RRE Pershore
 

What was the last flying done at Pershore before it closed?

1 July 1976: Canberra B2/6 WK163 moved across to Bedford and was the first of the Canberra fleet to leave.

25 April 1977: Viscount XT661 was transferred to RAE Bedord upon the closure of Pershore.

18 May 1977: Canberra BI8(mod) B6 WT333 was moved to Bedford.

The Bedford Canberra fleet consisted of airframes:
XH567,WT327,WJ992,XH568,WH953,WK163.
Many of which would have Pershore in their history in some form.

At least 2 Hastings had operated there: TG514 & WD499 but these had been withdrawn from use by the mid seventies.

History:
06/34 to /39, Worcestershire Flying School with Tiger Moths, closed soon after the start of WW2 when the airfield was requisitioned.
Opened 02/41 the airfield was attacked by the Luftwaffe three times.
04/41 to 03/44, No. 23 OTU training Canadian crews with Wellingtons.
03/44 to /48, No. 1 Ferry Unit collecting and delivering all type of aircraft.
/48 to /53, No. 10 Advanced Flying School with Oxfords.
/57 to /78, Royal Radar Establishment Flying Unit testing many different radar test-bed aircraft.

66/67, before 360 had its full complement of T17s we did some one week detachments at RRE -loved their aeroplanes - immaculately clean, heated socks and gloves and at half time on an exercise/trial you came below 10,000 ft for soup and sarnies. Oh, and if rudderlocks required, no flying, civvie ground crew would not take rudder locks out with engines running. Great fun and good experience.

Comet Aircraft Trace
 

I am trying to ascertain the registration of the Comet 4 which was used at RAF Pershore in the 60's - 70's. Can anyone throw some light on this for me. I was Chief Flt Eng at 2-16 Sqn Lyneham for some 10 years and there was a Master Engineer Ginge Ellison that I taught. He was on this aircraft. I have lost touch with him and the Reg of the said Comet (4C)?

Are you thinking of Nimrod prototype XV148, which flew from Pershore between 1975 and 1977?

There were never any Comets based at Pershore. RAE Farnborough had Comet 2E, XN453 and Comet 4s, XV814 and XX944, whilst RAE Bedford had Comet 2 XV144 and Comet 3 XP915 on the Blind Landing Experimental Unit. RRE had none, so this must be Nimrod XV148.

In June 1972 there was a Puma HC1, XW234 based at Pershore. The trial at that time was a Low Light TV camera looking forward with a TV screen in the cockpit. As there was a lot of work under the aircraft to fit this it was put up on jacks and the undercarriage retracted to give more room. The installation was successful and they had a beautiful picture of the world through the open hanger doors.

They tidied it up, wheeled it out, the crew started it up and switched on the kit.

There was a beautiful picture of the back of the nosewheel.

I was invited to fly this from Pershore to Odiham so that the station wheels could have a looksee. Once airborne one could retract the gear and have a narrow fixed field of view ahead; sufficient for one to get lost immediately after passing over the airfield boundary. Fortunately by using DR one could find the M4 which was going the same way and we arrived at Odiham.

The idea was to see how far it could be flown on the approach before on had to look outside the cockpit. To this end I flew it with the undercarriage retracted towards our dispersal. Unbeknown to me there was a VIP visit to the squadron so there were all these senior officers having kittens and waving furiously. When I eventually lowered the gear their cardiac systems returned to normal.

It was a prototype for the myriad observation systems that are mounted in helicopters nowadays.

Fareast driver: similar thing happened with the Varsity at Farnborough which trialed FLIR and LLTV. It came back from a trip late at night and OC Flying flew over the airfield to find out what detail he could see and was heard to declare on the tape 'I'm happy to try a landing using that picture'.
So he flew a visual circuit and lowered the gear, only for the nosewheel to block the view of the FLIR, both it and the LLTV sensors being in the forward vision panels in the 'bomb bay' below the aircraft!

Still looking for that elusive Comet 4C which was used by the RRU at Pershore. To my knowledge it was not the 3 aircraft that Dave reid and Amos Keeto mentioned above. I'm sure it was a passenger Comet 4C.

Well we tried ...

Yes indeed. I related all the facts regarding the locations of all the military Comets. There was NO Comet 4C based at RRE (not RRU) Pershore! The only possible answer was it was one of those I listed detached from Farnborough. As the RAE later absorbed RRE and Pershore became RAE Pershore, that is more than likely it was Comet 4 (not '4C')XV814 which was operated by the Avionics Division, or possibly XX944.

'814 was based at Farnborough continuously from Aug '74 until the day it was my sad duty to write in the ATC Log Book in the early 90s that it had just departed to Boscombe Down on its final flight. I scrounged several flights in it, the longest being 4.5 hours flying from Farnborough, then backwards and forwards between Alconbury and Ullapool.
Talkdownman did better than that. He was on a flight which due to weather got diverted to Kinloss where they had to stay overnight. The sight of him next day when he finally arrived back at Farnborough having not shaved can best be described as 'gruesome'.
When it arrived back at Farnborough in Aug '74, the runway having just that day been re-opened after re-surfacing, I remember there were two other Comet 4s which arrived at the same time, one of them being newly acquired from Dan Air (possibly '944) and was flown for only a few hours before being sent to Lasham but what happened to the other I don't know.

Comet 4 XW626 'Conrod' operated from RRE Bedford ~ 1977-78. I made one (only one) guest appearance during the early radar trials. Flying was disappointing, involving 'wing warping' for roll and gear changes for pitch control.
Most disconcerting was the presence of a test engineer on the flight deck equipped with a radiometer /dosimeter looking for stray energy from the radar waveguide which ran just to the side of the first officers seat (mine)!

Comet XV147 was built as a Comet 4C and made just one flight in 1965 from Chester to Woodford where it was converted to the second Nimrod prototype and made its second flight 31st July 1967, although it always retained the Avon 525 engines. It went to Pershore on 23/12/75 for Nimrod avionics research, then to the A@AEE.
So this airframe was very likely the one mentioned in post #4

Are you saying that the sources quoting XV148 as arriving at Pershore on that date, as referred to above, are incorrect? What's your source?

Dave
The date is quoted in a 1993 Aviation News article on trials Comets, whether it is correct or not I cannot confirm. It does make sense for XV147 to have been at Pershore for the Nimrod avionics trials as that was what it was intended for, its Avons being fitted with additional engine driven generators to supply the large power demand. XV148 on the other hand was the aerodynamic prototype and that had Speys.

The Pershore flight operations diary shows Nimrod 148 operating from there from December 1975 onwards. First noted flight on 30 December 1975.

Bill Sleigh's "Aircraft for Airborne Radar Development" says: "To accommodate the Searchwater project in a more representative aircraft during the period
following the decision to close Pershore, BAe Woodford was contracted to prepare the first Nimrod/Spey prototype XV148 for installation of Searchwater. This task was completed and
the aircraft delivered to Pershore on 23 December 1975 for installation of the radar, including modifications omitted from the contract. Nimrod XV148 operated from Pershore aerodrome
from mid 1976 until June 1977 when it was one of the last aircraft to transfer to Bedford"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...psbq6rzzkd.jpg

Amos

Just for info re your post I have 915 down in my log book when it was at BLEU in Feb 65 as a 3C - Don't know the implications of the C though

JF

Me neither. The only Comet 3 that ever flew, G-ANLO/XP915, started life as a 3 and later acquired the wings of the 4B, becoming a Comet 3B.

I've never seen any reference to it as a "3C",though I suppose it's possible that the MoD might have referred to it as the Comet C.3, given that the C.4 came along later.

Thanks Dave, It would appear that the Comet was 148 which was later used as the nimrod trials aircraft. Of interest, I was chief Flt Engineer at RAF Lyneham during the 70's and was teaching a Master Engineer Ginge Elliston at that time. He was on the "Comet" at Pewrshore but i never did get the aircraft registration from him. He must be long gone now but I would have liked to know if anyone has heard of him or knew him. The only remaining Comet 4C's of 2-16 Sqn are XR398 (In a field in Germany in Dan Air livery) and XR399 which is at East Fortune airport nr Edinburgh also in DA livery> 395/6 and 7 were used by Dan Air after RAF and then scrapped I believe at Lasham. Thanks all of you for the info you have provided. - Tony Clack

XR396 was reportedly broken up at Bitteswell in 1981, but then the nose and/or rear fuselage (reports vary) were transported to Kinloss for BDRT, surviving until around 1998.

what year was that?

cheers

Must have been around '77 or '78; Ian Strachan was the OC Flying I referred to.
Once they had developed the basic sensors in the Varsity, development was transferred to Hunter then Jaguar.

Blackbox H
 

I was at Aberporth for a while in Summer 1975 and an interesting visitor was Seaking XV651 from RRE Pershore (pilot was "Blackbox H" but I can't rememebr his name - memory fades !). I am trying to ascertain the exact mark, I thought it was a modified HU5 but others think not.

Any help gratefully received.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....69790c79bb.jpg
XV651 Aberporth JULY75

I'm not really "new" - but lost my log in details which were, in anycase, aligned with a now non-existant email :8

HAS.1 with a Lynx radar nose.

Later converted to a HAS.5, though some sources identify it as an HU.5.

When Comet/Nimrod XV147 arrived at Farnborough (I was tower controller at the time) it was said to be used for trials work to supplement XV814 however it never flew again. It did a lot of movement on the aifield at weekends when we weren't on duty often being parked on one side of the airfield on a monday after being left on the south side the previous friday; eventually it was broken up.
After landing, I recall I was told to taxy it to 'E' Shed where it was out of sight from the tower behind the SBAC terraces.

Thanks Dave !

Hi DonGilham, did a bit of tracking down on this one and the HU5 makes sense as some RN ASW Sea Kings were converted from HAS 5 to HU5 (ie ASW to SAR or Troop carrying) which was a pragmatic solution at the time to operational requirements. The usual life story of your "average" RN Sea King was HAS1 to HAS2 to HAS5 to HAS6. The Junglie HU4 for the Commando role were purpose-bult so can be ignored! The HU5 route took HAS5's out the usual HAS6 conversion route and stripped out the Sonar & Sonics to make more room back aft leaving them as the HU5, thus preserving the "5" monkier of the "donor" aircraft. So that was the normal route to HU5.

But........................ :E

XV651 seemingly is an exception due to the fact it spent quite a time in various "Trials" roles over it's life so it sort of missed out on the HAS2 step but finally went HAS1 to HAS5 and then was picked up for HU5 conversion - it seems to have by-passed the HAS2 conversion as it was probably off busy doing Trials stuff. Once it was released from it's Trials work, it seems to have gone direct HAS1 to HAS5. Now, I suspect, given the times it spend as a Trials aircraft, it's airframe hours were below average making it a promising candidate for conversion from HAS5 to HU5, the SAR cabs outlasting the ASW fleet so the younger the better. There is the odd photo of it claiming to be a HAS6 but I suspect the photographers assumed it had followed the standard HAS5 to HAS6 upgrade as there is not much difference externally. There was also quite an overlap in time as the aircraft flowed through the conversion system in a steady stream so there was quite a period with both HAS5's and HAS6's flying. I was on 810 NAS for a while which acted as a "clearing house" where we received old HAS5's from various Sqdns and prepped them before they went from us to Fleetlands for conversion to HAS6.

Now, I'm normally a tad skeptical of "geek-type" sites but aircraft modelers often are quite good at digging out oddities to make and the following makes sense from someone called Head in the clouds so I'll had over to them here. They have quite a good summary of the airframes' history which is repeated below:-

"Westland Sea King XV651, wa639 was delivered on October 1969 as part of the first batch of HAS1's ordered for the Royal Navy, it was quickly put to work but not looking for Russian subs but working in the heat of Edwards AFB on hot and high trials during 1970. After this it was sent to Westlands for conversion to carry out tests for the upcoming naval Lynx programme, in particular the Seasprey radar. After conversion it spent two periods at RRE Defford during 1972 and 1974 respectively, working on the Seasprey system as well as other locations. After this work was completed it the Seasprey was removed. It arrived at Fleetlands in 1980 for conversion to HAS5 and then later in it's life to HU5 standard. It was while as a search and rescue HU5 serving with 771SQ that it took part in the Boscastle floods rescues on 16 Aug 2004. After this period it then went to A&AEE serving with QinetiQ carrying out further trials and research work but keeping its overall Grey colour scheme. After being withdrawn from service it was stored at Honeypot Lane near Colsterworth (just down the road from me) for onward sale, eventually ending up at a farm and caravan park in County Durham, still giving sterling service in one form or another."

Another link here seems accurate for it's early life but doesn't capture the actual HAS5 to HU5 conversion ...... but ties in nicely with Head in the clouds elsewhere so it all seems to link in OK and here is their finished model too!

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3fa4f937fb.jpg

Anyway, hope this helps a bit. Many happy days working on them back in the day..............................! :ok:

Excellent info, thanks Hot etc :)

Seaking XV651
 

This was a Sea King Mk 1 with a modified Lynx nose used for trials of the radar for the Sea Skua anti-ship missile. The aircraft moved to RAE Bedford Radar Research Squadron in the autumn of 1976 when Pershore closed. The radar trials were conducted at RAE Aberporth

Aaahhhh – Pershore. What a wonderful place!
 

Only just seen this thread but had to add as I ‘grew up’ there whilst Dad spent 2 extended tours (3 if you include Defford)

'Blackbox Hotel' might have been Mike Butt. He’s the only rotary name I remember. When I can find the old man's log books, I’m sure there’ll be other names.

Dad was 'Blackbox Victor' and on one occasion, whilst on a navex going through basic training, I called up as 'Blackbox Victor Junior' and had great chat with the ATCO - Tom Biltcliffe. He even insisted on giving us various tips for whatever horse racing meeting was on at the time – much to my instructors amusement.

As I grew up I would see Dad go off to fly all different types of aircraft which confirmed that I wanted to follow in his footsteps. He wasn’t a test pilot or anything special just an ordinary Flt Lt who was a really good bloke and, from all accounts, a really good pilot. Unfortunately, Pershore closed, and that sort of posting seemed to disappear as the RAF changed/reduced. Still, I look back with many fond memories of Pershore, and the surrounding area.

Any other Pershore memories out there?