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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0972.PDF
970 1962 Left, smoke trails and wing-tip vortices—the five Sea Vixens of 766 Sqn, FAA. Above, the Jet Provost team from Little Rissington performs over the original home of the CFS GOLDEN JUBILEE DISPLAY . . . flight in it about 33 years ago, was watching from the enclosures and made the observation: "I'll bet they don't start it." He was wrong. He did not know that invigilating the modern ground crew were Bert Hayward and Billy Bailey, two of the original ground crew when -MR first flew at Brooklands. Of course the Rolls- Royce Kestrel fired first time. The lovely part of the Hart's flight was the wonderful erratic crackle of its exhaust as it came in to land. That must have aroused many memories. And who should be flying it—none other than Duncan Simpson, who flew me in a Meteor 7 in 1952 when doing a "21 years after" set of pictures of No 43 Squadron on Meteor 8s. It would be naughty not to appreciate the show put on by five instructors of the Central Flying School on their Jet Provosts but somehow their standard is now so high, so perfect, that it ceases to thrill. It could be mentioned that in "our" day the leader was inverted in relation to the other four. There followed a cross-section of types now in service: four Shackletons from St Mawgan; three Argosies from Benson; three Britannias (Lyneham); one Comet 4 and two Comet 2s (Lyneham); one Canberra and one Valiant (Wyton); a Victor (Cottesmore); one Vulcan (Waddington); four Lightnings (Boscombe Down); four Javelins (Wattisham); seven Sea Vixens (Yeovilton); and three Scimitars. By perfect timing and spacing these 35 aircraft of diverse performance passed in nine minutes. Next, an aerobatic display by Sea Vixens of the Fleet Air Arm. Naval pilots have always been renowned for their formation flying—this lot are wonderful. They also have a good producer who kept the show comfortably in front of the audience. Naval blue and white smoke added to the picture and intermittent wing-tip vortices seemed almost to spell out a Morse message. The event ended with individual dives and rolls over the royal enclosure. The setpiece demonstrated the capture of an airfield. Hunters attacked, Hastings dropped paratroops, helicopters landed RAF Regiment personnel for defence, Beverleys landed the main force, Pioneers re-supplied troops and unloaded casualties, helicopters re-supplied by carrying externally slung loads. The Army brought up a field gun and let off two magnificent bangs. The first lot of paras from the Hastings appeared a little inconsequential; they sat around looking like picnickers who had forgotten the sandwiches. No so the free-fall parachute display by members of the Parachute Training School at Abingdon. Their dropping was so accurate that one unfortunate who had seriously injured a leg was seen to slide out on his backside to clear the tiny target area for others. The last two items in the programme, the Hawker P. 1127 and RAF Aerobatic Team (74 Sqn Lightnings), and opening fly-past by 1 Sqn Hunters, constituted 20 minutes of rip-snorting, after-burning, high-speed and low-speed flying. Sir John Salmond, senior Marshal of the Royal Air Force, who had taken the salute when the Hunters flew by at the start of the display, must have thought they played it rough these days. Marks must also be given to those who entertained the crowd before the show started. There was, for instance, a demonstration of the Gyroplane by Wg Cdr Wallis, which in earlier days would have been termed convincing—and is so today. A sailplane most gracefully aerobatted, as did astonishing and frightening radio controlled models, which one hoped would not run beserk. Sticks of parachute troops dropped from Transport Command Hastings to "capture" the airfield H •* mm a/gem 0> IS
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