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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0776.PDF
786 Le Bourget Marathon . FLIGHT, 8 June The old generation s< -jts the new: a Vautour ac:: 0$ tanker for the Mi 3ge IV Mach 22 bomber One of the more telling formation fly-pasts was this, by Douglas A3D Skywarriors. With four A4D Skyhawks and four F8U Crusaders, they flew over from USS "Forrestal" and landed. The Hustler had last been seen rolling into adarkish cloud at, perhaps, 4,000ft. For some time afterwards a hole was visible in the cloud. Gradually news filtered throughto the press enclosure that the aircraft had crashed. Whether its pilot had been unable to recover from the inverted positionin cloud, or whether there had been a failure of controls, structure or instruments, could only be surmised. The incidenttook the keen edge off the afternoon's excitement and enjoy- ment. France's contribution to the M2 cavalcade—or supersoniccircus, as we heard it called—was the Nord 1500 Griffon 2, which is virtually a great turbo-ramjet engine with a pilotsitting on top of it—a real hot seat. The Griffon took an un- conscionable run to get airborne, then darted and rolled aroundthe sky with yellow daggers of flame stabbing from its huge jet orifice. It landed very close on the heels of the Etendard IV,which had streamed a braking parachute. Britain showed up well with English Electric Lightningdemonstrations, by a T.4 trainer in addition to the 74 Sqn team. "74" did wingovers with nine aircraft (the largest num-ber of Lightnings ever seen publicly together) and rolls with four. Between times Fit Lt Ken Goodwin, having detachedhimself at the end of the nine-man demonstration, put in solo aerobatics which included Derry turns and low inversions.This spectacle of massive, swept-wing manoeuvrability was a big one-up for Britain. In other respects the RAF did not perform with any parti-cular distinction. The Central Flying School Jet Provosts did the neat synchronized aerobatics (trailing smoke generated fromdiesel oil) that they developed last year; but the four V-bombers from the UK—three Victors and a Vulcan—came over the air-field too high for effect. In particular it seemed hardly worth the Victors' while having made the Channel crossing for such amodest contribution. The Vulcan, however, made some restitu- tion with a real Farnborough-type touch-and-go. The palms of the day, as far as British Service representationwas concerned, were shared between 74 Sqn and the Royal Navy, the latter with their 800 Sqn Scimitar aerobatic team anda fly-past by Hermes-based Gannet AEW.3s, Scimitars and Sea Vixens, which had flown 500 miles to Le Bourget from thecarrier. The 800 Sqn aircraft took off as a box of four with a single machine half a runway's length behind, the soloist climb-
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