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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0418.PDF
418FLIGHT THE FLEET AIR ARM TRIALS UNIT Evaluating Aircraft and Equipment By A. CECIL HAMPSHIRE A Westland Wyvern hooks-on during T.R.U. deck-landing trials. Drogue container under trial on a sea liawk's bomb pylon. The Excelsior batmtr-streoming unit mounted on a Sea Hawk. LAST but by no means least in the test programme of everynew Naval operational aircraft are the Service evaluation' trials. They are one of the main reasons for the existence of No. 700 Squadron, otherwise known as the Fleet Air ArmTrials and Requirements Unit. But (as Lt-Cdr. R. W. Turral, the unit's present commandingofficer, hastens to point out) No. 700's pilots are not test pilots in the popular sense of the term. The squadron comprises arepresentative group of Fleet Air Arm officers whose job is to try out new aircraft under operational conditions and see howthey stand up to Service use. The main personal qualification needed is good or above average—but not exceptional—flyingability, coupled with as wide experience as possible. The trials programmes are based on a stringent interpretationof the role of each new aircraft coming into the Fleet Air Arm, and the aim is to supply commanders of new squadrons, as theyform, with a comprehensive report on the machines they will be flying. The unit, which is practically self-contained (except as regardsspares, for it holds widely varied types of aircraft) is based at R.N. Air Station, Ford, Sussex (H.M.S. Peregrine). Stationresources can be called on when necessary, and for spares the T.R.U. ranks immediately after the first-line squadrons. Although a Trials Unit has existed since 1946, No. 700Squadron as at present constituted came into being only in August of last year—through the amalgamation, for economyreasons, of the old Service Trials Unit (at that time No. 703 Sqn.) and the former Fleet Requirements Unit (then No. 771Sqn.). In January of this year the Naval Air Fighting Develop- ment Unit was added. The combined establishment of the new T.R.U. now com-prises three Fairey Gannet A.S. Mk Is, four Hawker Sea Hawks, two Westland Wyverns, two de Havilland Sea Venoms, threede Havilland Sea Vampires, eight Fairey Firefly 4s, and two Avro Ansons for photographic work. If certain camera trialswith the Gannet now going forward are successful the Ansons will probably be dispensed with. The personnel of the unit totals some 200 officers and ratings,and includes 14 pilots, two observers, three engineer officers and two electrical officers. Average age of the pilots is 26. Ford'sstation photographic officer flies with the unit on all photo- graphic trials. Officers and men serve from 18 months to two
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