FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1967
1967 - 0662.PDF
648 RIGHT International, 20 April 1967 Unique in being a single-seat, turbine-powered shipborne ASW heli- copter, the tiny Agusta A 106 is now going into production for the Italian Navy. The A 106 is able to lift two Mk 44 homing torpedoes, though it is little larger than the DASH shipborne drone ASW helicopters which are now to be discontinued by the US Navy and had already made representations to the British High Commissioner. India feared that the establishment of Indian Ocean bases might lead to an increase in tension in the area. Indian opposition may become simply an academic consideration if the grow- ing number of reports that the British Government is contemplating a speedy withdrawal from the Far East are true. Mr Healey's forthcoming visit to the area may well be taken to confirm that these reports have substance, while Washington sources expect the Prime Minister, during his next visit to Washington, to convey to the US Government warning of a major with- drawal from the area. In this context the use of island bases even as staging posts to support a residual British Far East presence based upon Australia is unlikely to proceed beyond the present planning stage. Lightning Shuffle RE-EQUIPMENT AND REDEPLOYMENT of a number of RAF fighter squadrons were announced last week. For the first time plans have been laid for Lightning squadrons to be permanently based with the Near East Air Force in Cyprus, and with FEAF in Singapore. The latter fact was revealed by Air Chief Marshal Sir John Grandy in Australia some weeks ago. Previous Lightning visits to Akrotiri, Cyprus, have been for short-term detach- ments. On Tuesday of last week, April 11, four Lightning 3s of 56 Sqn, from RAF Wattisham, arrived in Cyprus. The re- mainder of the squadron will arrive in Cyprus in May, when it will relieve 29 Sqn, recently ex Zambia and equipped with Javelins, in providing the island's air defence. No 29 Sqn will return to Britain, exchange its Javelins for Light- ning 3s, and operate from Wattisham. In Singapore, Javelin-equipped 64 Sqn, based at RAF Tengah, will disband in June, and will be replaced by 74 Sqn, with Lightning 6s, which will fly there from RAF Leuchars during the same month. The Far East is to be reinforced by a second Lightning squadron next year. This will probably be 11 Sqn, which disbanded in Germany last year with Javelins, was re-formed and is now working up at Leuchars with Lightning 6s. Indo-Egyptian Fighter Watched AN INDIAN MISSION is understood to be in Cairo to witness flight tests of the Hindustan HF-24 fighter which has been equipped with two Egyptian E-300 turbojet engines in place of its original BS Orpheus. The aircraft made its first flights in its new form last month. The airframe was supplied by India to serve as a test bed for the Egyptian engine, which was designed by a team led by Professor E. Brandtner and is destined for the Egyptian HA-300 fighter. India is interested in the combination, however, as a possible step towards the development of a fully supersonic ver- sion of the HF-24, for which an engine is sought and for which the Brandtner engine is thought to be a possibility The practicability of Indo-Egypnan collaboration in aircraft development is to be probed by the Indian mission says the Cairo daily Al Ahram. Pioneer Days NOW that VClOs and Belfasts of Trans- port Command fly nonchalantly round the world with passengers and freight, it is easy to forget [writes H.W.j that within this generation their RAF pre- decessors were struggling across the world's deserts in D.H.9As and Vimys from one improvised landing-ground to another without radio aids. Those pioneer days, from 1919 onwards, were recalled recently by Gp Capt F. R. Wynne in a book called When the Middle East Was Fun (Peter Skelton Ltd, 44 Old Bond St, London Wl; illustrated, 15s net), which includes a description of the first crossing by motor of the desert be- tween Baghdad and Amman, by the RAF, with the dual objectives of marking-out landing-grounds and sur- veying virtually unmapped territory. These landin,g-grounds, one recalls, when flying between Lydda and Habbaniya during the last war, appeared as little circles on the map marked H2, H3 and! H4; but by those days, with reliable I and powerful engines, the desert did not I hold the terrors it had for the airmen of the 1920s. Gp Capt Wynne's account (which un- fortunately does not include a map of the area) of those inter-war years, when so much depended on personal ingenuity and skill, is disarmingly frank and witty. I IN A NOTE on a quick Pacific crossing by a USAF C-141 (page 528, Flight, April 6.1 it was stated that Sqn Ldr Barry Mills was the first RAF pilot to convert to the C-141. Now, it seems, there is another with a prior claim to that distinction— Sqn Ldr F. D. Cretney, who qualified as long ago as September 16, 1964. On an exchange posting at Edwards AFB. he flew over 800hr on test programmes and also helped in training MAC crews "The Rock" came back into the news last week when the Spanish Government said that the air- space over the Algeciras zone would be closed to all foreign aircraft, as part of its pin-prick campaign against British sovereignty in Gibraltar. Limita- tions had already been imposed on British military aircraft. Keeping clear of Spanish air- space recently were these Buc- caneer S.2s of 809 Sqn, off HMS "Hermes," when the carrier visited Gibraltar. On the right are the famous rain-water catchments
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
