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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 2194.PDF
587 21 December 1950 FLIGHT Blackburn and General Aircraft Y.B.i carrier-borne anti-submarine aircraft, powered with an Armstrong Siddeley Double Maihbo turboprop. personnel. Boundary-layer " fences ** are now standard fit- ments on all Venom wings. Ground-attack Fighters.—Development of the Gloster Meteor during 1950 was not confined to the A.W. night fighter variant already mentioned; in fact, one of the most- discussed debutantes at the Farnborough display was a private-venture tactical ground-attack version of this machine, unofficially dubbed "Reaper" by reason of its formidable armament. Basically the airframe is that of the Meteor 8. Provision is made for carrying either 1,000 lb bombs; twenty-four 95 lb rocket projectiles; 580 gallons of additional fuel, in wing-tip, under-wing and ventral drop- tanks; or various combinations of these loads, in addition to the standard built-in armament of four 20 mm guns. In place of the ventral tank, or other fuselage-mounted stores, a fairing containing two extra guns (20 mm or 30 mm) can be fitted. With rocket assistance (two RATOG bottles under the fuselage and two on the fuselage sides) the P.V. Meteor's take-off run should be sufficiently decreased to allow opera- tion from advanced airfields even when maximum armament load is carried. Provision is made for land-type arrester gear. Reconnaissance Aircraft—The Meteor's versatility was further manifested in two developments, for fighter-recon- naissance and high-altitude reconnaissance duties. The nose of the FJR..9 (fighter-reconnaissance) has a flat, downward- inclined, camera window in the extreme tip and a window on each side. The standard four 20 mm gun armament is retained. On the P.R.10 (high-altitude) version the nose arrangements are similar, but additional, downward-facing, cameras are installed in the rear fuselage. The wing-span, as on the Meteor N.F.11, has been increased to 43ft. For maximum range, ventral and wing drop-tanks are fitted. Jet Bombers—Though, regrettably, no jet bomber other than the English Electric Canberra was flying in Britain during 1950, the Canberra appeared in a new guise—as a tactical, three-seater, under the designation Canberra B.2. This version, the first chosen to go into service with the R.A.F., differs from the Mk. 1 in having a transparent nose fairing and a window on the port side. During the year the Canberra made its first appearance with wing-tip tanks. Several examples are already flying and deliveries to squad- rons should be well under way early in the new year. Towards the year's end it was intimated that Canberras are to be built not only by English Electric but by Avro, Handley Page and Short Brothers and Harland. Carrier-based Anti-submarine Aircraft.—A sharply con- tested series of comparative trials was being conducted during the year with three types of aircraft answering Naval requirements formulated in the G.R.17 specification. This called for a deck-landing, anti-submarine machine of the Fairey 17 (Double Mamba), built to the same specification as the Blackburn machine illustrated above. The pictures are directly comparable s*JI
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