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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 2243.PDF
1042 FLIGHT International, 26 December 1963 Probably the most primitive Royal Naval air station in the world is Nanga Gaat, a jungle airstrip in Sarawak used by Wessex heli. copters of 845 Sqn. Two hundred miles inland, no sea breezes blow. Local Ibans manhandle drums of fuel brought up-river as far as possible by RN minesweepers and then transferred to long boats to negotiate gorges and rapids before reaching the strip, These helicopters support Gurkha troops, living over the hill, in combating Indonesian incursions and the squadron's responsibili ties extend over 300 miles of frontier SERVICE AVIATION Air Force, Naval and Army Flying News Low-level Trials in Canada? A PRESS REPORT last week, purporting to be a disclosure from the NATO meeting in Paris, said that V-bombers would make low-level strike trials in Canada, from Canadian airfields, to prove that RAF Bomber Command could, if necessary, strike Russian cities at below-the-radar- screen attitudes. The trials, said the report, would be made with Vulcans and Victors specially modified for low-level cruise and followed two successful tests at Woomera of a Blue Steel modified for low-altitude launching. The fact that only one national news paper carried this report casts doubt on the nature of the "disclosure." An Air Minis try spokesman said that the report was "somewhat misconceived." A spokesman at Bomber Command headquarters, how ever, said that the Command maintained a thoroughly professional attitude and was, naturally, always probing new methods of penetration. V-bombers had been exer cising in Canada for some time but the Command would never comment on planned trials, the spokesman added. Mercy Mission A 20-HOUR RESCUE OPERATION mounted by the RAF in Cyprus resulted in an Israeli woman being brought safely to the new Princess Mary's Hospital at RAF Akrotiri last week. She was the wife of an officer of the Israeli merchant ship Dagan, which sent out a distress call received at the RAF Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Nicosia when it was 230 n.m. SW of Cyprus that the woman was suffering from severe internal bleeding. There was no doctor aboard so Fit Lt R. Rickaby, an RAF medical officer, broadcast advice over a radio link from RAF Nicosia while a 70 Sqn Hastings circled the ship and another RAF doctor set course for the Dagan from Limassol, in a launch of No 1153 RAF Marine Craft Unit. He transferred to the ship and attended the patient until the vessel docked in Limassol, from where the woman was taken to Akrotiri by RAF launch. El Adem Anniversary TWENTY-ONE YEARS continuous occupation by the RAF, beginning with its capture from Rommel's Afrika Corps in 1942, were celebrated on December 12 at RAF Ei Adem, the important Transport Command staging post in the flat desert behind Tobruk, Libya. El Adem handles about 6,000 movements, 50,000 passengers and 2£m pounds of freight a year and is the permanent base of a search and rescue helicopter flight. Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Barnett, AOC-in-C NEAF and Commander, British Forces in Cyprus, recently presented to the station com mander, Gp Capt N. Briggs, a cup com memorating the anniversary. ATR CHIEF MARSHAL FRANK MILLER, RCAF, was appointed first president of the NATO Miu'tary Committee in Paris last week. The post will rotate yearly among the Allies in alphabetical order. APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF AIRCRAFT, British Defence Research Staff in Washington, by the Minister of Aviation is Gp Capt J. W. McKelvey. Gp Capt McKelvey takes up the post on January 13 with the rank of air commodore. Compared with Nanga Gaat, the strip at Tawau, in North Borneo, is] like the lawns at Hurlingham. Below, local children turn out in force to greet an RAF Whirlwind 10 which has just landed. Nos 103 Sqn and 110 Sqn are operating Whirlwind 10s in Borneo. Illustrating the nature of the terrain and the difficulty confronting the security forces in locating Indonesian irregulars is the photograph on the left of a Whirlwind en route to a jungle strip wdSSfil
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