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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 2232.PDF
11 September 1959 209 running, was flying Fairey's colours at its rotorhead. It is fasterthis year, with its newly set wing, and it took off, translated and proceeded to proceed at some 200 m.p.h. before landing in frontof the President's pavilion. All these evolutions it performed with its downward nav. light winking brightly. The significanceof this was not apparent until 30 nursing sisters came tripping out. A Mk 8 Javelin (two reheat Sapphires; four Firestreaks) keptthe standard of Gloster well forward in the fighter field (shades of those Gamecocks again); but the latest expression of HawkerSiddeley's long-established delta programme was to be seen in the Vulcan B.2. This, the fourth production machine of the mark,took off in a fearful earthquake of noise and ascended with incom- parable majesty. From the top of its climb, and with the fourOlympus muted now, it slanted back, descending like a great white avalanche. Awesome, too, was its low slow sweep alongthe runway, and the sudden shattering fulmination of Olympuses. At least one overseas visitor declared this aeroplane to be the most. The Sea Vixen (two Avons; four Firestreaks, two 150-gal tanks)put on a demonstration (flashing low runs, long inverted passes and rapid rolls) to give positive reassurance that with this aero-plane the Fleet Air Arm will really be in business; and the NA.39 enhanced this impression not only by its own handling qualities(very fast rate of roll and precise eight-pointers in particular) but with its demonstrated specialist propensity for the LABS attackfrom a sustained low-level run-in. Folland's two Gnats—the Mk 1 single-seater and the two-seater Trainer—got away together, and both went stabbing and darting about the sky without apparent distinction, though theTrainer is under a temporary speed limitation. The Mk l's low pass seemed (as it often does, and often is) the fastest of the day.Of Hawker, as always, was expected something novel in demon- stration technique: and this was the form it took. The red civil-registered Two-Seater Mk 66A produced smoke from the moment of unsticking, and the Mk 9 R.A.F. attack machine followed upthrough the murk. As the 9 passed by inverted the 66A rocketed across and quickly diminished in a cylonic climb (the word seemstoo laboured) to 15,000ft. Without a second's hesitation the smoke-trailing Hunter turnedinto a spin—a manoeuvre which it sustained to the extent of eight turns, to recover at 6,000ft. Thus did a ball of fire become acorkscrew of smoke. Those aerodynamic meat cleavers (so mighty is their drive andso solid-looking their structure) the Lightning F.I and T.4 like- wise performed d deux, beginning with a ferocious reheat get-away. These aeroplanes electrify and stupefy by turns—and in more than one sense, for the Lightning, like the Gnat, has theproclivity for turning (apparently) not so much on a curve as on an acute angle. Suddenly the air was full of helicopters—Westland helicoptersmainly, but with their new Saro partners, the P.531 and Skeeter, along with diem. The brawny, flailing Westminster stirred thingsup on a large scale, and the Wessex as nearly looped as made no difference. There ensued, after diis judicious levity, a phase ofant-like industry—of lifting, carrying, setting down, bridging, running and crossing such as to defy rational reporting. It seemed,however, that the Westminster latched on to a fully-fitted bridge section, to which its fuselage appeared closely related. TheGnome-Whirlwind adopted a military Mini-Minor, and the Wessex teamed up with a Land Rover. The bridge having beenset in place (and it took no time at all), the vehicles made a fast crossing to the other side. The final count, when the whole busyfamily took their curtsey before the Presidential tent, was Westminster, Wessex, Gnome-Whirl wind, common Whirlwind,Widgeon with pontoons, P.531 and Skeeter with panniers. With consummate skill and sense of showmanship No. 807Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm addressed itself to the task of making Farnborough '59 very much a naval occasion. There was,in fact, such a singleness of purpose about every phase of its programme that their motto Quoquo versus ferituri ("Strike inall directions") seemed somehow at variance. The matelots weighed anchor with a stream take-off—one Scimitar with a red2,000 lb bomb (supposedly a nuclear store) plus three tanks; another with target pick-up gear. One Scimitar of the main forma-tion of four having gone u.s., a spare was called up, and all made Epitome of power: the Vulcan 6.2 their departure. At 700 m.p.h. the four returned, to cross overwidi the A-bomber, which contributed three rapid roLs. Then the target snatcher came in for the grab (picture page 201).The requisite gear is the target itself—four-finned, cruciform, and with a radar reflector at its end; a 2,000ft nylon tow-line;two 12ft poles 20ft apart; two 25ft poles 150ft apart (to enable height to be judged); and a 12ft towing hook attached to theaircraft by an adaptor on the arrester hook. The target was ultimately released over Odiham. The four re-formed from line astern to box half-way through aroll, while the bomber whipped into a turn assessed at 6-7g. Then, with the spare man feeling more at home, there followed what wasby no means diffidently acclaimed by the naval commentator as an original manoeuvre—the "twinkle roll." This demands a fairlyopen box formation and a rapid, clean-cut, individual roll by each Scimitar. The result appeared as some fantastic piece of gambol-ling by a school of dolphins. On, dien, with the LABS attack, causing no mean mushroom to erupt from Laffan's Plain. Thefour returned in swan, changing to line abreast on top and back again to box. And still die Navy's best was yet to come, for thetwo singletons touched down from die left, and as they folded wings the right box-man detached from the four and landedhead-on between them. That this notable piece of nautical runwaymanship was whollyobscured by the Presidential tent was die only sorrow of yet another Farnborough Monday. The Navy ceremonially sheaths a Scimitar
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