NDN Firecracker

[ATR42300]

Can anyone advise if any of the NDN Firecracker aircraft designed by the late Desmond Norman still around and indeed are any flying. There were about four at Carlisle for a military aircraft training company many years ago Specialist Flight Training they were called. What happened to the aircraft?

[treadigraph]

According to the ever useful G-INFO, G-NDNI, the prototpye, is registered to a Norman Marsh in New Zealand but it hasn't been active for a long while...

Of the three Turbines operated orignially by Specilaist Flight Training, two are in the USA (!) and the third is "Permanently Withdrawn from Use" which sounds fairly terminal.

[Two_Squirrels]

The National Test Pilots' School that operates out of Mojave airport has one.
See it here:

http://www.ntps.edu/HTML/Aircraft/

[Dr Jekyll]

How well did the Firecracker compare with the Tucano and the PC9?

[Chris Royle]

May be the remains one at Sandown airfield (IOW)

[treadigraph]

How well did the Firecracker compare with the Tucano and the PC9?

Ummmmmmm Wellllll...

[Dan Winterland]

The firecracker in the States seems to have been re-engined with a lycoming, The original had a PT6 turboprop of about 550hp.

It was designed for the competition to replace the Jet Provost and was the only pure British entry, the others being the Tucano and PC9. There was also an Australian entry called the A9 which was never built.

The Firecracker was a good effort but fell short of the specification in many ways. It wasn't powerful enough and the PT6 was a free turbine with two levers, a condition lever and a prop lever. The spec called for single lever engine control. (The PC9 had a PT6 but got away with single lever control by use of FADEC).

The Firecracker was weeded out early with the A9, the final battle was between the Tucano (An Embrearer design much modified and to be built by Shorts in Northern Ireland) and the PC9 (from Pilatus but to be built by British Aerospace). The Tucano won, probably to give jobs to Northern Ireland and also because it was cheaper.

[Daysleeper]

G-NDNI was at Coventry in the back of the hanger for a long time, may still be there. Certainly never flew for the 7 years I saw it there though plenty of people had a sit in it. Reclined pilots seat AFAIR very comfy. It had a similar skin finish to the Islander, giant rivet heads everywhere.

It had/has a lycoming piston fitted.

[BEagle]

The NDN-1 first flew in 1977 and was powered by a IO-540 piston engine. This is the aircraft in the USA to which Dan refers; it is c/n 001 and is registered as N182FR, having originally been G-NDNI.

The later NDN-1T, which competed with the PC9, Tucano and still-born AAC/Westland A20 as a finalist for the AST412 Jet Provost replacement programme, was an extensively modified version of the NDN-1. It was powered by a PT6A turbine engine. Although used by SFTS in the UK for military training of overseas students (Iraqi!), it failed to impress the Boscombe Down assessors and didn't meet some of the AST412 requirements.

There are 3 NDN-1T aircraft in the US; these are c/n 005, 006 and 007 registered as N2157C, N50FK and N70878 respectively. These are the 3 ex-SFTS aircraft which were formerly G-SFTR, G-SFTS and G-SFTR.

I saw the original NDN-1 at RAF Leeming when it first came out - it didn't really seem to have a market. Later in 1984 I was at a wedding in the Lake District when a pair of SFTS NDN-1T Firecrackers flew down Lake Windermere in fighting wing during the reception. "Ah - the flypast is spot on time", quoth I - and for a moment they believed me!

A TP visited the sqn I was on in 1985 and we asked him which of the AST412 aircraft was the front runner. Being diplomatic, he wouldn't say - but it was obvious that it wasn't the Firecracker! He did say, however, that the most likely candidate was "almost as nice as the Harvard" which he also flew at Boscombe Down! 20+ years later the Harvard is still flying at Boscombe - it was flying circuits at the Covert Oxonian Aerodrome yesterday afternoon!

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!]

What's really cool is that I've actually flown three of the types on the NTPS list. :ok:

What's sad is that it's the three obvious ones :(

[Dan Winterland]

Thanks BEagle. I can always rely on you to fill in the details and correct my mistakes. (A20, not A9!)

I can manage 4 on the list. The obvious ones plus the Blanik glider!

I'm suprised that this hasn't sparked a 'why did we buy the Tuc instead of the PC9?' debate.

[BEagle]

Easy one that, Dan - politics!

[chevvron]

I met Desmond at Fairoaks in about 1986 when he was demonstrating the Firecracker to some antipodeans. We had an interesting discussion about its airbrake, which happened to be the same type as the one on my aircraft (a homebuilt produced by Richard Noble called a Moni), and it turned out that the trim change I experienced when operating it was identical to the one on the Firecracker. Desmond reckoned the only reason he really lost the RAF competition was because they wanted an aircraft with higher ias at low level; can't remember the exact figures but it was something like an extra 30kt requiring about 200hp more of engine.

[atb1943]

I seem to recall finding two or three at Bournemouth. If I'm right, would they have been the ones that went to the US of A?

Got a nice photo of NDNI taxiing in to parking position at Paris yonks ago. Desmond waved and seemed very happy.

atb

[LowNSlow]

I vaguely recall an Alan Bramson flight test on the Firecracker in Pilot many moons ago. He seemed to think that the handling of the Firecracker emulated jet handling far better than the Tucano which he likened to a turbo prop Harvard. Nice to fly but not the best choice in preparation for fast jets was his opinion of the Tucano.

[djpil]

Easy one that, Dan - politics!
I'd forgotten this saga. I'd totally forgotten that Westland was involved with the A-20, which we didn't consider to be a serious contender. My memory is a bit fuzzy now but I recall that the PC-9 was "the winner" at round #1, the Firecracker politics ensured a second round. Our assessment was that the Tucano salesmen had anticipated this so held back their best offer and scooped the deal.
PS - the A10 got to prototype stage but I've been trying to forget all of that. Red wine helps.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I vaguely recall an Alan Bramson flight test on the Firecracker in Pilot many moons ago. He seemed to think that the handling of the Firecracker emulated jet handling far better than the Tucano which he likened to a turbo prop Harvard. Nice to fly but not the best choice in preparation for fast jets was his opinion of the Tucano.

That was pretty similar to the opinions of most of us tasked with certifying the aeroplane for the RAF after the political decision to buy it.

G

[Aerostar6]

I have no idea when it was exactly (mid eighties?) but one of the Firecrackers had a sojourn at Glasgow. It was staging through on a ferry flight to the US and for some reason the huge side hinged canopy fell off (emergency release finger trouble?) onto the ramp, the plexiglass shattering into several expensive pieces.

As Firecracker canopies were like the proverbial rocking horse s**t and ebay hadn't been invented yet, the owner contracted George Cormack's engineering heroes at CASL (anyone who has flown GA out of Scotland in the last 30 years will know of George) to construcy an alloy 'lobster tail' like construction to replace it.

It took several months to do, but was eventually finished: looked like a extended Vulcan canopy with two little side windows for lateral vision. God knows if any of the pen-pushers got wind of it, but a chap came over from the states, test flew it, fitted a long range tank in the back seat and set off for Keflavik. I presume it made it. Wonder if anyone out there has a pic of it in it's temporary guise?