Now that's an airshow...

[Gainesy]

While thrashing around in Google trying to track down that damned Beaufighter (another thread) I stumbled across the list of participating aircraft at a Farnborough show in 1946 and no, I wasn't there... more's the pity.
Anyway here you go, courtesy of a site called scramble airshows (or something like that).
BTW What is the "Accelerator" Seafire???

G-AGKX Short Sandringham I
G-AGNI Avro XIX
G-AGNL Avro York (BOAC)
G-AGOM Vickers Viking I
G-AGOS Reid & Sigrist Desford
G-AGPJ DH Dove 1
G-AGPV Bristol Freighter 1
G-AGRC Avro Tudor I
G-AGSU Avro Tudor 2
G-AGTC Percival Proctor V
G-AGUS Miles Gemini IA
G-AGWO Miles Aerovan II
G-AHEX Avro York (BSAA)
G-AHHD Auster Autocrat
G-AHJZ Airspeed Consul
U-10 HP Marathon
R2496 Martin-Baker MB.5
EE454 Gloster Meteor IV 'Britannia'
EE522 Gloster Meteor F.IV
EK746 Blackburn Firebrand TF.IV
LA610 Hawker Fury F.I
LL780 Avro Lancaster III
MW313 Avro York C.I
MZ271 Short Seaford GR.I
NR598 Miles Martinet TT.I
NT720 DH Mosquito FB.VI
NT913 Bristol Beaufighter TF.X
NX147 Hawker Tempest F.VI
PW979 Miles Queen Martinet I
PX336 DH Hornet F.III
RA356 Fairey Spearfish TD.I
RB522 Supermarine Spiteful F.XIV
RD922 Supermarine Sea Otter ASR.II
RE415 Avro Lincoln B.II
RH742 Bristol Brigand TF.I
RK787 Short Sturgeon I
RL263 DH Mosquito NF.36
RR944 GAL Hamilcar I
RX173 Supermarine Seafire III (Catapult)
RT892 HP Halifax A.IX
RZ246 Airspeed Horsa II
SW367 Avro Lancaster ASR.III
SW813 Supermarine Seafire XV (R.A.T.O.G.)
SX314 Supermarine Seafire XVII (Accelerator)
TE580 HP Hastings C.I
TG285 DH Vampire F.I
TV163 Percival Prentice T.I
TW562 Auster AOP.VI
TW687 Fairey Firefly F.IV
VB895 Supermarine Seafang FR.32
VN318 Supermarine Spitfire F.24

[No comment]

Quality line up! That was around the time my Grandmother used to do St John's Ambulance at Farnborough. She has some rather interesting pictures from those shows in the later 40s and early 50s. (without reference to the 1952 incident there that is...)

[John Farley]

Gainsey

Interesting list. Not sure about its accuracy though.

A photo of the aircraft park shows quite clearly several variations. Like the BOAC York was G-AGOA and their Lancastrian (which does get a mention was G-AHBY) Plenty of other details that one could go into, but I will leave listing those for when I have lost the use of my legs

[Gainesy]

Hi John,
No claims as to the accuracy, just cut & pasted it for interest. Still wandering what the
"Accelerator" is/was on the Seafire.
One thought is that it was what we now call the steam catapult (inlaid into the deck) as opposed to what they then called the catapult, ie big derrick thing fired by (?)cordite(?)and used to launch Walri from battleships etc?

Edited to edit

[ 08 January 2002: Message edited by: Gainesy ]</p>

[John Farley]

Gainesy

Hi. You may well be right with your comments re accelerator. I just don't know. They had raised and flush catapults at RAE which I saw operated in the early 50s. Actually, I write corrected, I have just found an old pic of an Aerocobra (AH574) which the caption says was "ranged on the KI Accelerator" (which is what I was calling the flush catapult above) so there you go, full marks. My understanding is that the first steam cat installation was at NAE Bedford around 55 time. NAD there had both raised and flush ones. I only used one with a Vixen a couple of times in 65 and I think it was the flush one but to be honest I'm not sure and the log book just says 2 cat shots. The water based arrester gear (very smooth) came after the steam cat. Don't ask me how many arrests we did on that programme, mainly using a Scimitar, but it was hundreds.

Cheers

[Gainesy]

Thanks John,
BTW, did you ever try that Harrier davit/capture device which I think was Heinz F's brainchild? I remember Coombesy put out a bunch of pics of it and a few press releases-- then it all went very quiet.
Cheers
Mike

[John Farley]

That would be Heinz’s Skyhook. Very good idea. He came up with it after the Foch incident where I asked the French skipper if he would like to try stopping me land on his steamer. I got on no sweat but it (GVTOL) started sliding all over the deck ‘cos of the ship motion. When I got back to Dunsfold I said we needed mechanical handling like the choppers on Frigates with Harpoon and the like to tie the thing down. Heinz looked thoughtful and a few days later said what we really really wanted was to be plucked out of the sky from the hover alongside – and dropped off ditto for takeoff.

He proposed this using a special crane that had a gryostabilsed gib (like the opposite of a flight sim motion base) so that although the base of the crane was going all over the place the end was either stationary or tracking steadily over the sea bed due to ship travel. John Fozard asked us how accurately we could hover. Our consensus was inside a 3ft cube. When we came to try it alongside (and under) a mockup it turned out that we could do it within 1 ft. thanks entirely to the excellent optical sight that Heinz also came up with. (which mimicked the wingtip cues available when formation flying)

The capture head (not all that dissimilar to the US boom AAR system) which would have picked up on a connection above the CG was designed, but the money was never forthcoming to make the hardware. (Navys don’t like the idea of smaller and smaller ships with fewer and fewer crew, any more than the Airforces like going to sea or living off base in tents. Hence big ships and huge airfields are all they will ever willingly sign up to. Anything that might enable them to get the job done without such desirables is seen as a threat worse than any enemy)