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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1247.PDF
FLIGHT International, 11 July 1963 Netheravon Closure RAF NETHERAVON is closing on July 31 and the only unit still there, the Police Depot, will move to RAF Debden in Essex. Netheravon's history goes back to 1911 and it was there that some of the earliest members of the Royal Flying Corps learned to fly. With nearby Upavon, it was used in that year by Army officers who later formed the nucleus of the Corps, and the station claims to have the oldest officers' mess in the Service. It was to Netheravon in June 1914 that the entire Military Wing of the RFC went for a month's intensive operational training—known as the "Con centration Camp." During the First World War and subsequently it housed a flying training school, and in the Second World War No 38 Wing—later 38 Group- was formed there to undertake airborne operations. There is to be a garden party on Wednesday, July 31, for those who formerly served at Netheravon. Ghana Air Force visitors to RAF Abingdon: Fg Off H. Dumashie (centre) and Fit Lt R. Stone, RAF (navigator), with the station move ments officer, Pit Off P. C. Autie (left), when a Ghanaian Caribou visited the station to pick up freight Back to Cranwell A FORMER CRANWELL CADET Who holds three AFCs and who for the past two years has been British Air Attache in Moscow, Air Cdre Michael D. Lyne, returns to the College on July 21 as Commandant. He graduated from there in 1939, then served with 19 Sqn on Spitfires, being shot down in May 1940 but making a successful forced landing on Deal beach. Subse quently he volunteered for service with the Merchant Ship Fighter Units, which flew Hurricanes to protect convoys. He made several North Atlantic trips but was never catapulted "in anger." Air Cdre Lyne was awarded his first Air Force Cross in 1944, having in the previous year gone to the Middle East as chief instructor at a new gunnery school; his second he received in the 1948 New Year Honours, having led the first public per formance by a jet aerobatic team at the Brussels air display in 1947, when com manding the Vampire-equipped 54 Sqn; and his third came in 1956, after he had made the first RAF jet trans-Polar flight in the RAF Flying College Canberra Aries IV, from Norway to Alaska, in June 1955. He has previously been on the staff at Cranwell, from 1950 until 1953, when he took the Flying College course. 75 For Photographic Interpretation THE MEDMENHAM TROPHY, presented to the RAF Central Reconnaissance Establish ment last year by the Medmenham Club (Flight International, September 30, 1962), has been won for 1963 by a team from the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, Fit Lts E. D. C. Donoghue (leader) and R. H. Graham and 2nd Off J. B. Wallin, WRNS. It was presented to them recently by Air Cdre F. M. Milligan, who is AOC, Central Reconnaissance Establish ment. First-hand Research ONE OF THE RAF'S DOCTOR-PILOTS, Air Cdre C. C. Barker, CBE, AFC, MB, chB, is posted to Singapore as Principal Medical Officer, FEAF, after nine months in a similar post at Bomber Command HQ. He was awarded the AFC in 1944 for research into aircrew fatigue, effects of extreme temperatures, anoxya and other factors affecting flying efficiency, much of this research being undertaken at first-hand when flyinj a variety of aircraft on North Atlantic routes in Ferry (later Transport) Command. Lightning F.2s of 92 Sqn, based at Leconfield and commanded by Sqn Ldr P. B. Hine, with Hunter F.6s, the squadron's former equipment. As a reminder of their famous "Blue Diamond" days the squadron Lightnings have blue fins The Army Air Corps' Great Day IT WAS TO HAVE BEEN the great day of the year for the Army Air Corps at Middle Wallop last Saturday. The airfield open to the public, an hour-and-a-half's flying display, a static show illustrating AAC activities and providing additional enter tainment. All that was wanted, and which could not be organized, was an English summer day to give agreeable warmth and brightness to the occasion. As it turned out, things could hardly have been worse, with rain teeming down practically the whole time and the valleys and hills shrouded in mist. Flight International set out by Aire dale to attend the display, but after getting to the Basingstoke area and finding cloud base down to 600ft or below in rain, returned to Fairoaks and made the journey by road. Yet on a day when the Wimbledon finals were washed out for the first time since 1927, the Army Air Corps still managed to put on a display, even though the top of a neighbouring hill 260ft above the airfield was shrouded in cloud and the rain kept on for most of the afternoon. The programme was extemporized to fit the conditions but contained many of the items previously scheduled and gave an instructive picture of AAC activity. All the aircraft types in current Army use presented themselves at the starting- line for an all-comers race: Chipmunk and An "under the wire act" at Middle'Wallop last Saturday (see above) by an Auster of the Advanced Fixed-wing Flight at the Army Air Corps Centre " Flight International" photograph
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