For the Cold War jet fans

Well that was a bit good, however we were carting around with TSr2 and the yanks were pushing out u2s at 70k feet and 12h recon flights.

Most enjoyable viewing

I was a young air cadet standing at the end of the runway when the last of the Lightnings left Leconfield in the 70’s. It feels strange to think that there are so few left, and that I really am that old 🙁

I was very young, but I’ve seen all three V-Bombers flying, and I’ve seen the big pink one fly, at the RIAT just after the Gulf War. Odd to think that pink was effective camo! Astonishing looking aircraft, though, and seeing one fly over the house with three Tornados behind in IFR formation was quite a thrill.
So many fantastic aircraft, the Javelin, Meteor, Sea Vixen…
Sigh…

One jet sadly left out was the awesome Blackburn Buccaneer. I was trying to find some incredible BBC tv footage of the Buccs weeing in the Yanks shoes at the Red Flag challenges at Nellis AFB, Nevada in the late 70’s. I remember it vividly, with the Americans astonished voices over the intercom. Found this archive blog about it, lots of fabulous reminiscing here for everyone:
http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-48541.html

Did find this:

there’s a very sad looking Lightning just next to the A1 near Newark; it’s in the “rotate” position but it’s been very heavily graffiti’d 🙁

That’d be XN728 probably? Gone for scrap now.

Hasn’t that been there since the late seventies? The site was a scrapyard!

Aye. But finally they scrapped the scrap 🙁

More cheerful… I used to ride past this every day on the way to work:

Poor thing was falling apart, but still I was a wee bit shocked when they did this, to move it:

Particularily since it was transported intact when it was moved to Ferranti. And then, it sat in a heap for years, seemingly abandoned. But just now, I saw this:

Not usually that much of a plane nerd but I always liked these mad looking things… Had the model kid as a kid, and this one locally to gawk at. Might need to go and see it next time I’m down that way.

One jet sadly left out was the awesome Blackburn Buccaneer. I was trying to find some incredible BBC tv footage of the Buccs weeing in the Yanks shoes at the Red Flag challenges at Nellis AFB, Nevada in the late 70’s. I remember it vividly, with the Americans astonished voices over the intercom.

I remember that coverage on the BBC news…!

Was at Farnborough today visiting the AAIB and by the main road the Air Sciences Trust have a Lightening and a two seat Harrier to name but two exhibits.

Bucc’s had some very clever ideas in them. Like ducting some of the jet flow out of little ports on the wings to help with increase lift/reduce landing speed for carrier work cos they had stubby wings. I wonder if some Forumla One engineers used that for inspiration the blown diffusers of recent years?!

love stuff like this 🙂

Why has Eric Brown not been knighted?

His autobiography is jaw dropping and yet self-effacing. He has been in the thick of almost all of the biggest developments in British aviation history. It’s scandalous he’s been overlooked.

Bucc’s had some very clever ideas in them. Like ducting some of the jet flow out of little ports on the wings to help with increase lift/reduce landing speed for carrier work cos they had stubby wings. I wonder if some Forumla One engineers used that for inspiration the blown diffusers of recent years?!

Read that in that blog, never knew that about them. Rotating bomb bay was nifty, too.
This was mentioned in that blog as well, pretty amazing:

Shortly before retirement, the Bucaneer was apparently used for tankage duties. A pair of Tornadi from a base ‘somewhere in Scotland’ met a Buc loitering over the North Sea, refuelled on their way to a range in West Germany. The Buc continued to loiter, again giving them fuel on the way back and all 3 a/c recovered to base. The Buc was found to have 1,000lb of tankage fuel left over. So, instead of carrying this excess fuel, the Buccaneer could have carried a 1,000lb munition, refuelled the Tornados, ACCOMPANIED THEM TO GERMANY, DROPPED THE ROUND, THEN REFUELLED THEM ON THE WAY HOME!! Does this speak volumes about the capabilities of the aircraft or the deficiencies of the Tornado, or a bit of both???

Another interesting little titbit;

A statistic. The Avro Lancaster max T/O weight was 63,000lbs achieved from a 1300 sq ft wing area and 4 Merlins. The Bucc’s max T/O weight was 62,000lbs achieved with 500 sq ft of wing, 2 Speys and no AB!

I was lucky enough to see the Lightnings in ‘action’ at airshows in the late seventies.

One memorable show was at RAF Church Fenton in 1978, the Lightning concluded his display by going vertical on full reheat from a starting point of what could have been no more than 100feet above the runway. Even looking through binoculars I lost sight of the aircraft.

What seemed like a few moments later the P.A. announcer said that the pilot had radioed his altitude in as 40,000 feet…

Thought that was impresssive, until I read this on wiki:

In 1984, during a major NATO exercise, Flt Lt Mike Hale intercepted a U-2 at a height which they had previously considered safe from interception. Records show that Hale climbed to 88,000 ft (26,800 m) in his Lightning F.3 XR749. This was not sustained level flight, but in a ballistic climb or a zoom climb, in which the pilot takes the aircraft to top speed and then puts the aircraft into a climb, trading speed for altitude.

BOOM! literally!

Amazed to see Tebbit in this program, hideous creature.

Fantastic show thanks for the heads up 🙂

northwind – is that lightning at the museum in dumfries now, or am i imagining things?

“Red & Black, Bananas Bananas…” 8)

ittaika – Member

northwind – is that lightning at the museum in dumfries now, or am i imagining things?

Aye, that’s the one.

when is the 2nd half of this programme on?

when is the 2nd half of this programme on?

Wednesday, BBC4, 9pm.
It’s about the growth in passenger air traffic from the end of WWII. No more Vulcans barrel rolling on take off. 🙁

Buccaneers were ace, shame they missed them off the programme. There was a rumour that Buccaneers could be flown “hands off” at low level, the ground effect would basically mean it would sit there at 60ft as though chained to the ground. Not sure how true that was but I’ve seen both Buccs and Phantoms being flown spectacularly low across airfields. 🙂

Part 2 – Wednesday 21:00 on BBC 4

xlnt, i enjoyed the first half like.

I love the story from the Red Flag competitions about the Vulcan trying to sneak in from Canada at around 50ft and being spotted and told his game was over, peeling off to reveal two Buccs flying under the Vulcan’s wings, and getting through to hit the ‘target’! That’s some flying. 😯

Bump for the second part of the programme tonight, 9pm, BBC4.
About the evolution of civil aviation after WWII.