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Aviation History
2003
2003 - 1296.PDF
Straight & Level roger.bacon@fliqhtinternational.com Testing...testing (sort of) Splendid! You are still awake out there after all. My cunning ruse with the throw- away "Scimitar" caption certainly got a few of you going (Straight & Level, 20-26 May). Thanks to Nephews "Mad" Dan Eccles, Gething, Jackson, Munro, Skaillicorn, Smith and Williamson et al for spotting the fact that it was.. .er.. .in fact, a Supermarine Attacker. The test pilot in the photograph, incidentally, is the famous Mike Lithgow who went on to set several world air speed records in a prototype Swift - a descendent of the Attacker. Lithgow's record breaking Swift flights culminated on 25 September 1953 at Tripoli in Libya, when he flew the aircraft at 737.3 mph. Sadly Lithgow lost his life 10 years later when testing the BAC One-Eleven prototype in 1963. Now, where are those reading glasses of mine? I say, is that hydrogen I can smell? Balloon flight over the Duke of York's barracks, 1949 Take the low road Q: Who is the saddest person at Glasgow airport? A: Hamish McHatfield. Within days his beloved football team, Celtic, lost the UEFA Cup Final and his airport lost his beloved aaaaaahhhh de Havilland (Hawker Siddeley) Trident 1C. "Papa Papa" has been a fixture at Glasgow since being retired to the local fire service 20 years ago. A few days ago someone noticed its tail feathers were all askew; now it has simply vanished into obscurity. Politically incorrect (part 1,432) Captain (male) clearing the cabin crew to start work with the usual double chime: "Blondes Away!" Dambusters competition To mark the 60th anniversary of the raid on the Ruhr dams by 617 Squadron (The "Dambusters"), the UK's National Archives is holding a competition in which you can win a helicopter flight along the training route used by the crews. The National Archives has put key documents relating to the 16 May 1943 mission online for the first time, and visitors to the site can log on to enter the contest. The site also contains drawings of the "bouncing bomb", log books and the first air reconnaissance photographs of the breached dams. The exhibition is online at: www.nationalarchives-dambusters.gov.uk - but hurry, the site is open for one month only and the competition closes on 13 June. AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FLIGHT 29.05.1953 Air Age Sovereign This week's issue commemorates a splendid occa sion and one unique in living memory: the Coron ation of a young and lovely Queen Elizabeth II. Many have already sought to associate her reign, as yet so brief, with that of her Royal name sake. Queen Elizabeth I; and though the personality of our present Queen could scarcely be less like that of her ancestor, the analogy is not inappropriate. The last half of the sixteenth century is with justification remembered as a golden age when this nation and country rose to great ness through the efforts of wise statesmen, brave seamen and soldiers, and industrious and thrifty merchants. Today, men of comparable foresight, bravery and skill offer us hope for the preservation of our nation's greatness and mature influence for good. But to their number must be added the sci entists and engineers and those who sail the air in the products of their skill. 50 YEARS AGO The W.R.A.F. The work of the Queen's air forces is essentially a job for both men and women. The ubiquity and importance of the role of the Women's Royal Air Force is easily overlooked, and yet the fact remains that women serve in every one of the R.A.F. Commands described elsewhere in this issue, with the exception only of the R.A.F. Regiment. The W.R.AF. in 1953 forms not a separate corps but an integral, essential part of the whole Air Force framework, and as such its value is undisputed. In the Queen's Lifetime In seeking to record the history of British aviation during the lifetime of our Queen we are reminded, appropriately enough, that the story begins co- incidentally with what was in many ways a phase of aviation itself. By 1926, when the Princess Elizabeth was born, the country had at last recov ered from the exhaustion of the Great War years, and many of the wartime types of aircraft still in Service use and also in civil employment had at last given place to new designs. No longer did pas sengers travel precariously to the Continent in twos and threes in converted bombers; they flew by the dozen in relative comfort, in machines that had already come to be known as "airliners." The man in the street, in fact, was beginning to discover aviation. A light-aeroplane and club flying movement that seemed to hold enormous promise was getting him underway: though flying instruc tion was not cheap.he could buy himself one of the new de Havilland Moths for £595. 70 27 MAY-2 JUNE 2003 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.fliqhtinternational.com
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