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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1638.PDF
4O7 FLIGHT, 29 September 1949 PS " Flight " photograph. (Top left) : Inspecting Lt. St. Macary's Vampire after its hood was jettisoned. (Top right): Wing-tip debriefing—F/L. Flowerdewof theR.F. A. delegation in France, Capt. Godde, French intelligence officer, and Capt. Lemaire, D.F.C., who led the combined French squadrons. (Bottom left) : Belgian pilots beneath the flag of No. 349 Squadron watch a wing scramble. (Bottom right) : Gen. Giebel, NetherlandsChief of Air Staff, talking to one of his pilots. EXERCISE "BULLDOG" ... acquired quite a taste for them), we dived for home at600 m.p.h. But we had no luck, though the rest of the wing, carrying drop-tanks, stayed airborne long enoughto settle with some Hornets and Mosquitoes. So we diverted ourselves with an eight-point Battle-of-Britain-day rolland other Meteoric manoeuvres before Murphy, still hunger- ing for Harvards, set us back on the runway. We claimed one B-29 destroyed and two damaged ; butas the wing claimed nine destroyed out of the force of ten, this seemed a trifle academic. . FOREIGN CONTINGENTS TT is inevitable that the foreign squadrons should steal-*• some of the limelight, if only for the reason the " security " insists that no mention shall be made of R.A.F.regular units by squadron number, home station, equip- ment or strength. No such censor ban applies to theFrench, Dutch or Belgian visiting units, or, for that matter, to the R.Aux.A.F. squadrons either. The French squadrons "Cigogne" (Stork) and" Alsace " of the Dijon Wing were at Odiham under the command of Capt. Lemaire, D.F.C., who was with theR.A.F. during the war. They fly Vampire 5s, and this was fortunate for Lt. St. Macary, who was unlucky enoughto have his hood jettison itself just after take-off during a scramble. The hood passed over the low tailplane. Sub-sequent examination showed that the release wire had been hitched over a couple of worm clips, to facilitate theremoval of ammunition tanks ; this left the release mech- anism at top-dead-centre, so that the vibration during take- off was sufficient to complete the action. A spare was forthcoming immediately and the Vampire was serviceable again in a matter of minutes. The Harvards of Training Command put in some excel- lent attacks on Odiham—so good that it appeared probable that the instructors were doing the flying. But late on Saturday afternoon, on the occasion of their sortie, their arrival unfortunately coincided with that of S/L. Timmis and his squadron—No. 605 (County of Warwick) Squad- " Flight " photoaraph. Unarmed B-29 tankers of the U.S. 43rd Group, one of whichis shown, supplemented the B-50s on high-altitude daylight raids.
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