meteor test set for October

[Navaleye]

Good news from Janes (http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdw/jdw050217_1_n.shtml)

[Beeayeate]

Wonder how many old lags opened this post eagerly like I did and found it wasn't about a Gloster Meteor. :rolleyes:


:ok:

[henry crun]

Puts hand up. :ok:

[Onan the Clumsy]

Did I read the banner ad correctly? I know Jane's has some very specialised publications, but Jane's Guide to Terrorists :confused:

[Navaleye]

I have altered the thread title to prevent further disappointment :confused: :confused:

[Gainesy]

Oooooh no you haven't...:)
(Hands up also).:(

[BEagle]

Reminds me of the time they were testing Sea something-or-other (Sea Wolf?). It was tasked with intercepting a naval artillery round (sadly not one of those huge shells we had when we still had big ships)....

The gun went bang, then the Sea Thingy acquired, launched and zapped within half-a-heartbeat. Wherupon the driver of the artillery-carrying ship signalled to the captain of 'tother grey ship:
"It seems we've shot down your rocket!"

A pity this thread isn't about the dear old Meatbox - even I wangled 3 trips in the back of Clementine when I was at Brawdy!

[Navaleye]

BEagle, feel free to hi-jack this thread if you wish :D

[henry crun]

Here you are Beeayeate.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v712/crun9/meteortype.jpg[/IMG]

[Beeayeate]

Self portrait HenryC?

But the bloke looks sharp, ready to take on the world and typical of the Air Force of my day.

Of course he had a top squadron commander . . .

http://www.canberra.plus.com/pics/SleepTight.jpg

:E

[Gainesy]

Right you are Navaleye! Anybody recognise the airfield?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v167/Gainesy/bc5be9dd.jpg

[Navaleye]

Well, since I have been voluntarily hijacked, I'll take a punt at it; the countryside looks a bit kent like, so maybe Biggin, early 50's.

Expecting to be hopelessly wrong...

[Flap40]

Looking at the current OS map, it looks very like Little Rissington.

[Gainesy]

Honestly no idea where it is, nothing on the back of the print to ID it.

[Green Meat]

Arrived, as everyone did, expecting lashings of discussion about the meatbox :{

I'm going to stick my neck out for Tern Hill - judging by the fact that the T.7s are wearing codes (can't read 'em though) and it looks like a wooded hill right of the hangars...

[BEagle]

Little Rissington.

Check:

1. Shape of the water front hangars.
2. The obvious wooded area to the north of the easternmost hangar.
3. The N-S road running to the west of the aerodrome and the road leading off at 45 deg (in front of the lead Meteor) to the village of Little Rissington.

I think....

[Gainesy]

I just tried to zoom in on the signal's square but it pixelated.
However the layout of the hangars correlates with the aerial pics of LR on multimap. Here's another from, I suppose, the same sortie, again no details but nice pic.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v167/Gainesy/40bcacd5.jpg

[Pontius Navigator]

I thought it was about a T7 or joy of joys an NF14. Can you imagine using clapped out F4s or F3s for that matter as nav trainers? Bloody brilliant.

14 hours in a meatbox.

MURROWSKI - OK, the exercise is over. It's hot. We climb, we cool off.

"Fuel, oxygen, balls in the air."

"Relax the exercise is over."

We are now down at nav school minimums in a rapid climb to 20K.

"We can't do loops with tanks o o o o nnnnn "

Errrr!

FOB

"Relax the exercise is over. Every done a barrel roll? We can't do barrel rolllllllllllllllllllllllllll s with tanks on."

And so it went on for bloody ages. Don't know we did for fuel.

Following week:

G-Homing exercise. Get it right, keep inside the curve and you got back in time.

KENT - OK the exercise is over. We can't do aerobatics with tanks on.


""............"" "".....................""

Then OK Nav, where's base. BASTARD.

"Down there off the port wing tip"

"Well done"

East Anglia in the 60s couldn't miss. Ground was full of bloody airfields.

[BEagle]

And soon, perhaps, after the beancounters have killed Coltishall, there'll only be Marham left as the sole remaining military aerodrome in East Anglia....

Out of the 120 or so at the end of WW2 with hard runways.

[mystic_meg]

.........little black squares inboard of each engine on the jet on the port side of the formation.......

.......wot dem den?? :confused:

[Pontius Navigator]

Anti-slip, step here?

Approved abandonment drill was climb out of the cockpit, move back on to the wing, inflate dinghy and ;aunch same then climb in dry.

Sorry, that was if you were waering your No 1.

If you just had on a flying suit and long johns it was jump over the side and pull the cord.

[henry crun]

Pontius Navigator: That procedure was taken by the nav after a 29 Sqd NF11 ditched, but not by the pilot.

After the spray subsided the a/c was floating in a level attitude so the pilot, in a somewhat unseemly rush to get out, undid every strap and connection and leapt over the side.

While swimming away he realised he had left the dinghy in the a/c so swim back, pull down the step, climb in, retrieve dinghy, toss over side, follow it, inflate same and climb in.

While paddling away he looked back and sees the nav standing on the outboard wing slowly blowing his dinghy up, so he shouted,
"Get away from there quickly you bloody fool, it will sink and suck you down with it".

Nav replies "I've got my best blue trousers on and I'm not getting them wet".





:p

[tiredolddog]

Live in the NOW!

Good news I think.

[Groundgripper]

Those pictures rang a bell so I donned my anorak and raided my bookshelf. Came up with a book called "Pageant of the Air" by Kenneth Munson, published by Ian Allan in 1996. This consists of over 200 aviation photographs and includes another from the same series of pictures with the leading aircraft inverted and undercarriage down, er, up, er, extended. The script identifies them as T7s flown by CFS flying instructors.

That'll be Little Rissington then.

Photo credited to Hawker Siddeley Aviation.

[Green Meat]

Just to confirm that I'm wrong as usual, showed it to a pal who was at Rissington many moons ago and he confirms that indeed it is LR underneath the Meteors. Apparently the wood is called Bluebell Wood or somesuch?

In the second photo I can't decide whether the lead a/c is an instructor showing off, or perhaps a dim one who can't work out which way is up ;)

Edited after reading Groundgripper's post, D'oh!

[Pontius Navigator]

Henry Crun, I know. It was a joke. I didn't realise is was XXX Sqn tho. I heard the crew got away with it blaming it successfully on a fault with the Gee that was 60 miles out that day.

Where did they ditch?

[henry crun]

Pontius Navigator: They went in about 5 miles south of Ford.

They didn't get away with it at the time. Nav claimed the Gee was well out but no one believed him then.
Monster bollocking, split up as a crew, and the nav sent on a refresher course.

A few months later someone in dispersal at Tangmere checking the Gee found it was out by a big distance, and this time it was verified.

[Pontius Navigator]

Thanks Henry, I had an idea it was in the channel. It was the cause celebre when we were at Hullavington and then Stradishall.

Mind you SAR is not what it is now. One V-nav went down in a Meatbox and was picked up by a North Sea ferry en route to Rotterdam. They dropped him off and he was put in the Seaman's Mission. Eventually he was given passage back to UK. Later, walking in through the main gate at, I think Horsham, the staish sees Arthur Breeze, opens his window and shouts "Breeze where the hell have you been."

The first they knew that PO Breeze was safe was when he walked in in a salt stained blue flying suit with his life jacket over his shoulder. Those were the days.

[Zoom]

Probably Binbrook, judging by the amount of cloud.

(It isn't, actually.)