HP 115 and Shorts SC.1 can both be found at Yeovilton. (On second thoughts, has the SC1 moved to the Science Museum? )

HP 115
Apparently it wasn't desigend with endurance in mind. If it visited Farnborough, it had to be booked for re-fuel at Benson 'just in case'.
The main gear was, I am told, Piston Provost legs. One day as it took off, one of these became partially detached. The pilot (Clive Rustin-OC Flying Farnborough when I arrived there) elected to land back again although ATC advised him the leg was wobbling about. On touchdown, the leg not surprisingly folded, and the late Johnny Mansfield, manning the runway caravan, had the dubious distinction of seeing the aircraft do a complete circle round him on the grass!

Mmmmmm.

The pilot was Jack Henderson not Clive. After a roller landing Jack felt a marked jolt and it transpired the left leg had displaced 80deg left. Since part of a ground loop was clearly on the cards we were all concerned that the aircraft would roll RIGHT as it slewed LEFT and perhaps ding Jack by going inverted. After touchdown the aircraft actually turned left through about 120 deg but did not roll right.

JF

Thanks John. Johnny Mansfield (died 30 years ago) told me the tale, so I obviously got the wrong pilot. Mind you, Clive always wanted to be 'first' at something, so he was first to do a 'Martin Baker' from a Jaguar when he went to Bsocombe.

so he was first to do a 'Martin Baker' from a Jaguar when he went to Bsocombe.

I must ask him who was quicker on the draw from the Jag, Clive or Colin!

I remember Clive saying in a TV interview that he gave the order to eject, but if command eject was selected, who knows?

I recall the Apprentice classrooms being over the far end of the air field, this would of been in 84, 85. I cannot recall the name of one of the instructors but he drove a reliant robin, and had some amazing stories. Some time later when transferred to the Number 1 hanger to continue my apprenticeship, he was described as a 'sprucer', a term i still use today

Never had command eject in a Jaguar

Chevvron

Your description of a busy period at Bedford was lacking one vital component....
At least they weren`t firing a Phantom of the steam catapult in between all that!
Was there as a trainee ATCO in the early 70`s

Yakker

Are you sure it wasn`t Court Lines Tristar "Halcyon Days" that was parked overnight? I seem to remember that happening in 1973.

One particular event I recall was working 3 Hastings at one time in the circuit. One being delivered to the fire dump and burning off the last of its fuel, the other to collect the crew of the first, and the last being the RaE one doing things with the ILS.

With thanks to None Of The Above for pointing out this thread...he was there too.

Does anyone remember the Phantom that was doing high AUW trials in 74 or 75?

It suffered a burst tyre at high speed in the take-off run and departed the runway to the north. The crew were unhurt but set up the world record for the 100yds in full flying kit.

The port undercarriage leg had collapsed and was pushed through the upper wing surface. I don't know what hidden damage there was, or whether it flew again but, to the uninitiated, it didn't appear to be beyond repair.

I can't remember if it was an RAF or RN aircraft, but I do recall that Hawker Siddeley supplied the crew. That struck me as an odd arrangement at the time, but a lot of odd things happened in R&D.:hmm:

N o t a

Turned up one morning in thick fog and prepared the Land Rover for a runway inspection in case BLEU wanted to do some autoland stuff. Briefed the assistant...a lovely bloke called George and set off.

As the runway was 300 ft wide this required several passes, with ones head out of the window whilst driving slowly down the runway....the better to spot any debris etc.

About halfway down the runway I heard George on the RT clear a vehicle to cross the main drag...I was deliberating whether to to remind George that I was on the runway, when said vehicle suddenly appeared seemingly 6 inches away from the nose of the Landy before being swallowed up again in the murk. When I appeared again in the tower, George looked at my ashen face and looked suitably crestfallen.

I got my own back on him the day I managed to creep up on him as he was manning the caravan and fired a bird scaring flare in his direction, it arrived just over the roof of the caravan before detonating.

I remember being nicely asked by the fire service not to have practice alarms whilst the naafi wagon was delivering the morning sticky buns to the fire station.

Nugget 93 was, while I was there, engaged mostly in driving the Sea Vixen at speed into the arrestor wire over and over again....I never did find out why. He was a Scottish guy Millar/ Miller? I can still hear his voice if I close my eyes and think for a moment....he used to sound completely knackered at the end of each serial.

Loki I assure you that Nugget 93 (1976-80) was completely English (not TM), and that I thoroughly enjoyed the love-hate relationship with ‘my’ personal Sea Vixen. The aircraft was ‘given’ to me by the outgoing (and last RN base commander) because he considered that I may have had some semblance of experience in naval operations – a false assumption for a RAF pilot even with USN associations.

The arrestor wire trials were a mixture of testing the pullout characteristics of bottom wire on net barriers and developing new arresting devices, rotary hydraulic, chain, etc. The spray system (SPRAG) was one of the more interesting which produced fountains of water from many yards of pipe across the airfield, but if the pipes/holes were mis tuned, the cable would pullout asymmetrically swinging the aircraft toward the runway edge. The ‘completely knackered sound’ was probably the result of the boffins mis calculating the retarding ‘g’ – resulting in a harsh stop, even worse if the hook engaged a ‘temporary cable support’ in error – spring steel ramp bolted to the runway.

The Sea Vixen was also used to check HMS Bedford’s steam boiler every 6mths. My first launch required a ‘Naval’ briefing and attendance of a Deck Launch Officer, who turned out to be an engineer who pulled a lever when you saluted – giving you a ride of your life. The subsequent landing was complicated by the airfield being contaminated by extensive wild life which normally resided beneath the catapult structure and had made a hasty exit during the first launch! In addition, the SATCO banned tail-dragging aerodynamic braking (keeping the brakes cool) as it ruined his runway centre line lighting.

Ah, the Nugget 93 I refer to was a predecessor circa 1973.

When I was there the catapult was in regular use, with F4s being the most common projectile, the the Sea Vixen, visiting Buccaneer and once a Gannet all being customers.

I'm amazed that this thread has run and run. The place is obviously held in some affection. I always felt that it was a privilege to work there, and put down some deep roots in the area.

Here's one of the only two photos I have from my time there, and I now remember the photographer's name - Pete Hudson.

Vividly remember the photo being taken - late '80's and crewed by Lt H, Mr H and Dr H. Cockpit air was blue 'cos Mr Hudson was setting us up like family at a wedding. Happy days:)

View north from the pan at H3. If memory serves correctly the Bucc in the image was an S1

http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/l...2fan/XW241.jpg

Busa 1400, the instructor you refer to, would have been Keith Paull, head of the electronics school.

Loki. I'm not sure about the year, but I'm sure it was a 747.

As an apprentice in the early 70's and as the apprentice school was by the catapult, we spent many an hour watching Phantoms take to the air. The Jaguar trials were interesting, especially when the departing French painted their hire cars red, white and blue.

Re the Sea Vixen conducting arrestor wire trials.

There's some footage here of the other end of the process.
The quality isn't exactly high definition but it might be of some interest.

N o t a

Loki: no there wasn't a 'catapult' test that day, but they were firing something into the arrestor barrier on the north side using a rocket powered rig!
I'm not sure if it was that visit or an earlier one, but I remember seeing the Hunting H126 leaving on the back of a lorry crossing the 08 undershoot. I think I saw it a few years later at Topcliffe, where they also had a couple of Avro 707s and the Short SB5. I think they were all moved to Cosford when Topcliffe closed.

Edit- Memory playing up; thinking back, I went to Topcliffe in '71, long before I went to Bedford, so the '126 can't have been there! (The '707s and the SB5 definitely were though)

My understanding from several conversations with Clive on the topic of that accident is that his memory of the accident is pretty much nil between briefing and recovering (in hospital).

If memory serves however, if both pulled together, there was an inbuilt 1/3rd second time delay between the two seats to stop them leaving absolutely together. Rear seat first I *think*.

G

I seem to have had a memory failure, but I remember U2's coming in sometime when there was a cross wind where they were suppose to be landing !!

Bedford I believe was the diversion airfield for the U2/TRS1 aircraft from Alconbury, they used to come and do PFL's quite regularly..

Pickie of Bedford's Tonka Toy.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1...rald/tonka.jpg

Actually Farnborough's tonka but permanently (it seemed) detached to Bedford.
Bedford was what the yanks called a 'COB' or Combined Operating Base for Alconbury, and I believe there was an almost permanent detachment of 'handlers' ie guys in a high powered car and some sets of outriggers in order to handle TR1's/U2R's.

Indeed it initially flew with a 'Nugget' call sign but changed over to a 'Blackbox' one later, when, I assume it became Bedford's.

If I remember correctly, that Tonka never did work as advertised. I left not long after it arrived at Bedford. The Puma was a developement batch a/c and one of the first built. (s/n 006?)

RAF Alconbury

Vulcan XA899 was used for Concorde take off work and was adorned with dayglo on the rudder and leading edges. Can anyone confirm if the undersides in the engine bay areas were white or dayglo ? The rest of the airframe was silver . Would make a nice different colour scheme for a model.

The Puma was DB08 - I'm not sure if that meant it was 'development batch no. 8' or not. Seems logical. Became rather non-standard, especially regards the blades. Remained metal to the end. Good for fitting pressure sensors and strain gauges.

241 was actually a world-class piece of kit, and as an experimental vehicle for basic research, well ahead of its time even towards the end of its working life. It had the usual range of aerodynamic and inertial sensors, plus with each blade hinge instrumented to record flap, lag and feather. Research blades measured pressure and strain. There was even an instrumented tail rotor blade.

Fabulous stuff. Never really warmed to the Lynx that replaced it (ZD559)

That Seaking
 

As this string started with a Seaking with a radar bulb on the nose, I can give an update on what it was used for. I was a Spec Nav at Bedford 1978-81 as Nav Leader and then OC Radar Research Sqn (RRS), which had moved fm Pershore in early 78.

RRS had 15 aircrew (pilots, navs & an air eng) and over 20 ac - 10 Canberra (Mks 2, 3, 4, 6, 6-7 hybrid, 7 & 9), 2 Buccs, 1 Hunter 8, 1 Meteor 14, 1 Nimrod, 1 Varsity, 2 Viscounts, 1 Comet 4, 1 Seaking, 2 Wessex & 1 Puma. I can give ser nos and what each was used for if anyone is interested.

Seaking XV651 had the Naval Lynx 'Seaspray' radar in the nose for basic development work and mating to the 'Sea Skua' sea-skimming missile, which it guided. A Sea Skua radar head was held captive in the nose of one of our Canberras - B6 XH568. A typical sortie saw the Seaking hover over the sea just off Aberporth at 275 ft; the Canberra would fly beneath it at 50 ft, simulating having just been fired from the heli. The Canberra would follow the missile head whilst the naval target tried to decoy it.

Flying at 50 ft was interesting - the pilot did not look inside and the nav gave a continuous patter of height and speed, whilst the 3rd-seat boffin would give steering info from the missile. Each sortie started with 50 ft runs over Thurleigh runway to get the pilot/nav patter working.

'Have more info and a few pics fm Thurleigh - was certainly the best flying in my RAF time.

David B

I grew up just down the road from RAE Thurleigh and from my very earliest days (B747 in about 76)can remember many, many types of aircraft in the overhead at low level. Many local people were employed at the airfield and tunnel site and my uncle flew as a boffin / observer on some of the test flights in the Canberra, Meteor, Javelin, Comet, etc.

It was an unbelievabley busy place and to think that there was not a single major crash incident, was quite an achievment for the standards of the day. We half expected it to happen at any moment with all the stuff whizzing about.

The tempo seemed to keep up right until the last flying days in the mid 90's when the airfield closed. I know there is no chance of reactivation, but I'm still hoping!

Interesting projects.......

When I was a vac student at Farnborough in 1979 the section I was with (Acoustics) had a project involving experimental work at Thurleigh. Long story short - microphone(s) mounted in a 6ft dia polystyrene sphere, suspended from a Wessex, under which flew a BA Tristar. I think the idea was to measure engine noise shielding afforded by the wings.

Boffins, eh?:ok:

Apart from the Hawk in early 1982.

India Mike

Sounds like a continuation of the noise trials being conducted in `73/`74. Airfield was festooned with microphones while various aircraft were flown overhead in a number of configurations. I believe they were going to do something of the sort you mentioned with Court Lines providing the Tristar, but they went bust before it could be done.

Ah, the noise trials. I had great fun doing the temp/humidity ascents for atmospheric corrections in an instrumented Slingsby T61 (main role meteorological research). The best bit was returning down the approach at Vne to stay ahead of BA 747s or Concorde doing practice ILS approaches.

The T61 had a climb speed of 60kt, a cruise speed of 60kt and usually flew final at 60kt so what was Vne?

As I recall (not having the POH to hand - it was over 30 years ago) at full throttle a 3 degree approach could be done at around 100kts. One then 'flared' and speed slowly bled off until arriving at the secondary runway intersection turned 30 degrees left, throttled back and touched down 2/3 of the way down to taxi in to the hangar. Seemed to cause mild amusement in the tower.

[quote]
Apart from the Hawk in early 1982

Apologies GG - Was not aware of that incident. Info for this can be found here:

bristol britannia | 1984 | 0205 | Flight Archive

Of course there was also the earlier non-fatal accident(mid sixties?). Comet (Mk 3?) backtracking runway 27 prior to departure (no full length taxiway) and a BEA Trident doing circuits was apparently cleared to 'land over' it but didn't, taking off its fin (the Comet's that is).
I first heard about this when arriving at Halton for gliding; one of the parked Comets there was minus its fin which had been pinched to repair the one at Bedford!

Thought it was Bedford's VC10 and a BOAC 707 which was cleared for an overshoot not below 500' and got caught in a wind shear situation, but I could well be wrong.

That could have happened as well, but it would have been late '70s or early '80s 'cos I remember the VC10 visiting Farnborough after I arrived in '74 and a few years later we were told it was grounded indefinitely with a 'broken back'(?) It was parked at Bedford for many years after that (you could see it from Santa Pod Raceway about 5 miles west) and I suppose it was broken up when the airfield was closed.

The Comet incident was in 1971

report is here

ASN Aircraft accident de Havilland DH-106 Comet 3B XP915 Bedford-Thurleigh Airport

IIRC the VC 10 was grounded and prepared for sale, but with little interest as it was ‘non standard’. One viewer from ‘Africa’ seeking a source of spares commented that the aircraft was in better condition than his that were still flying!
Didn’t the Bedford’ fin end up on the test VC10 tanker after a crack was discovered?