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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1582.PDF
15 September 1949 Arrival of the Avro 707 delta-wing research aircraft." The rebeat Vampire before pulling up in a boosted clinib. Research Aircraft Shaped for speed. AVRO 707.—Darkest of this year's "horses," this Der- went-powered research aircraft of delta form flew in from Boscombe Down on Tuesday evening for static exhibition. The pilot was Eric Esler, who made two circuits of wide radius and flew along the runway at some 600ft at 300-350 m.p.h. before entering his landing circuit. He made a long, straight, low approach and, from the head of the runway, was seen to vanish below trees before rumbling in for touch- down at what seemed to be something over 100 knots. The Avro 707 has a wing of equilateral triangular form, spanning 33ft; the length of the fuselage, in which the cockpit is well forward, is 30ft 6in. Far aft, towards the swept-back fin and rudder, are the intakes, unusually posi- tioned in the top surface of the fuselage and divided on the centre line. D.H. REHEAT VAMPIRE.—This Vampire adaptation repre- sents an early step in de Havilland's reheat-development programme, but Mr. Beaumont showed that this step is an appreciable one. When reheating sets in, an appalling din (someone described it as "like tearing tarpaulin") blasts the ear drums, but quickly diminishes as the Vampire recedes aloft. One mused on the possibilities of a Venom with reheat to augment its Ghost-thrust. The reheat Vam- pire has a Mk. 5 wing but retains the old square-cut fin and rudder assemblies. Beneath these are skids to guard against impingement of the tailpipe on the runway. GLOSTER AVON-METEOR.—The world's most powerful and fastest-climbing single-seater, this Rolls-Royce develop- ment aircraft, adapted for two of the still-secret axial Avons, rocketed up into the blue and plummeted down again with tremendous Slan. Mr. Heyworth delighted every- one, especially those of our friends from abroad who have little opportunity to witness such performances, by turning off the high-pressure fuel cocks and streaming white paraffin trails in the best sky-writing manner. Particularly effective was this when the Meteor descended steeply and almost noiselessly, pulled out sharply and upward-rolled away before the Avons were relit. Fighter tacticians must have been impressed when, during a slow fly-past with wheels and flaps down, Hey- worth suddenly retracted everything, opened up the Avons to full thrust and made a near-vertical exit from the arena. GLOSTER REHEAT-DERWENT METEOR. — At previous S.B.A.C. displays Capt. Shepherd has been responsible for the heavyweight Nene-Lancastrian and Avon-Lancastrian '' test-beds'' which, technically interesting though they were, restricted the scope of his performance. This year his mount was one of the hottest of the " hot-stuff " single- seaters—a Rolls-Royce development Meteor fitted with reheat Derwents. Watching his moderate-speed fly-pasts, followed by the lighting-up of the reheaters, afforded the same thrill as schoolboys enjoy on obeying Mr. Brock's exhortation to " light the blue touch -paper and retire imme- diately." The Meteor thunderously ascended to high heaven, boring a clean hole through a cloud. This aircraft is painfully noisy and smells offensively, but the sight of it " jumping to it" on the lighting of the reheaters, and receding sunwards until it becomes a mere pin-point of light, is something to remember. AVRO PYTHON-LANCASTER. — A rate of climb of 4,000ft/min is attainable by this flying test bed, mounting a pair of 4,000 e.h.p. Armstrong Siddeley Python turbo- props outboard of two Merlins. To comply with asym- metric-flying requirements only half of the output of the turboprops was tapped for take-off; even so, the black-and- white Lancaster scrambled nimbly to give zestful proof of its powers on Python-power alone. eheat-Derwent Meteor.
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