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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0986.PDF
FLIGHT International, 20 June 1963 955 Nord MH.262 Dassault Mirage IV inverted gear and flaps down. It left behind an impression of great pilot confidence and a strong smell of kerosine. The Grumman Mohawk likewise had a diverting take-off trick. The nose was apparently thrust down sharply on to the runway, whereupon the aircraft was rocked round its main wheels, lifted into the air, cleaned up, and hauled up at a disconcerting angle. Associated with this performance the massive sideways-looking radar installation and under-wing tanks appeared incongruous, as indeed is everything else about this astonishing aircraft. But there was nothing incongruous—only aggressive—about the five Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs which now commanded attention—especially when it was announced that the type attains Mach 1.25 at sea level and 2.25 at 11,000 metres. The quintet came from Bitburg. The VTOL note on which we began this account wasfirst sounded, in minor key, by small—even tiny—rotary-wing craft: the Hughes 269A (at very close quarters); Beagle-Wallis WA.116 (likewise, and hands off); the Motoimport SM-IW (very dashing in spite of its panniers and workaday aspect); and Dornier Do32 (something of a prodigy if the right career can be found for it). Another "'look, no hands" performer, and a very convincing one, was Hiller's L-4 four-seater. In close-togetherness Westland's team of five—the Scout, Whirlwind 3 and 10, and Wessex 1 and 31, now stirred things up, kicked things up, and picked things up, before their fall-in-and- follow-me departure. They developed our VTOL theme on a decidedly British note (notwithstanding strong family connections with the USA), and they were succeeded by a US-Italian alliance typified by a Bell UH-1D Iroquois, an Agusta-Bell 204D, and an AB-47G and J. The warlike Iroquois repeatedly, and almost literally, shot-up the enclosures from low level, traversing its laterally mounted machine guns to direct a withering sham fire at the crowds. The Northrop Talon Aspect of West/and Wessex /
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