It was 30 years ago today...

[Chairborne 09.00hrs]

A black day for the Fleet Air Arm - the last launch of the Buccaneers and Phantoms from HMS Ark Royal, delivered to RAF St Athan and future service with the RAF.

Seen at a cold St Athan:

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q217/John_txic666/Buccaneer/XV863Sta271178.jpg


Buccaneers were the first to arrive:

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q217/John_txic666/Buccaneer/XV344Sta271178.jpg

Seen carrying refuelling pods:

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q217/John_txic666/Buccaneer/XV867Sta271178.jpg


Later in the day the Phantoms arrived:

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q217/John_txic666/F-4/XV589Sta271178.jpg


A significant day.

[dakkg651]

A sad day indeed.

A lot of discussion has taken place over the years stating that the Ark should have been kept in commission.

Talking to an ex RAF toom pilot that flew off the Ark during that last commission, he states that the ship was pretty far gone with serious hull problems and compartments filled with concrete etc. So to keep her going without a lengthy and very expensive refit would have been impossible.

Is this correct?

If true it still doesn't excuse the fact that her replacement should have been ready by then!

[NickB]

By all accounts it was pretty tired at the end of the 70's.

A friend of my parents' was serving on 824 NAS on the Ark and he said that a bulkhead (?) had cracked in rough seas.

Big shame though :{

[Wader2]

Chap in our club was on her last commission. It was SOP to secure all water tight doors in unmanned compartments below the water line. before going below you needed clearance from Damage Control. On more than one occasion he opened a hatch to find the water level was the same as outside.

I remember her laid up on the slips for years before they eventually go down to completing her.

[Jetex Jim]

Well the crazy thing is that if all the money that had been spent re-engining the F4s with Spey engines, supposedly to enable them to fly off a boat the size of the Ark, had instead been spent on new build ships, the navy could have had three new carriers. But instead the money that was spent went to make work in the aircraft industry, and nothing too wrong with that I suppose; it seems it's the job of government to bail out struggling institutions.

However, what is odd is the industry chosen to be subsidised, in this case aircraft , rather than the shipyards. And that choice was made by the then Labour government , which according to pprune myth and legend, is historically subservient to the wishes of the unions.

[dakkg651]

I always laugh at the part in Brian Davies' book 'Fly no More' when the F4K was experiencing even worse pitch up problems on launch than the USN Phantoms. Any slight rearward stick movement during the launch would cause a severe overrotation even with the extended nosewheel strut. A hands-off technique ala Buccaneer did not prevent the problem either because the stick would move on its own due to the violent acceleration required on the Ark's relatively short stroke catapults.

The solution was typically British. A Stick Positioning Device (SPD) was installed to keep the control column in the optimum position for launch. It consisted of a small metal ring on the end of a piece of cord which pulled out of the bottom of the instrument panel and hooked onto the front of the pole. I think this device must have had a weak link in it somewhere otherwise a pitch down on launching would have been exciting!

Any ex naval Phantom drivers out there remember this device?

[ARINC]

Didn't the Sea Harrier have this too ? Don't ask me why...

[spheroid]

A friend of my parents' was serving on 824 NAS on the Ark and he said that a bulkhead (?) had cracked in rough seas

Thats not unusual..... Cracks in the bilkhead are normal. I once knew of a ship that had a crack along the flight deck which was fixed by welding a railway track along the crack....worked a treat

[spheroid]

No phantom or bucc ever saw significant action


Quite true................. apart from.....


Vietnam
Korea
Arab Israeli conflict
Gulf war 1
Iran- Iraq war..... there must be some more.....Does anyone else have any scrapes the F4 was involved in....?

[Widger]

Yeah ...in the shar you needed to apply a bit of push on the stick when coming off the ramp........apart from Brave who pulled like a b@ast@rd!:E:E:E:E:E:E:E:E:E:D:D

[John Eacott]

Early/mid 70's, Ark was often incurring equipment problems. Ships diver were quite adept at 'concrete fix' for leaking/rusty intakes/outlets underwater, trick was to insert a bucket into the hole to block it off, then pump out the compartment and concrete around the lot, then remove bucket ;)

We ran out of feed water (or what we had was contaminated) off Gib in 1974 or 75, and we had to some from Blake to get into Gib to fix the problem.

Eagle was a far better ship, and had better accommodation and workshop refits done, but the funds ran out to modify her to operate F4K's, so she was scrapped early, and Ark soldiered on costing more in repairs than the Eagle refit would have run up in the first place :sad:

[spheroid]

OK...delete the Arab Israeli thing then....but apart from the others....the F4 did bugger all....

[Magic Mushroom]

Quite true................. apart from.....


Vietnam
Korea
Arab Israeli conflict
Gulf war 1
Iran- Iraq war..... there must be some more.....Does anyone else have any scrapes the F4 was involved in....?

No wonder the USAF shot down so many MiG-15s in Korea with the F-4 in service!:rolleyes:

Of course, it could also be pointed out that the RN operated the Bucc for less time than anyone else and was the only operator never to use the type operationally!:E

Nice pics though; I've always thought the Bucc looked good in the all over RN grey.

Regards,
MM

[althenick]

Of course, it could also be pointed out that the RN operated the Bucc for less time than anyone else and was the only operator never to use the type operationally!


.... Which proves just how good a detterant the Bucc/Carrier combination was - what happened less than 3 years after the old ark was scrapped?

[Magic Mushroom]

The decision to invade the Falklands had very little to do with the capabilities of the RN and everything to do with internal Argentinian economic and social stresses.

[Brain Potter]

The 1966 Defence White Paper that cancelled CVA-01 also authorised the major modification of Ark Royal to operate Phantoms. It came out of that refit in 1970 and was withdrawn from service in 1978, which is quite a poor return of investment by anybody's standards. Once the decision had been taken to abandon fleet carriers, it would have seemed logical to scrap the whole idea of sending the F-4 to sea, and withdraw the carriers as they became due for maintenance.

Was there any particular reason why the Wilson government invested so heavily in a capability that it had already decide to abandon? My suspicion is it that was just to ease the pain for the RN, rather than to counter an identified threat.

[Jetex Jim]

Was there any particular reason why the Wilson government invested so heavily in a capability that it had already decide to abandon? My suspicion is it that was just to ease the pain for the RN, rather than to counter an identified threat.

More likely it was there to ease the pain for the British airframe and engines industry, who lobbied hard to get a piece of the action following the cancellations of the TSR2 and other aircraft. As noted elsewhere the RAF wanted F4s with the original engines, the rational for the Spey Phantom was the need to give the Phantom the bolter performance it needed to operate from the Ark. The result, 166 copies of the worlds most expensive and slowest F4s.

[John Farley]

As far as I can recall only one aircraft of the Harrier family was fitted with an SPD - G-VTOL.

It was useful in the early ski-jump trials days as a tool to obtain a genuinely stick fixed launch. It was not enough to let go of the stick as inertia effects caused it to move both ways (aft during acceleration, forward when nozzles were selected). Asking the pilot to try and and hold the thing still had a tolerance band which muddied the traces.

When using the SPD we could break out by pulling back with a modest force (a pound or three) as the clip on the front face of the stick that held the ring on the end of the wire was suitably weak. We could adjust the length of the wire to set whatever particular tailplane angle we wanted for that launch.

[althenick]

The decision to invade the Falklands had very little to do with the capabilities of the RN and everything to do with internal Argentinian economic and social stresses.


MM

I would say it was a combination of both. My father was a CPO Mech working in NATEC on the SHAR at the time. He told me that in 1980'ish the Argentine Navy sent a delegation to look at SHAR wrt possibly ordering it. They came away saying it was a toy. Suffice to say - they didn't call it that 2 years later.

[Brain Potter]

More likely it was there to ease the pain for the British airframe and engines industry, who lobbied hard to get a piece of the action following the cancellations of the TSR2 and other aircraft.

Sure, but the Spey F-4 programme for the RAF could still have gone ahead without going to the expense of converting a very tired ship to operate the jet for only 8 years.

Why was the Ark Royal so tired anyway? After construction that began in WW2, it finally entered service in 1955 and so had only served for 23 years when retired - and that time included a couple of extensive re-fits. Compared to the USS Midway 1945-92 (47 years) or USS Kitty Hawk 1961-2008 (47 yrs) it seems like a very short life. Was it's basic construction sub-standard due to wartime practices and poor materials? The USN do seem to have a record a getting more out of their vessels than the RN.

[John Farley]

althenick

I am not aware of any Argentine team coming to UK to assess the Harrier or the SHAR.

On 9 Sept 79 I did land a GR1 on the 25 de Mayo as it went down the Channel on its delivery trip from Holland to Argentina. This was at our request to be allowed to demonstrate the Harrier. They objected that they had no ATC or any deck crew facilities which we said was fine by us - we just wanted an R/T freq and position. On the day in question there was very poor vis in the Channel and I could not find them despite going to where they said they were. They offered no steers but there was an RN chopper on board who had ferried a VIP to the ship earlier in the day. As it happened he was just getting airborne to RTB so used his blue parrot to give me steers until I found them. It transpired they were over 40 miles away from where they had said they were.

[Jetex Jim]

Sure, but the Spey F-4 programme for the RAF could still have gone ahead without going to the expense of converting a very tired ship to operate the jet for only 8 years.

Not really. The RAF didn't want Spey engined Phantoms in any case. But someone had to concoct a reason to re-engine the F4. Operating from the Ark was the one they came up with. It was stated that all the RAF F4s would be 'swing-role' and would be carrier capable, so all the UK Phantom fleet had to be re-engined! Total b@llocks as the F4Ms didn't have the nose leg extension that the carrier capable F4Ks had.

Interestingly enough, as someone stated earlier, the Eagle would have been a better bet than the Ark. But once the re-engining exercise was commited to, the practicalities of it all didn't matter.

Morale
Never underestimate the capacity of central government to misspend taxpayers money, and never underestimate the extent to which the truth will be bent, in order to justify it.

[Brain Potter]

Yes, I understand that the RAF didn't want the Spey Phantom in the first place, but the F-4K and then M were ordered in 1964, with the naval variant intended to serve on the CVA-01 class of ship. The carrier was not cancelled until 1966, and I guess that quite a bit of money and effort had already gone into the Spey Phantom programme by that time. What doesn't make sense is to then spend a whole load more money fitting an old ship to take these Phantoms to sea for only 8 years. Cancelling the FAA Phantom plan at the same time as the ship it was intended to fly from, would not necessarily have caused the end the Spey Phantom in-toto, however sensible that course of action would have been.

We may yet see parallels of this saga with JSF and CVF.

[Jetex Jim]

We may yet see parallels of this saga with JSF and CVF.
Yes. However the big difference now is this, BAE is a multinational corporation with manufacturing facilities outside the UK. Money spent by the UK in order to maintain participation in JSF-B will not neccessarily go to make jobs in the UK.

This should change the whole ball game. Time and again the UK has made procurement choices which have been influenced/driven by the need to create/maintain jobs in the UK.

Which has meant it's been about what BAE has been capable of building, rather than what HM Forces actually need. Now it's different, the company known as BAE is now no more British than Lockheed Martin. The days where buying British are an issue are gone. So how about we start to buy the stuff the forces need for a change?

[Navaleye]

It is a fact that the modifications required to make Eagle Phantom cable were almost zero. Alll she really needed were water cooled JBDs that Ark had anyway, plus a couple of bridle catchers. You have to look at where she was refitted and the politics of time to work out why. I never made it onto either, but Eagle's mid-60s refit gave us a most capable carrier. As for Ark and the Falklands, certainly the topic came up in conversation more than once. Her hull life was expired, and short of giving her a new one, her time was over and her machinery was just as shot. Look at how much part Argentina's carrier took in the conflict - slightly older, but with much less mileage.

You could also argue that the Argentinians might not have appreciated that and Adm Anaya may have watched "Sailor" while he was Naval Attache in London.

Why was the Ark Royal so tired anyway?

Her nickname in the fleet was "Park Royal" although a twin to Eagle she always suffered from unreliable machinery. Plus carriers are always heavily used. As as a result, the more reliable and efficient Eagle got the lion's share of the upkeep and refit budget at the expense of Ark.

I did get visit Bulwark in 1980(?) which of the same generation and she was shot as well.

[Navaleye]

I am not aware of any Argentine team coming to UK to assess the Harrier or the SHAR.


It was a just well timed punt and PR exercise by BAE at the time. The A4 deal was already done then. The US had already agreed to supply them with ex USMC A4s for next to nothing. Of course if they had said yes in 79/80 they would not be in service by Apr 82 - unless we had given them some of ours.

[Obi Wan Russell]

25 de Mayo was delivered to Argentina in 1969, not 1979. Unless you are referring to a return visit to Holland perhaps? But she had been operating A-4 Skyhawks all through the 70s long before the SHAR had flown. Eagle had more than enough hull life to remain in service well into the eighties. It has to be remembered that after Healy's cancellation of the three ship CVA program in 1966, the government and the navy both had differring plans for the carrier force. The government stated that all the remaining carriers would be phased out by 1972, whilst the Navy kept quiet, did it's sums and worked out the Labour party coud well be given the grand order of the boot by 1970. So they planned to maintain the carrier force past the date of the election in the hope that the tories would keep their promise and reverse the carrier axe. The pre 66 plan had been to refit both Ark and Eagle for phantoms to operate alongside CVA 01 form the early 70s until they could be replaced by CVA 02 (Ark) and CVA 03 (Eagle). After 66 the navy quietly kept to this plan despite having lost CVA 01 (temporarily they hoped) and planned to keep both Eagle and Ark in service through the 70s. Victorious and Hermes were to be kept running as long as possible to keep up numbers of trained aircrew and deck crew. Sometime around 1968 the Labour party must have figured this out and cancelled Eagle's phantomisation (as has been said previously, this would have been a minimal upgrade; her catapults were identical to Ark's and only lacked water cooled JBDs and bridle catchers. Her arrestor gear would have also been upgraded from DAX 1 to DAX 2 standard as well), saving a paltry £5million, compared to Ark's refit cost of £32million. The Phantoms intended for Eagle's air group were quickly diverted to the RAF to form 43 sqn, and the first the Navy knew of this was when the aircraft were delivered in RAF camouflage. Some of these were loaned back to 767 NAS which was the training and support sqn for all F-4Ks FAA and RAF. This is why there are photos in ciirculation of RAF Phantoms with a Navy sqn badge on the tail and Navy style modex numbers on the side of the fuselage. hen the tories won in 1970, they lost no time in breaking their promise to retain the carriers, though they made out it was their descision to retain Ark Royal through the 70s despite the Navy having made this the plan all along.

[Trojan1981]

worth a watch

Dailymotion - Ark Royal traps, a video from heydrich. phantom, buccaneer (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5lpja_ark-royal-traps_tech)