Planes (again)

Hit by every branch of the ugly tree.

Convair Hustler

Piston engine heaven

5J4A2850 by msh_sco[/url], on Flickr

More prop stuff.

Best looking plane in the RAF at the moment?

I love the silent twister – added to my lottery win list

Growing up near The Wash, I got very blase about Tornadoes screaming overhead.

However, I recently read this Tornado memoir which paints a very vivid picture of both the job in the pointy end and the impact of the Cold War on our military.

Did anyone else in Leeds see and/or hear the Tornado descending ino LBA at about half 2 yesterday?

Harvard…

Harvard by Freester[/url], on Flickr

Harvard by Freester[/url], on Flickr

You know this craze youngsters have for “photobombing”
This is how you photobomb the last ever Harrier carrier take off!

Nice pic of the Hustler, one of my favourite planes.

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”.

Seems wrong just to have the two Lancasters together without adding a Vulcan into the mix…

Rachel

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:

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.

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:

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:

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 – Member

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!

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…….

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!

Jaguars? Oh yes!

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.

Stealthy…

…and such god-awful places as Blackpool

He put that down firmly then…