2 FTS Syerston Jet Provost colourschemes

[BEagle]

There is doubt about both the alleged overspeed and overstress - the 'Syerston' Vulcan had very probably already been substantially damaged by the aerobatics it had suffered at the hands of RAF pilots who had flown it at Hucknall.

When Avro's pilots flew aeros in the Vulcan, it was always given a thorough inspection afterwards. But this wasn't done at Hucknall in the same way - and the aircraft was enormously overpowered compared to the versions displayed at Farnborough.

One RAF pilot had previously looped the 'Syerston' Vulcan - no doubt seriously overstressing it as a result. Hardly surprising that the aircraft later disintegrated as it conducted the flypast at Syerston.

[Dan Winterland]

IIRC, the Syerston Vulcan was one of the Mk 1 prototypes which had been aerobatted frequently. The SBAC shows in the early 50's had both the Victor and the Vulcan doing improbable things for a 4 engined aircraft in front of the ministers in charge of the cheque books. You have to remeber it in context that it was considered only one aircraft would get the order.

Both the Victor and Vulcan prototypes crashed - metal fatigue?

[Tim McLelland]

I would think that if you're aiming for a 1960's scheme, you'd be confined to High Speed Silver with dayglow orange nose, tail and wings trim. I've seen quite a few shots of Syerston aircraft later in the 1960's and they all seem to have swapped to the later Light Aircraft Grey scheme with dayglow orange "Fabglow" patches applied.

The silver/yellow scheme was very short lived and only applied to a few very early JP's. Daygow is the way to go but the problem is that either paint or "fabglow" fades quite quickly, so you'll have a busy time keeping it looking tidy! I just hope the serial fonts are correct - not the ghastly transfers that are used on so many warbirds and museum aircraft these days!

Have you thought about doing the "Vipers" aerobatic team markings applied to some Syertson aircraft? very colourful!

[Tim McLelland]

Re- the famous Vulcan incident at Syerston, the cause was simple - the pilot exceeded the permitted speed and overstressed the aircraft when he started to manoeuvre, causing the wing to break up. Looping and rolling was pretty common with the Woodford test pilots by all accounts. They knew how to do it properly (keeping a bit of g on all the way around the manoeuvre) but I was told by former Avro people that Jimmy Harrison was asked to stop rolling/looping the aircraft as service pilots were trying to do the same manoeuvre - badly! I belive his last roll was during a visit to Finningley and by the time he got back to Woodford, he'd been asked not to do it again. Spoilsports!

[Prangster]

Syerston Vulcan Disaster

I was there boys I was there. Big impression on a little fellah.

[Amos Keeto]

XM478/G-BDXL currently wears a silver scheme with yellow training bands, but no JPs wore this scheme in service. About a dozen JPT3s were painted in that scheme before delivery, but the RAF changed their mind and adopted the solid-dayglo paint scheme as per the attached photo of a formation of 2 FTS JPs just after delivery in 1960. Unfortunately, the old Airfix Jet Provost kit never caught up with reality and never got changed, making model-makers think that JPs entered service with yellow trainer bands, which is wrong. The solid-dayglo paint scheme lasted until 1965 when it was replaced with the dayglo Fablon paper stripes, as it was easier to replace the strips of dayglo paper than keep repainting the dayglo when it faded.

[Tim McLelland]

I never established whether the "fabglow" strips were any more practical than paint. Photographic evidence suggests that they faded just as quickly, but I would imagine removing plastic strips was more hassle than removing paint! Either way, it was a shame that the colourful dayglow period ended and the mundane red/white/grey scheme took over. I guess the only consolation is that if the JP's were still in service, they'd be black now - eugh!

If the owner of the JP is going for a Syerston scheme, I'd definitely suggest the Vipers aerobatic team colours - definitely the most attractive option.

[Dan Winterland]

I think the black scheme looks cool!

I was at Scampton in the early 90s when one of our Tucanos was painted dark blue for the display season. It was often the only aircraft you saw when airborne! This prompted the new colour scheme as it stood out so well.

BEagle had the Brize flying club aircraft painted dark blue with gold stripes at about the same time. One of the best colour schemes I've seen on a light aircraft.

[Dick Whittingham]

At the end of my time in FT the scientific mob came up with two startling bits of research. One was that patches of this and patches of that worked as dazzle camouflage and that a solid colour gave a quick "shape" recognition of an aircraft. Black followed shortly thereafter.

The other was that years of assessment had shown that the only two factors that gave a predictable increase in the possibility of surviving RAF flying training were youth and previous flying experience.

Discuss

Dick

Ref the pic. I have all three in my log book. 3 (XM368) was, understandably, an early delivery, arriving at Syerston in late '59. 18 and 21 came in early '60

[Prangster]

RR Vulcan Crash

Thanks for the Vampire Info I'd kinda forgotton Swinders was a FTS. The Vulcan Crew have a memorial plaque in the Rolls Royce Hucknall Museum. I worked there before the company went under in 1971.

[CharlieJuliet]

Interesting, but a quick look at pictures that I have of 6 FTS Acklington in 63/64 seem to show that we had dayglo strips, and not painted on colours.

[Tim McLelland]

I guess black is as good a colour as any other for high visibility but it's just the latest fashion in a long line of colour schemes that come and go. Obviously, there is no ideal colour scheme, so it'd just a case of whatever the right people think is "cool" at the time. Hopefully, the fashion will die before too long and we can look at something a little more attractive. I mean, black Dominies? Eugh!

Anyway, Jet Provosts should be grey with dayglow stripes - that's what a "proper" JP should look like!

[Praesta]

Reference Prangster's Post 17:

A couple of JPs collided in the climb-out lane of Syerston's RW25 26 May 1966

Jet Provost T4 Serial No. XP631, No. 2 Flying Training School, The aircraft was a write-off but the pilot was uninjured.

Jet Provost T3 Serial No. XM384, 2 FTS. The aircraft was a write-off but both pilots were uninjured.

Jet Provost T4 Serial No. XP617, recovered to SJ with CAT2 damage.

Excellent account can be found here http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/woodborou...laneCrash.html

Regarding the gliding in latter years...
Pre Oct 1992 it would have been 644, post could have been either!

[Saiman202]

Dear Sir,

I'm Renzo catellani and I'm the present owner of JP XM478/G-BXDL.

Iwant to thank you all for your precious and very appreciate support.

With these informations, Ill be able to replace the actual silver/yellow livery with an original one silver/dayglo.

Thank to your interest, Ive received several emails with different informations and I've stated that XM478 flew with 1FTS (28/09/1960 to 22/10/1974, coded "17") then, after having had the upgrade to "A" standard at BAC Warton (23/10/1974 to 27/01/1975), still with 1FTS.
From 22/12/1980 it was assigned to 7FTS (coded "104") up to 30/09/1984). From 01/10/1984 it was sent to 1FTS again (but coded "33") up to her retirement on 02/09/1994.

However, in this very interesting and precious topic I haven't understood if 1FTS adopted, in the early sixties, RED or ORANGE dayglow scheme.

Can you help me?

Very soon I'll be able to present a picture with the first view af the new colour scheme.

Thank you for your patience (and soory for my poor english!!!).

Best regards,

Renzo Catellani
ITALY

[Dan Winterland]

Syerston is indeed a dangerous airfield. That's where I met Mrs Winterland!

[huntaluvva]

Renzo,

It's great to hear that you will be going with the Dayglo colour scheme on your Jet Provost. As to whether it's red or orange, the picture that Amos Keeto has posted is an excellent guide; more orange than red, I would say.

You have also been advised correctly that XM478 served with 1 FTS at Linton on Ouse, and was never at Syerston.

Now you need a 1 FTS badge, not difficult I would imagine as they are still around, and still at Linton on Ouse...

Good luck with your project

[BEagle]

Ah yes, the 'Strikemouse'.....

The aviation press luvvies made the long trek to RAF Brawdy in the Summer of '76 to take piccies of the 25th Anniversary of the Hunter. So 4 of us in F Mk 6As were authorised to take off to escort Neville Duke in a T Mk 7 from Dusnfold back to Brawdy.

All went as planned (although I was a bit shabby on the break!). But then all the unwashed journo rat pack did was to take piccies of the 'Strikemouse' and Winston, the Meteor F Mk 8, parked on the VASF pan by the tower......

We never did get into the news - something about the Spams landing a probe on Mars took priority!

Have to admit, though, that the 'Strikemouse' looked much better in green-and-grey than it had in horrid Learning Command ice cream van colours !

[Amos Keeto]

Yes indeed, there are two basic colours of 'dayglo orange' The USAF mainly used a colour called 'Blaze', whilst the RAF used 'Fire Orange', which was more red but still an 'orange' colour'. I had a roll of this RAF dayglo colour and may still have some pieces. Actually, I'm sure the RAF still use it for various things other than on aircraft.

[ZH875]

Used on Shadow boards in Tool Stores.

[relight9]

I'm with Tim on this one, our JP4 (XS186) is returning to her original grey with dayglo this year (College of Air Warfare badges too, now that's a unique scheme!).
We have tried some original fablon dayglo, horrible to apply nicely though , so although more original, we are painting our dayglo on, having found a perfect match from a German company with a non fade 10 year guarantee, that's German goods for you .....