Supermarine Scimitar F1 album

[radarboy]

I've published an album on flickr of vintage Scimitar photos and slides I've acquired over time (and am still collecting). I'm in the process of scanning and restoring them as best I can, one by one. I regard these as part of our collective heritage and I believe in sharing, hence the album so everyone can see them.

https://flic.kr/s/aHskLmxCbJ

Enjoy!

All the best

Andy


Scimitar F1 XD239 on approach by Andy Ford, on Flickr

[wrecker]

Great pictures
Many thanks for sharing

[tornadoken]

Centaur/807NAS was on FE Station early-1962. (Much later to be CPA senior Simon Cxxxxxx) took one up for acceptance after some work at HK A/c Eng'g, which included a repaint. Story was that he knew he was being tracked by the neighbour, so turned up the wick.

HAECO did a second complete repaint.

[Wander00]

Great, thanks. However, pity there isn't one of Stumpy Faulkner's aircraft with the cut from leading edge to the mainspar after an altercation with a high tension cable in Norway. I remember the photo in his log book

[staircase]

I remember a ‘chat’ with a USAF exchange officer in the 1970’s.

He thought we had aircraft designers of real talent. He reckoned that to put so much power into aeroplanes such as the Sea Vixen, Scimitar, and Buccaneer and still keep them subsonic in level flight took real genius!

However thanks for the 'photos - well worth viewing.

[mcdhu]

Any cockpit pics Andy?

mcdhu

[DaveReidUK]

Great aeroplane.

My only exposure to the Scimitar (apart from painting minute 1:600 scale models of them for my Airfix aircraft carrier ) was arriving at Hurn one murky evening in 1969 just in time to see a couple of the Airwork FRU fleet on short finals.

Ah, nostalgia ...

[OwnNav]

I remember them at HMS Fulmar in 1965, lovely lines compared to the Bucc (in my opinion).

[Democritus]

I posted some Scimitar photos on here back in 2014 - http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...ml#post8347953

[evansb]

[John Farley]

The best remark about the Scimitar that I remember was made in 1963 by a USN Lt Cdr Jerry Skyrud. The aircraft had joined the ETPS fleet at Farnborough in Feb but was not serviceable. When we went into work one morning in Oct it was on the line. Skyrud was told to fly it at once and I was told to follow him as soon as possible. We had a course brief on it back in Feb but that was a very long time ago. I walked out to do my trip passing Jerry as he walked back from his. “Do you know the climbing speed?” he asked “No” I replied “Take my advice and hang on to the first one you get” he said. That about summed up an aeroplane that had two Hunter engines but was certainly not twice the size/weight of the Hunter.

[4Greens]

Wander 00 it was Stumpy Morris.

[evansb]

The immaculate inception:

[Offchocks]

I had a look for further information on this lovely looking aircraft and was quite surprised by the high attrition rate, just over half of the 76 built were destroyed in accidents. Another thing that surprised me was that each aircraft required up to a 1,000 maintenance hours per flying hour. I guess that being part of the early development of jet aircraft would explain this.

[4Greens]

A major issue was that the smaller carriers couldnt cope with them. As an example, in the tropics you had to get down to 5 minutes fuel before landing.

[Wander00]

4Greens - I hate to disagree - Stumpy F and I were both founder members of 360, and we married (not each other!) on the same day. I recall hearing the story and seeing the photo in his logbook

[radarboy]

Just a follow-up to let you know I've added a few more photos to the album. There should also be more on their way soon...

Andy

[4Greens]

Wandoo 00 His name was Colin Morris nicknamed Stumpy as he was very short, Went on to fly Concordes for BA