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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0393.PDF
18 March 1960 393 SERVICE AVIATION Royal Air Forces and Naval Flying News RoyarAides-de-Camp FOUR new ADCs to the Queen havebeen appointed. Air Cdre H. I. Edwardssucceeds AVM R. N. Bateson, who relin- airshes his appointment on promotion;ftp Capt W. D. Hodgkinson succeeds Gp Capr P- G. St G. O'Brian on the latter'sretirement from the RAF; Gp Capt L. A. Jackson succeeds Air Cdre A. H. McM.jjeb". who relinquishes his appointment on promotion; and Gp Capt J. H. Stevenssucceeds Gp Capt E. Knowles on the latter's promotion to air commodore. Conferring with Commanders A CONFERENCE of all RAF com-manders-in-chief at home and overseaswas held at the Air Ministry on Thursday and Friday last week. Called by Air ChiefMarshal Sir Thomas Pike, CAS since the beginning of this year, it had as its objectthe discussion of broad strategic problems affecting the Royal Air Force at present andin the future. It also considered operational, organizational and personnel problemsaffecting the Commands generally. The new CAS intends to confer with Cs-in-Cat home at regular intervals and with over- seas commanders annually. FAA Equipment IN the debate on the Navy Estimates onMarch 7 the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, C. Ian Orr-Ewing, said: "TheType 12 Whitby class anti-submarine frigates are proving particularly successful.Ten of these will be in service in 1960, and we have decided to exploit their goodqualities in an improved and more versatile ship. This improved Type 12 will beknown as the Ltander class. The hull and steam turbine machinery will be substan-tially the same as for the Whitbys. The main new features planned are a long-range air warning radar, the Seacat anti- aircraft guided missile, improved anti-submarine detection equipment and a light- weight helicopter armed with homingtorpedoes." Later Mr Orr-Ewing said: "The intro-duction of new types of aircraft is going ahead steadily. The first Sea Vixen squad-ron, which formed in July 1959, embarked in the Ark Royal last week. The secondformed five weeks ago. The gas-turbine- powered Wessex helicopter enters servicenext month and the first squadron should join the fleet next year." Peninsular Hunters T>RIEF reference was made on one of-*-* our news pages last week to the re- equipment of No 8 Sqn at Aden withHawker Hunter FGA.9s. A ceremony marking the squadron's conversion fromVenoms was attended on Monday last week by the AOC, Air Forces Arabian Peninsula,AVM David Lee. He inspected the eight FGA.9s and two T.7s on the ground atKhormaksar, saw a firing demonstration at the rocket range and in the afternoonwatched a fly-past led by the CO, Sqn Ldr R. Knight. No 8 has been "residentground-attack squadron" at Aden for almost the whole of the past 32 years. ROTATING-WING JUBILEE A QUARTER-CENTURY of flying with•**• rotating-wing aircraft is being cele- brated by the RAF this year; and withappropriate pride in this jubilee the Air Ministry recently issued a short history ofthe 25 years' specialist work, cpmpiled by H. J. Cooper of the Information Division.It has been used as the basis for the follow- ing account, which is illustrated by photo-graphs from the same source (with two exceptions—the Bristol 192 and Skeeter). Old Sarum was the first venue for RAFrotating-wing flying, for in December 1934 the School of Army Co-operation therewas issued with six Rotas, the name given by the RAF to the Cierva C-30 Autogirosbuilt under licence by A. V. Roe & Co. Subsequently the school ran Rota coursesfor pilots from AC squadrons and the air- craft (powered by a 140 h.p. ArmstrongSiddeley Genet Major) were used in Army/ RAF e:;ercises in September 1935. At theoutbreak of war the Rotas were supple- mented by some civil-owned C-30s andalso by C-40s, which had a 175 h.p. Salmson engine and "jump take-off" abili-ties. The Air Ministry had ordered five C-40s and two of these went to France in1939 with the BEF. Later in the war the C-30s and -40s were used on radar calibra-tion work, based at Duxford as No 1448 Fit, which re-formed in 1943 as No 529Sqn and existed until 1945. The flight had been originally com-manded by Wg Cdr (then Sqn Ldr) R. A. C. Brie, formerly chief test pilot ofCierya, who in late 1941 went to the US to investigate using helicopters fromBritish merchant ships for AS duties. This resulted in a Royal Navy order for R-4sand -5s, developed from the experimental Sikorsky XR-4 helicopter. Sea trials werecarried out, including an Atlantic convoy in early 1944, and Wg Cdr Brie and Fit LtF. J. ("Jeep") Cable took the aircraft to Hanworth, where a pilot training schoolwas started. This was the first use of heli- copters in the UK. The YR-4s (180 h.p.Warner Super Scarab) were known in the RAF as Hoverfly Is; there were also someR-6s (245 h.p. Franklin), known as Hover- fly 2s. At this time the Royal Navy wasinvestigating the use of R-4s for ASR work, so the RAF formed the Helicopter TrainingSchool at Andover (commanded by Sqn Ldr Basil Arkell) to train Army AOPsquadron pilots on R-4s. Other experi- mental work was done on telecommunica-tions and radar, and in bad-weather recon- naissance. Eventually the RAF handedover their R-4s and R-6s to the Army and Navy, retaining one R-4 in the King'sFlight. JEHU (the Joint Experimental Heli-copter Unit) was formed at the beginning of 1954 and lasted until the end of lastyear: in it, the RAF and Army worked together on problems affecting the militaryapplication of helicopters. It has now be- come No 225 Sqn. Much of the RAF's helicopter experi-ence in recent years has been gained in overseas theatres like Malaya and Cyprus.The Westland-Sikorsky S-51, a develop- ment of the R-5 and the first helicopterwith an operational capability, came into RAF service in 1950 as the DragonflyHC.2 and in April that year the first were Past and future: A Rota (Avro-built Cierva C-30) of No 529 Sqn in the early war years and a Bristol 192, the twin-rotor helicopter which is shortly to enter RAF service, seen carrying a Bloodhound u
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