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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0088.PDF
88 FLIGHT, 20 January 1961 Above, a Buccaneer overshooting after a "touch-and-go." Below, J. G. Burns climbing aboard for a test flight. Note the Palouste ground-starter under the port wing Buccaneering on the Moor . . . The completed Buccaneers are being used for a varied pro-gramme of development flying, including deck take-offs and land- ings (two of the aircraft were out in the Mediterranean for decktrials in November last year, getting their sea-legs aboard HMS Ark Royal). Each of the aircraft is used for different tests: forexample, the fourth to be built was the first to have folding wing-. One of the machines is being flown to assist Ferranti Ltd to dete•••-mine the performance of their radar equipment. Flying the Buccaneer, with its incorporated features Ikeboundary layer control (which can increase the available lift by as much as 100 per cent under certain conditions and is used 10decrease the approach speed), flap blowing, combined ailerons and flaps, rotating bomb-door and tail-mounted clamshell air brakts,involves new problems in handling. Initial stalling trials have been carried out and will shortly be completed, but all the indica-tions are that the aircraft has very acceptable characteristics in this respect. Such trials are recorded on equipment in the controltower, though normally the documentation of flights is provided by the pilot's recorded commentary (as well as a knee-pad, if hehas time and inclination to use it) and the observer's notes. As in all test flying, writing reports takes longer than the actualflights, which on the average last an hour or an hour and a quarter. Pilot and observer listen to the recording and write their observa-tions from it. During many of the Buccaneer test flights, a Hawker Hunter F.4 accompanies the Blackburn machine as "chase aircraft." Standard Hussenot trace recorders are used to obtain normalflight records; but in addition a new technique of recording infor- mation on magnetic tape is being used with considerable success,particularly for investigating flutter. During the use of the equip- ment for this purpose, artificial transmissions of oscillation to theflying surfaces are made by firing specially positioned cartridges known as "bonkers." This is the first time in this country thata development team have been given such a complete picture. In this context, it is worth quoting from a Flight article of May 9,1958, on the NA.39. This stated that "in either the subsonic or the supersonic regimes it is possible to know the position of thecentre of pressure and to obtain a clear idea of the airflow around the whole aircraft, bui in-between conditions change drastically At right, the Buccaneer's low-flying capability—and its unmistakable shape—being demonstrated at close quarters east, 13j miles away, is RAF Leconfield with its Hunter andJavelin squadrons; while RAF Finningley, near Doncaster, is 25 miles to the south-west—not far away as Vulcans fly on let-down patterns. The Blackburn pilots usually confine their flying to a 50-miles radius of Holme. The majority of the 20 development Buccaneers have now beenbuilt, and work is in hand on the production contract. Two of these aircraft have been lost—one in October 1959 when it wasbeing evaluated at Boscombe Down by a US pilot, both he and the Blackburn flight test observer losing their lives after ejectingat low altitude when the aircraft was inverted, and the other in October last year. In the latter case, both the pilot ("Sailor"Parker) and his observer (E. J. D. Nightingale) made successful ejections, and after convalescence are now completely recovered.
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