Sticks on Vampire wings

[The man formerly known as]

I was watching the Vampire last night on 'Favourite Planes ' or whatever on Wings.

The Vampire had four bits of wood (two each side) about a foot long painted yellow sticking vertically out of the wing tips. I've never noticed these before.

At first I thought they were rigging aids but they still seemed to be there when it flew.

Anyone know what they are for??

PS. If anyone is ever short of a passenger in one of these I am avaialable.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Possibly connected to the undercarriage to show the pilot that the gear was down. Same device is used on the Harvard and YAK52.

G

[The man formerly known as]

Gengis,

I thought that too but these were a foot long(not like the 3 inch barber poles on the Yak). The also sprouted from the tips rather than the roots and I didn't notice one on the nose.

[mitten]

All,

Flew one a week ago and it had same things.. are you sure that they were wood? Ours are metal and I think that they are an aerial of some sort.

------------------
If you fly too close to the ground at too slow speed, the earth will rise up and smite thee.

[RAGBAG]

They were for the "Rebecca" DME equipment. As well as DME the system had a limited homing facility, thus the reason for the two sets of aerials. The Varsity also had Rebecca but the aerial array was different and can be seen either side of the nose. Jet Provost was fitted with a later system with smaller aerials.
The ground element of the system was called "Eureka". Rebecca/Eureka was replaced by TACAN, as far as I know the last Eureka beacon was withdrawn sometime in the late 1970s.
Showing my age now!
Ragbag

[This message has been edited by RAGBAG (edited 26 April 2001).]

[Genghis the Engineer]

Well I've learned something new today, thanks Ragbag.

Shame it was withdrawn really, the "99 Rebecca rule", sounds faintly better than the "99 Tacan rule".

G

[The man formerly known as]

Ragbag,

Thanks for that, Rebecca has a nice ring to it.

Mitten,

Where did you fly the Vampire. I'd love a go/share in one.

[RAGBAG]

TMFKA,

I didn't fly the Vampire, it was a bit before my time (but not much!) JP3/4 were my first, QFI on the 5A later. Gnat was the most fun though.

Ghengis

One of the limitations of the system was its capacity and the figure of 99 users rings a bell! Just how old are you?

RAGBAG

[This message has been edited by RAGBAG (edited 27 April 2001).]

[Genghis the Engineer]

I have a military registered Harvard in my logbook, on the same page as a Hunter and a Dakota, but actually not that old, we got to fly them on my ETPS course.

The "99 TACAN" rule is I believe practiced in the RAAF and other allied forces, where it is accepted practice that marriages are temporarily anulled whilst the TACAN reads more than 99.

G

[RAGBAG]

Ghengis,

Ah I understand now!

The Tacan 99 = 10 West rule!

Ragbag

[Pom Pax]

Whilst pleased to see that Rebecca was fondly remembered I was sorry that nobody has mentioned Babs.
As has been said Eurecka was the ground element of the homeing and range part of the system but this augmented by B.A.B.S. an approach aid. Whilst Eurecka was housed somewhere in a hut, Babs roamed free in a panel van to be parked to one side at the threshold of the duty runway.
The two system presented different displays on the crt of the rebecca set. Maximum range displayed for Eurecka was 120 miles however the norm was 60 -70 miles, Only Epsom could be relied on to give the maximum with Bournemouth a poor 2nd at 80 odd when flying in the mid teens, doubling your altitude in a Vampire didn't seem to increase the range very much.
Babs could put you on the centre line at 1 mile at which point in the Vampire it was advisable to remove the hood from the crt and try in the time left to wind the set back up out of the way because if your driver was a bit bouncy you got a big bruise on your knees!

[Pom Pax]

An interesting footnote, a straight cut and paste job from yesterday's "Daily Telegraph" about a very gifted man.

CHARLES BOVILL, who has died aged 90, played a key role in the creation and employment of Eureka and the S-phone, radio equipment that greatly enhanced two-way communications between SOE agents and Resistance parties on the ground after the fall of France and the Low Countries in 1940.
Eureka, a relatively small device by the standards of the day, enabled agents to direct aircraft towards weapon and supply dropping zones. The S-phone's principal asset was its ability to reduce agents' dread of detection. Capable of being carried in a suitcase, the phone enabled SOE-designated aircrew and agents in the field to talk to each other with little risk of interception, up to a range of 30 miles. It was also used effectively between motor gunboats landing agents on French beaches and reception parties.
In adverse weather conditions of mist and low cloud, a combination of Eureka and the S-phone could help to improve the RAF's accuracy when dropping weapons, supplies and people. In later life, Bovill invented and manufactured security equipment of such sophistication that in 1973 the IRA, fearing the use of one of his inventions against them, attempted to blow up his company's Westminster office and showroom.
Charles Barton Bovill was born on February 18 1911 at Battersea, south London. His father, C B Bovill, a successful playwright, employed a youthful P G Wodehouse as an assistant and had a number of plays running in the West End during the First World War; he was killed fighting on the Western Front.
Young Charles was then brought up in the South of France by his aunt, a redoubtable character who was well known to Wodehouse; several of his aunt's traits found their way into Wodehouse's fearsome Aunt Agatha who "eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin".
Bovill was educated at Bedford School, at the University of Grenoble in France and at Regent Street Polytechnic in central London. In 1933 he joined HMV as a radio development engineer, moving in 1935 to the wireless telegraphy section at the Air Ministry, and three years after that to Marconi. As war approached, Marconi lent him to RAF Bomber and Coastal Commands as a wireless development engineer; he liaised between them and the company.
Bovill's work soon brought him to the attention of SOE and in October 1941 he was invited to command the radio experimental and flight section of the Inter-Service Research Bureau (ISRB), a cover name for SOE's technical research and development activities. Bovill's value as a specialist aircraft radio engineer was especially appreciated by RAF squadrons linked to SOE and in April 1942 he was commissioned as a flight lieutenant into the technical, signals and radar branch of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
After regularly accompanying special duties' aircrew to install, test and also to operate S-phone and other equipment over France, Bovill was posted in June 1944 to SOE's Force 399 in Italy. His prime task was to equip aircraft of the Balkans Air Force with the S-phone and Eureka, thus enhancing communication with Tito's partisans, to whom the RAF and SOB were dropping a variety of equipment and liaison officers.
In January 1945 Bovill returned home to the ISRB where he developed technical equipment for use in the de Havilland Mosquito before returning to civilian life in May. Bovill then enjoyed a fulfilling career with Decca, where he was much involved with the creation, development and sales of the company's internationally successful Decca Navigator marine equipment.
In 1972, he joined Allen International as technical director. Soon the showcases at the company's Westminster premises were displaying microphones disguised as wrist watches and cufflinks, and microphones and radio transmitters attached surreptitiously to ties, fountain pens and table lighters.
The business provided Q-type gadgets for James Bond films while also building a reputation in the Middle East and elsewhere for security, espionage and counter-espionage equipment. One of Bovill's most effective designs was a crowd-control device which used a photic drive. This experimental equipment employed a combination of ultra-sonic waves and strobe lights to induce acute discomfort, sickness, disorientation and sometimes epilepsy.
After trying out the device on his wife in his laboratory at West Byfleet, Bovill marketed it in America where prison authorities were impressed by its ability to control disruptive inmates and riots.
On October 1 1973, staff at Allen International, Bovill's firm in Westminster, who were monitoring one of the firm's spy camera products, observed a suspicious figure lurking at the entrance. When they confronted the man he threw a bomb and bolted. Fortunately, since the device was later found to contain five pounds of gelignite, it did not explode.
Police suspected the IRA, who were believed to be anxious about the possibility that the firm's equipment - above all, Bovill's photic device - might be used against them, and issued a photofit picture of the culprit. Bovill continued to experiment and invent in his home laboratory until shortly before his death. He was a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
He married, in 1963, Mrs Pamela Keegan (nee Bryan).