New home for the Vampire
 

North Weald has a new resident - the Vampire T11! We've been treated to the lovely howl for the second time today.


Welcome chaps (from one of the voices in the tower). :ok:

Quite interesting and sad that it has moved location.
Hurn's loss is Weald's gain :(

Aerbabe, I hope the airfield operator has a plentiful supply of fresh tarmac (unless there's acres of concrete to run the Vampy engine on)

We do have some large areas of tarmac. Besides which, we're used to these hooligans in jets. ;)

Thought you `chickens` in the Tower all had to wear gas masks now, in case you caught `flu !!

Speaking of hooligans...

Bird 'flu may be worrying, but it can't be as bad as bloke 'flu.

Seriously Aerbabe, you need to be careful where the Vamp sits with its engine running; I've seen them set fire to tarmac just holding for takeoff.

Erm, where I said 'tarmac' above, I meant concrete. :D
I've seen the huge patches of burnt grass left by the Venom, when it's been engine-running. Don't worry, we've got quite a lot of jets operating from here, and the operating company who look after the Vampire have a lot of experience.

Patches of burnt grass ! that's nothing to be concerned about.
Before we started our Venoms the groundcrew used to throw a large asbestos blanket over the tailplane to prevent the paint being burnt off. :)

Same engines that we used to have on the infamous "Snow-blo". We would sit between a pair of the cantankerous old blasters, mounted on the front of a fuel bowser (a concept taken to its extreme by NASA's Shuttle) and try to maintain the fine balance between blowing away the snow and melting the runway. Most of us weren't very good at it, which explains the current condition of Waddington's runway - several subsequent resurfacing projects have failed to patch up the damage.

I often wondered, while sitting there with my trousers on fire, why an engine that hot couldn't push a Vampire supersonic.

Are you sure of that Blacksheep ?

I was under the impression that Derwents, of which there were a multitude, were used for that purpose.

Certainly some runway de-icers in RAF service in the past used Goblins....

.... reference the burnt grass, when I was a baby pilot I heard (urban myth?) from some of the old and bold that at a certain RAF station which flew Vampires, the burnt grass patches behind the ARP were painted green for a Royal Visit!

Thanks teeteringhead.

I have read a number of articles which only referred to Derwents, but I suppose they used what ever happened to be at hand.

and try to maintain the fine balance between blowing away the snow and melting the runway
not forgetting trying not to burn out the clutch of the bowser/4 tonner that was pushing you against the jet blast :eek: - ahh happy days!

. . and Basil came close to injury from one when the horse he was riding at Cottesmore took exception to it being run up as we ambled around the side of a hangar :eek:

There are currently 1/20th shares available in the Vampire, I believe.

Overstress

And where would one enquire about these shares?
:O

Aerbabe - do you know these hooligans? Are they a nice bunch of fellows? I don't see Sycamore's name in the Pilot's list. Surely some mistake?

:O

Am at field for most of the remainder of the week. Fancy a trip in the JP eventually if you've got some time off?

Vampire returns.
 

Very nice to hear that a Vampire has made it back to Weald, last one I recall being resident and flyable was the ex Swiss Air Force T.55 about 10 years ago. Sat for a couple of years on the Aces ramp. Believe it went to dH Aviation. Some time was spent fettling it for the ferry flight including engine rund which as i believe were after they had washed some of the engine with parafin produced a VERY spectacular flame, at least the guy doing the video by the tail thought so!.

All we need now is some operational Meteors back.

If I recollect correctly the Scandinavian Historic Flight's Vampire FB6 was based there around 2000/2001 for a short period?