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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1667.PDF
g November 1957 755 SERVICE AVIATION Royal Air Forces* and Naval Aviation News Pinecastle Positions AFTER five missions had been flown in• the Strategic Air Command bombing and navigation competition, the B-47 Wingfrom Pinecastle was leading with 1,719 points and second were the B-47s fromPease A.F.B. with 1,653. The R.A.F. Valiants were at that time—the contestwas due to end last Tuesday—lying 23rd with 1,407 points and the Vulcans 44thwith 1,205 pts. In the navigation com- petition the Vulcans were then 26th with363 pts and the Valiants 25th with 365; in the bombing the Valiants were 23rd with1,102 pts and the Vulcans 45th with 842. There are 66 U.S.A.F. aircraft—ten B-52sin addition to the 56 B-47s—in the com- petition, which began on October 30. In both the bombing and navigationcontests, the Valiant captained by S/L. R. W. Payne has so far been the mostsuccessful R.A.F. aircraft, coming 15th with 763 pts in the overall contest. Aircraft Carriers Appointment A NEW appointment as Flag Officer**• Aircraft Carriers has been announced by the Admiralty. Vice-Admiral A. N. C.Bingley is to succeed Acting Rear Admiral H. C. D. MacLean—whose appointmentto this post was announced only last month (Flight, October 18)—in January next year.Vice-Admiral Bingley has been a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, Fifth SeaLord and Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Air) since June 1954. Among his wartimeappointments were command of the escort carriers H.M.S. Slinger and Biter and laterof a mobile air base; and from November 1952 until December 1953 he commanded This fine new study of a mixed bag of aircraft flown by instructors of the C.F.S., Little Rissington, on routine training was taken by Russell Adams from a Vampire T.U. In the Hunter FA was F/L. J. A. McArthur; in the T.ll Vampires, F/L T. W. Morris (No. 2) and F/L D. J. Evans (No. 3); flying the Meteor 7 was F/L. M. W. Bradley, a member of the Provost aerobatic team "The Sparrows." Pilot of the photographic Vampire was F/L. A. Bannerman. H.M.S. Eagle. Promoted to flag rank in1954, he became C.B. in 1956, having been made O.B.E. in 1942. German F.A.A. Training GERMAN pilots, observers and navalratings who will form the West Ger- man naval air arm are being trained at R.N.air stations in this country and by the Fairey Aviation Co., Ltd. Twelve of thepilots due to fly Sea Hawks are receiving instruction at R.N.A.S. Lossiemouth and12 Gannet pilots are being trained by Faireys and two R.N. instructors. Germanobservers are doing a nine-month course at Culdrose; maintenance ratings are alsobeing trained there (on Gannets) and at Brawdy on Sea Hawks. This training fol-lows orders placed by the West German Government earlier this year for 68 Arm-strong Whitworth Sea Hawks and 16 Fairey Gannets. Negombo Handed OverF OURTEEN years' R.A.F. tenure of theairfield at Katuanayake, near Negombo in Ceylon, ended last Friday when it wasformally handed over to the Ceylon Government by the Deputy High Com-missioner, Mr. T. L. Crosthwaite. But the R.A.F. has been asked to stay there untilthe Ceylon Air Force is ready to take over, which may not be for another five years.Building of Katuanayake (better known to R.A.F. crews on the Far East route asNegombo) was begun in 1943 and it was originally intended as an advanced bomberbase. It costs about £153,000 a year to run and the British Government will continueto pay this as long as the R.A.F. continues to use Negombo, which will eventually bereplaced by the new airfield at Gan in the Maldive Islands. Vulcan Exit Facilities TPHERE is to be no change in the-*• arrangements for emergency crew escape from the Avro Vulcan, at presentfitted with ejection seats for the two pilots and a downward-opening hatch for theother crew members. Since the Vulcan accident at LondonAirport just over a year ago, when the pilots escaped by low-level ejection and theother four occupants of the aircraft were killed, the problem has been exhaustivelyconsidered by the Air Council. They are satisfied that the structural difficultiesinvolved in the installation of upward- firing ejection-seats could not be over-come without excessive delay and without imposing unacceptable penalties in thebuild-up of the V-bomber force; and that downward-firing seats would be entirelyunacceptable for low-altitude escape. A spokesman for A. V. Roe and Co.,Ltd., makers of the Vulcan, said that a modification providing for upward ejec- G/C. W. J. Burnett, commander of the R.A.f. detachment at Pinecastle A.F.B. for the S.A.C. competition, receives (left) the key of the city of Orlando from Mayor Carr; below left, one of the three Neptune crews of No. 7 7 Sqn., R.A.A.F., who made a round-the-world flight earlier this year, with Mr. P. Mingrone, Lockheed representative in Australia, who presented them with commemorative plaques; and below right, at No. 68 Sqn.'s annual reunion dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, London, when squadron badges were presented as mementos to members of the staff by S/L. M. T. Harding (second from left). W/C. A. P. Dottridge, who presided, is second from the right, and staff in the group are Messrs. L. Grossman, D. Harding (assistant banqueting manager) and 5. Jacobs.
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