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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0087.PDF
FLIGHT International. 9 /anuory 1969 passing-out ceremony some months ago. The RAN is looking hard at the Jet stream, though it really does not need so good an aircraft as this. The Army has a need for something with two engines to carry senior officers about, some four to six units, and in the Queen Air bracket for • size. Certainly not the Jetstream, for this is a different require ment. The biggest decision of all, of course, concerns the RAAF's strike-trainer, the supersonic job. The CAC project is now dead, for British Aircraft Corporation and the local industry have designed a more adequate project. This is now before the Government. However, this is a major project indeed, the only really big production project for the local industry. As such it will not be con sidered on its military merits, but largely on the political and commercial need. Without this, the local industry will fade badly and perhaps even vanish in the 1970s to the stage of being just an overhaul and conversion organisation. There is growing doubt here that the RAAF needs a supersonic strike-trainer at all, relative to the other needs of the Services for more urgent equipment. The fact is that present Defence think ing favours the Army as the main service in the 1970s and that the other two Services will be ancillary to it as regards future development. The RAAF has had its big hand-out with the F-lll and now it is the Army's turn. The RAAF must supply transport for the Army, together with as much tactical support as pos sible. This entails a long Government look at the possible use of tbe Macchi in the attack role, and a further order for this CAC type. That is the alternative to the supersonic strike-trainer. AMSA Proposals REQUESTS FOR PROPOSALS on the advanced manned strategic aircraft, the supersonic bomber B-52 replacement, are likely to be issued to the American aircraft industry in the near future. These will involve an airframe systems contractor competition between two or more com panies, an avionics sub-system compe tition and a continuation of the engine development competition. Boeing, North American and General Dynamics are expected to bid on the design. Tigercats for Jordan JORDAN HAS ORDERED Short Tigercat missile systems, presumably for defence against low-flying Israeli aircraft. The size of this Jordanian contract has not been disclosed, but it is included in an announcement last week that nearly £12 million of export orders for guided weapon systems had been booked last year by the Short Bros' missiles division. This brings to almost £25 million the value of overseas orders gained by the division since its first deliveries were made in 1962. The 1968 sales are both for Seacat ship-defence and Tigercat surface-to-air systems; and among the new buyers and repeat order countries are the Argentine, Australia, Iran, Jordan, Sweden and two others. 71 Educating Harrier Headmasters THIS is THE YEAR of the Harrier for the RAF, with the setting up of the con version unit and training of the first squadron (Flight, December 19, page 1039). The conversion unit is to be at RAF Wittering, but the converters have first to be trained, and this is starting this week at Hawker Sdddeley's DunsfoLd airfield. A number of pilots who are to form the nucleus of the conversion unit started a three-month course there on Monday of this week which will prepare them for their own conversion to Harriers from approximately April 1 onwards. Concurrently with their own course at Dunsfold, groundcrew are being trained there, and representatives of the RAF Central Servicing and De velopment Establishment have been there for some time investigating the logistic problems of introducing the air craft into service. The four-man RAF team is led by Sqn Ldr R. H. B. Le Brocq and with him are Fit Lts G. R. Profit, K. B. Latton and P. Dodworth. In deciding the sort of training these pilots will undergo, HSA pilots who are supervising it have gained great help from the Kestrel Evaluation Sqn at West Raynham in 1965 (Flight, October 7 and 14, 1965). Experience gained on it and in handling the aircraft has enabled the production of pilots' notes and other relevant documentation. During their first three months, the RAF pilots will spend as much time away from Dunsfold as at it, on courses relevant to the Harrier and its systems. They will go to RAF Chivenor, the Hunter OCU, to the survival school at Mountbatten, to RAF North Luffenham for an aeromedical course, to Rolls- Royce Bristol Division for a course on the Pegasus engine, to Ferranti to study the Harrier's inertial nav/attack system and to the Central Flying School rotary- wing course at Ternhill. This last aspect of their training is significant because until there are two- seat Harriers available, it is important for pilots to have VTOL experience in a helicopter before flying the Harrier. The four RAF pilots will not do any Harrier flying until their three months' ground school and courses are completed. They will receive from HSA a complete grounding in the aircraft handling and systems, including education as to what to do in the event of a systems failure. All four pilots are experienced QFIs and ground-attack pilots; when they come to Harrier flying at the end of the three months they will bring to it con siderable flying experience plus theo retical knowledge of the aeroplane, and their flying course will last about three weeks, following that adopted by the Tripartite Squadron at West Raynham. The flying begins with taxying experi ence of the aircraft, to get used to the toe hrakes and nose wheel steering, and also use of nozzle control; then a series of short take-off "hops" are made along the main runway at Dunsfold. When the pilots first get completely airborne in the Harrier, they experience the controls at the altitude and do a simulated circuit and hovering. As was stated in the Flight article on the Tri partite Squadron, the systems of the aircraft (in that case the Kestrel) proved simple enough to learn; and in many ways the Harrier is identical to the Kestrel, except that it is a little more complicated in its systems. At West Raynham, 3hr flying sufficed for complete conversion, or ten nights in all, including on average 11 vertical take-offs and landings, 11 short take-offs and landings, three conventional ones and five accelerating and decelerating transitions; and it is likely that a similar training pattern will emerge at Dunsfold. Macchi MB.326G with two Matra SAIO gunpods (Aden 30mm cannon with ISO rounds per pod) installed under the wings. This is the aircraft which was seen at last year's S8AC Display at Farnborough '"•••"• ! ^l^ll^ipl ^.:V.||;..^;r:::::: .::;:;; -•p-^.-^y^y.^--^ '. ;. ;. J
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