Seeing mention of the noise trials raises a question from me. I joined Hatfield in September 1973 and worked in the Instrument Lab as an introduction to the industry before moving to the Project Office in December 1973.
During that period, we took part in an excercise on airframe self noise generation that required flying an aircraft over a microphone array in a variety of configurations (u/c up and down, u/c doors open and closed and with different combinations of slat and flap position) with a minimum level of engine noise - as close to low level gliding as safety would allow. This excercise employed not only the HSA team from Hatfield but also a team from BAC at Weybridge and some folks from RAE. The ex-BUA VC10 was used during my time at the site and some of the flying was 'quite dramatic' with a low power pass over the microphones followed by a very late and noisy application of power with the runway ever so close! And boy was it cold!
Whilst we were there - Nov / Dec time in 1973 - a Hastings and a Comet - both allocated to RAE for some research works - did a photo flight with the airfield as the backdrop and a Dove/Devon as the photo aircraft. The Comet and Hastings changing position to be closer to the Devon and the airfield. We were told that both the Comet and Hastings were about to go and so the photos were taken as a momento. My very unreliable memory tells me that bo the the Comet and Hastings were in more or less standard RAF Transport Command colours rather than RAE colours - unlike the VC10 and the 1-11.
Has anyone got any of these photos? I would love a copy to remind me of some very happy days when I learned a lot.