Gloster Javelin
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Near Stalyvegas
Age: 78
Posts: 2,022
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Liverpool
Posts: 5
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
John Lucking
I'm sure he was on 87 at Bruggen the same time as Tony Russel and myself. Incidentally Peter Williams, ex 151 Javs .,has been in touch and I am in regular contact with my 151 pilot, Pip Stowell. Also contacted Peter Walsh a while back - not sure if he is still extant.
George
George
Samuel:
I guess that would include this one then:-[IMG]
[/IMG]
I was back in Singapore 1974/76 [Flt LT RNZAF]in ANZUK, and briefly lived in an ex-RAF MQ at 12 Hyde Park Gate at Seletar, and piled three deep in that corner of the airfield nearest the Officer's Mess were all 60 and 64 Javelins!
[/IMG]
Ah, Whisky. Ex 64 (I'm pretty sure) and out of Kuching, I think. gioing along for the ride on a jungle supply airdrop, we used to wave them in closer to get a better pic.
It's at Kuching, Fitter2. They had been covering our 48 Sqn Hastings doing supply drops on the border and we returned in close formation, performing a run-in and break at Kuching. They did say however that if we got bounced, by a Mustang for instance, our best bet was to get as low as possible, fly as slowly as possible, and turn as tightly as possible. If they'd fired a Firestreak at a pursuer it was just as likely to hit us! Mercifully such advice did not have to be acted upon.
You are right, sled dog, they were 60 Sqn.
You are right, sled dog, they were 60 Sqn.
Last edited by Chugalug2; 12th Nov 2012 at 14:43.
Mea culpa - the pic was scaled too big to see the tail on my screen. Most of the 60 Sqn aircraft had 4 Firestreaks, the 64 add-ons retained the tanks on the inboards.
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Surrey Hills
Posts: 1,478
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Samuel
A bigger but not much higher res pic.....
I used to sit by the Benson ILS Glideslope hut and listen to that wonderful vacuum cleaner
note when they taxied out to take off. 1960
A bigger but not much higher res pic.....
I used to sit by the Benson ILS Glideslope hut and listen to that wonderful vacuum cleaner
note when they taxied out to take off. 1960
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Age: 84
Posts: 897
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
As an airman on 14 Sqn RNZAF [Canberra B12] at Tengah in 1966, I was aware that taking photographs was frowned upon by the RAF, [the one above was taken from a long way away from the aircraft,by a mate hence the poor definition], I didn't actually own a camera at the time!
Imagine my surprise one day when driving back from the airfield to see a RAF Police Landrover complete with flashing blue light behind me indicating me to pull over. You can't actually do that on Tengah roads, so I pulled in to the Guardroom and was escorted into an office whereupon sat an RAF Flt LT, who didn't say who he was but whom I presumed was a Provost.
Flanked on either side by the two Snowdrops from the Landrover, his opening comment was: "I want the camera, and I want it now". From the mystified look on my face he then asked: "You've been seen taking photo's of the Javelin flight line".
I realised that this guy hadn't the faintest idea of what he was talking about, and suggested he might be wrong because, A: I didn't own a camera and B:I hadn't been anywhere remotely close to the 64 Sqn Flight line.
IT slowly dawned on him that he might just have got it all wrong, and questioned the two rozzers on what they had seen, and it turned out they hadn't been anywhere near the airfield either.
Collapse of case and I did get an apology.
I watched two Javelins self destruct at Tengah, one T-Bird landed and had a brake failure and left the runway and tried to leap the large Mossie ditch which ran the full length of the runway, but ended up straddling it almost directly opposite the 64 flight line. Occupants vacated and casually strolled across to the Sqn Line office.
Another was turning onto final approach over the Officers' Mess when the throttle locks engaged [so we were told], and the aircraft developed a glide angle of a brick. When you watch a double ejection you don't believe it initially! That aircraft land in one piece in a paddy in Jurong.
I also believe a Javelin shot down an Indonesian Hercules.
In 1974, there were a number of QFIs from the RAF, RNZAF, RAAF, contracted to the fledging Singapore air force as instructors on the Maachi. They used to gather in the Mess at Changi, and I was told by one over a beer or three that he had been on the Javelin detachment to Lusaka Airport [?]at the time of the Rhodesian declaration of independence. The story was that most of them knew many of the Rhodesian pilots, many of whom were ex-RAF, and in fact they met occasionally over a beer. What a gentlemanly way to run a war!
Imagine my surprise one day when driving back from the airfield to see a RAF Police Landrover complete with flashing blue light behind me indicating me to pull over. You can't actually do that on Tengah roads, so I pulled in to the Guardroom and was escorted into an office whereupon sat an RAF Flt LT, who didn't say who he was but whom I presumed was a Provost.
Flanked on either side by the two Snowdrops from the Landrover, his opening comment was: "I want the camera, and I want it now". From the mystified look on my face he then asked: "You've been seen taking photo's of the Javelin flight line".
I realised that this guy hadn't the faintest idea of what he was talking about, and suggested he might be wrong because, A: I didn't own a camera and B:I hadn't been anywhere remotely close to the 64 Sqn Flight line.
IT slowly dawned on him that he might just have got it all wrong, and questioned the two rozzers on what they had seen, and it turned out they hadn't been anywhere near the airfield either.
Collapse of case and I did get an apology.
I watched two Javelins self destruct at Tengah, one T-Bird landed and had a brake failure and left the runway and tried to leap the large Mossie ditch which ran the full length of the runway, but ended up straddling it almost directly opposite the 64 flight line. Occupants vacated and casually strolled across to the Sqn Line office.
Another was turning onto final approach over the Officers' Mess when the throttle locks engaged [so we were told], and the aircraft developed a glide angle of a brick. When you watch a double ejection you don't believe it initially! That aircraft land in one piece in a paddy in Jurong.
I also believe a Javelin shot down an Indonesian Hercules.
In 1974, there were a number of QFIs from the RAF, RNZAF, RAAF, contracted to the fledging Singapore air force as instructors on the Maachi. They used to gather in the Mess at Changi, and I was told by one over a beer or three that he had been on the Javelin detachment to Lusaka Airport [?]at the time of the Rhodesian declaration of independence. The story was that most of them knew many of the Rhodesian pilots, many of whom were ex-RAF, and in fact they met occasionally over a beer. What a gentlemanly way to run a war!
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Penang, Malaysia
Age: 78
Posts: 262
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Fitter 2,
XH877 had been on 64 before it went to 60 Sqn. It returned to 64 at some stage after the photo above was taken and was lost 20m NE of Tawau on 22 Jun 65.
Details of the loss here, scroll down the page to reach the date:
1965
XH877 had been on 64 before it went to 60 Sqn. It returned to 64 at some stage after the photo above was taken and was lost 20m NE of Tawau on 22 Jun 65.
Details of the loss here, scroll down the page to reach the date:
1965
Thanks, Laurie. My (hazy almost 50 year old) recollection was of the 60 Sqdn. Javelins having 4 missiles, and the 64 Sqdn. aircraft retaining the inner tanks for longer patrol durations.
There were persistent rumours, including Tengah groundcrew who swore that on the appropriate night a scrambled Javelin returned with shoes attached but missiles missing, and being sworn to secrecy as the ROEs prohibited such action without MOD approval. Equally, there are aircrew (who would have known) who are certain it never happened. I would have thought by now the facts would be known if it did happen.
I also believe a Javelin shot down an Indonesian Hercules.
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: listening to the sound of aviation
Posts: 48
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
...but the Javelin held on for a few years longer in the Far East, where it gained its only air to air victory - an Indonesian C-130 which crashed while trying to avoid a Javelin that had been sent to intercept it during the Malayan crisis in 1964.
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Fife
Age: 87
Posts: 519
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Another was turning onto final approach over the Officers' Mess when the throttle locks engaged
XH877 had been on 64 before it went to 60 Sqn. It returned to 64 at some after the photo above was taken and was lost 20m NE of Tawau on 22 Jun 65.
I also believe a Javelin shot down an Indonesian Hercules
I knew a 'stude' at Leeming in 1965 called Brendan Kaye (a Kiwi iirc) ... I heard that he met with an accident flying a Javelin in the Far East - does anyone have details of the circumstances?
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Penang, Malaysia
Age: 78
Posts: 262
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
F Z,
Brendan Kay and his passenger, Cpl K Ashbee, died following a collision during a stream take off in pairs of 6 aircraft at Tengah on 30 May 67. He was serving on 64 Sqn at the time. Kay was flying the No. 4 position and came into contact with No. 3.
The occupants of the other aircraft were able to bang-out succesfully. Kay and Ashby, it seems, left their ejections too late.
The squadron was very close to disbanding and were giving their groundcrews flights in the back seats of their aircraft.
Brendan Kay and his passenger, Cpl K Ashbee, died following a collision during a stream take off in pairs of 6 aircraft at Tengah on 30 May 67. He was serving on 64 Sqn at the time. Kay was flying the No. 4 position and came into contact with No. 3.
The occupants of the other aircraft were able to bang-out succesfully. Kay and Ashby, it seems, left their ejections too late.
The squadron was very close to disbanding and were giving their groundcrews flights in the back seats of their aircraft.
Last edited by lauriebe; 14th Nov 2012 at 05:55.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Age: 84
Posts: 897
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Coincidentally both ejections were by the same crew, Pete Hart & Dinger Dell.
lauriebe
Thank you very much for that info. That is very sad; as I type this I am looking at a photo Brendan took of my wife and me and gave to us - a thoroughly nice guy RIP.
Thank you very much for that info. That is very sad; as I type this I am looking at a photo Brendan took of my wife and me and gave to us - a thoroughly nice guy RIP.