropping a four way relative team, and then looping over them and diving past them going straight down.
Awesome.
PJM1974 - MemberI could clearly see the air turning to vapour around the Lightning's intake cone, but nothing prepared me for how loud it is. I've stood a few feet away from an early 2000s V10 F1 car at full chat, but that doesn't come close to the noise of a Lightning!
I remember reading a story about one of the middle eastern operators of the Lightning, probably Saudi, using them as terror weapons against tribesmen- not actually shooting them, just doing full noise passes at low level and making them all shit themselves. Not in the design brief...
Read similar stories about fast jets over Afghanistan, if ground troops were having a few issues, they'd call for air support to fly over and a lot of the time the taliban would just run away without a shot fired from the plane
I think that worked at first....
In the 1970s and early 1980s the RAF (and presumably the USAAF/Marines) had prescribed corridors for low flying. The family farm lay beneath one of these. F4 Phantoms and Vulcans were pretty common. We'd get the occasional F111 and on one occasion a Victor.
It could be a bit of a fright out in the fields especially if you were working with machinery as the first you'd know about the plane would be a passing shadow followed by an almighty roar 😯 . They were meant to keep above 250ft above ground but there were lots much lower (the farm was on top of a broad ridge so they wanted to keep low to avoid the radar, not much of a problem when they dropped into the intervening valleys)
Read similar stories about fast jets over Afghanistan, if ground troops were having a few issues, they'd call for air support to fly over and a lot of the time the taliban would just run away without a shot fired from the plane
Yes I've heard similar stories. One involving a B1-B lighting the burners to keep the opposing troops heads down.
Big, smoky brute force.......
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I could clearly see the air turning to vapour around the Lightning's intake cone, but nothing prepared me for how loud it is. I've stood a few feet away from an early 2000s V10 F1 car at full chat, but that doesn't come close to the noise of a Lightning!
The occasion my dad took me to Farnborough it was an overcast day, with a hint of rain, a lot of moisture in the air, and the Royal Navy did a flypast of its main carrier-born planes, three groups of three, IIRC.
I can't remember what the first group were, possibly Scimitars, but the next group were Sea Vixens, followed by three Buccaneers; they were really moving, but there were only two, the third was lagging behind, I looked to my right to see where it was, to see a grey, misty sphere with just the nose-cone, tail air-brake cone, wing-tips and top of the tail poking out, in almost total silence except for a faint whining noise.
Until it went past, at which point I thought the world was splitting open! There was this almighty bang, followed by a tearing, crackling roar that just shocked me to my core, I'd never experienced anything like it.
I cannot remember anything else about that day, except that one moment, which is engraved on my memory.
Got to see a B1-B with the taps open coming UNDER Beachy Head for Airbourne a good few years ago, shockwaves forming of the nacelles. Awesome bit of heavy metal.
Saw it a few days earlier near sunset as I'm out on the line up at Birling Gap near sunset. Fantastic memory only bettered by being in the same place on the Sunday watching a Spitfire fly into the sunset.
Happily I started going to airshows in the mid 70's & remember seeing the Tornado on one of it's 1st public views at Finningley in 1977, along with a 4 Vulcan scramble. I remember the Battle of Britain show at Leuchars in 1976 when the commentator said, 'ladies & gentleman, if you look to your right the Jaguar is coming in fast & low & is 5 miles out, keep looking, keep looking' Then the Jag comes over the crowdline from the left at 100ft & 500 knots.
Those were the days!
I've always had a soft spot for Jaguars - seemingly a bit of an unsung hero. Loved the idea they could operate from grass strips and motorways in Eastern Europe. I've just read they are still in service with Indian Air Force!
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Jaguars? Oh yes!
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I cleared the last ever RAF Jag sortie to land!
😀
Jaguars were just such a cool shape, like a paper plane made real.
The Jaguar gate guardian outside Bruntingthorpe is a very fetching shade of metallic green. It looks like a giant Matchbox toy.
Loved the idea they could operate from grass strips and motorways in Eastern Europe.
...and such god-awful places as Blackpool
No Lysander fans then? My Dad's favourite plane.
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Stealthy…
...and such god-awful places as Blackpool
He put that down firmly then...
Love the rough take off and over wing missiles. 8)
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I had a kit painted (horribly) like this so it was pretty cool to see it at Cosford.
Ah, the inexplicably named raspberry ripple paint job!
They used to say it was so underpowered that a heavy one would only get airborne due to the curvature of the earth!
Big soft spot for this one:
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The circuit denial weapon!
if you think Jaguars off roads are cool
Check out the Fins with F-18s
No Lysander fans then? My Dad's favourite plane.
Great bit of kit. Very much the right tool for the job!
That's cheating though, the Finns have bits of road designed to double as runways.
Something just very right about the Lysander isn't there
there may be faster, there maybe two that could fly as long
but none could fly as fast and low for the length of time this lady could achieve.
600kts at 50ft and below for 1000nm....
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is the Lysander at Old Warden?
Hah, I remember standing on the walls at castle urquart looking down on a buccaneer as it flew past underneath, you could have knocked it down with a well thrown rock. Think that must have been '85 as I remember one was lost just a couple of weeks later.
Why were Buccaneers so good at low level?
Get over to YouTube and check out the Aircrew Interview channel, some great stuff, the AirFrance Concorde crash one is an eye opener, much more to it than generally thought. And the Buccaneers at Red Flag is just mental!
The bucc reputedly flew on a cushion of air in ground effect, like a helicopter. Apparently, if you were possessed of a sufficiently large pair, you could push the stick at low level and you wouldn't stood in ......
I believe they were succumbing to fatigue at the end of their life, must have been one of the last jets designed by pencil rather than computer. There were a few lost by the "spectacles" failing and the wings folding up
Classic Jets at Cape Town used to offer rides in either a two seat Lightning or a Buccaneer. Naturally, the Lightning ride was a journey more or less straight up, with very limited endurance. I've read that the Buccaneer ride involved bouncing around Table Mountain at extreme low level and very high speed and was the definitive experience.
As someone has already mentioned, the Bucc was supposed to be extremely good at harnessing ground effect, it was designed to attack Soviet missile cruisers by flying just above the waves. Early examples had breathless Sapphire engines, but they were quickly replaced with Spey engines which could cope with a wide variety of altitudes, indeed the Spey has been installed in RAF Phantoms and civilian Boeing 737s. The RAF weren't keen on taking Navy hand me downs, especially after losing out on both the TSR2 and F-111 but the Bucc was very highly regarded by pilots.
I've found an image of Bruntingthorpe's Jag, resplendent in metallic green with Jaguar logos stuck on. I think that it looks rather dapper like this.
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I think we had the Speys put in Navy 'tooms because of their low-level performance, to get them off the deck! Plus probably a sweetener for RR. The RAF weren't happy as the Speys weren't as good at higher levels; "You can't Spey a Phantom!" Later RAF jets had the original (GE?) engines.
We bought a small number of ex-USN F4J jets for the purpose of filling the gap left by the deployment of jets to cover the Falklands, by that time the production of Spey Phantoms had long since ceased. I'm pretty sure I've read that the RAF preferred the non-Spey versions too.