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Ten worst British Aircraft.

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Ten worst British Aircraft.

Old 10th Apr 2020, 12:36
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Originally Posted by Gwyn_ap_Nudd
Several Blackburn efforts but surprised that the Barracuda was omitted as by all accounts that was pretty awful - perhaps even worse than the Firebrand?
Brought out to replace the Swordfish and replaced in service by the erm Swordfish
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Old 10th Apr 2020, 14:25
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Originally Posted by NutLoose
Brought out to replace the Swordfish and replaced in service by the erm Swordfish

Nut - I think you're thinking of the Albacore - that was the one that was supposed to replace the Swordfish - the Barracuda replaced the Albacore in some roles and the Swordfish in others. I knew someone who flew both the Albacore and the Swordfish in action in the Med - he could see the advantage of a covered cockpit for the boys in the N Atlantic but said the 'Core was a bit of a dog, not as maneuverable and really no improvement over the Swordfish. They were also very suspicious of the powerplant.....
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Old 11th Apr 2020, 08:07
  #143 (permalink)  
 
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The worst thing I flew in the RAF was the Jetstream which has been mentioned many times. The engine was good, once you got it started. But only good for pilots - engineers hated it. It was the handling that was bad. As it had several handling features unique to the type, it was particularly unsuited as a training aircraft, unless you had adopted 'if you can fly this, you can fly anything" philosophy. The C130 was the major customer for the METS output (5 out of 8 on my course) and you could see the wisdom in using a fixed turbine, But the Aztazou? It was unique with it's blade angle reference outside the Beta range - and it's heritage as a helicopter engine quite apparent.

But the course was also poor, being heavily C130-centric and a lot of time was wasted pilots going onto other types. I went to the Victor and had to do a 15 hour refresher before the course re-learning how to fly with techniques never to be used again. The only thing that was similar was the shape of the control column, as both were designed by Handley Page!
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Old 11th Apr 2020, 08:59
  #144 (permalink)  
 
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Belvedere

Come on, someone must have flown the Belvedere?
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Old 11th Apr 2020, 10:18
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The Belvedere was coming along well until the Royal Navy got their hands on it. It was they that insisted on a mantis like front undercarriage so as to fulfil a half mad requirement to carry a torpedo. Having totally fouled up the design they then cancelled it.

The RAF had to take it on with the funny undercarriage as opposed to the original level design which preceded the Chinook's. The original project had piston engines so converting to gas turbines with the inlets in the ideal vacuum cleaner position was not a good idea, but again it was supposed to operate off continually washed carrier decks.

Bristol already had the design ready for conversion with two gas turbines mounted aft at the base of the rear rotor mast much like the Chinook but Wastelands took over the design and production so the RAF was saddled with what was going.

It could fly on one engine but a unique advantage was that it would fly with the transfer shaft, (the shaft along the back that kept the rotors in sync and enabled one engine to drive both rotors), broken as the main rotor planes were far enough apart so that the blades did not collide in normal flight.

When it was working well it could lug most things that needed lugging about. When they finally wrapped up 66 Sqn in Singapore I am told that when they wheeled out the war reserve Belvedere from the Maintenance Unit in Seletar it was found to have the same serial number as one of the squadron's aircraft.
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Old 11th Apr 2020, 10:25
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See: Belvedere HC1

My ULAS QFI talked about flying the thing - they'd named it 'Mixmaster bilong suicide'!
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Old 11th Apr 2020, 15:30
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Belvedere

Many thanks for the info, FED and BEagle for the link, just the kind of stuff I was looking for. I flew the commercial Chinook for three years and it was an excellent aircraft in just about every area. The twin-rotor system had several advantages and Boeing had ironed out just about all the problems. Everything about it seems to have been thought through so much better than was the Belvedere. The Brits have built some turkeys in their time.

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Old 11th Apr 2020, 17:33
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FED, is it true you used to start it up with legs over the side, just in case? (And PS, were you on 33 (and Belize) in the 80s?)

CG
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Old 11th Apr 2020, 18:14
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The Belvedere was prone to, wait fir it, avpin fires. Why they dreamt up that system for starting a field helicopter I have no idea. When starting the front engine it was common for the RHS pilot, unable to flee into the cabin because of the LHS pilot, to sit unstrapped, with the door open and the steps in place in case of a quick exit.

(And PS, were you on 33 (and Belize) in the 80s?)
Yes, yes and No.
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Old 11th Apr 2020, 18:22
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Originally Posted by Fareastdriver
The Belvedere was prone to, wait fir it, avpin fires. Why they dreamt up that system for starting a field helicopter I have no idea. When starting the front engine it was common for the RHS pilot, unable to flee into the cabin because of the LHS pilot, to sit unstrapped, with the door open and the steps in place in case of a quick exit.

Yes, yes and No.
Exactly as I heard it, cheers.

CG

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Old 12th Apr 2020, 15:41
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As a white-kneed new arrival on 390MU, Seletar I was detached (still in standard issue KD) to the 66 Sqn detachment at Kuching to carry out some Cat 2 Assist repairs and help them catch up on mod programmes. On being shown around a Belvedere, the cartridge starter assembly on the side of the Napier and its alignment with the fuselage-mounted Avpin tank was pointed out - and an (apocryphal?) story of the simultaneous firing all three cartridges that the blew the whole assembly off the engine and its subsequent direct hit on the tank. If true, no wonder pilots would ensure they had a handy means of hasty departure!
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Old 12th Apr 2020, 18:30
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To add to FED`s description,the powered controls were all in the front lower compartment ,and fed the rotors by a suitable system of pulleys and cables..this did lead to a fatal crash when the rear rotor cables jumped a pulley leading to loss of control. The aircraft had the fuel fillers up near the exhausts,so it could not do a hot refuel ,which made it difficult during a big troop-lift to start by carrying only about 6-7 troops,increasing the number as the fuel went down.,so it was usually employed lifting guns and ammo as u/slung loads.
I think the guys got around the cartridge problem by carrrying spares,and only one in the breech for start...
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Old 12th Apr 2020, 18:42
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The Shorts Seamew earned this scathing comment from a TP: "Entry into the cockpit is difficult; it should be made impossible."
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Old 13th Apr 2020, 02:49
  #154 (permalink)  
 
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My ULAS QFI talked about flying the thing - they'd named it 'Mixmaster bilong suicide'!
The "Aeroplane", September 2018, ran an article on the Belvedere operations in Aden written by John Perrott. He relates that one pilot refused to fly the helo and was thus returned immediately to the UK as a psychiatric case. No first tour pilots were meant to go to Belvederes because of adverse effects to their morale and possible inability to cope with the aircraft. The author states he asked a fellow RAF pilot if he had ever flown in a Belvedere, the reply being, "Fly in it? Never! I wouldn't even walk underneath it".
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Old 13th Apr 2020, 07:16
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No first tour pilots were meant to go to Belvederes because of adverse effects to their morale and possible inability to cope with the aircraft.
There was always two pilots in Belevederes. The captain flew the front rotor around and the co-pilot kept the rear rotor behind it.
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Old 13th Apr 2020, 20:34
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5aday , 6th Mar 2016 13:04
The Avroe Shackleton mk2 Phase 3 ( I can be definite as they were the only ones I flew as an AEOp in at R.A.F. Ballykelly).

I’m interested to know what was so appalling about the Mk2 phase 3? AUW too high? C of G too far back? Prop translation units?

idle curiosity on my part, but interested to know what my father had to cope with.
thanks

caramba
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Old 13th Apr 2020, 22:16
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I really cannot agree with 5aday.
The Shackleton Mk 2 Phase 3 was not quite the death trap he portrays. Of course there were losses, but operating a large aircraft at low level in all weathers was never going to be 100% safe.
If anything the Mk3 was more of a handful (I flew both). It was heavier, but with the same power until the Vipers were added.
As for the Nimrod, (which I also flew) there were 5 losses.
One was due to multiple birdstrikes, all but two of the crew survived
One was due to a flare igniting in the bomb bay. It was landed sucessfully with no casualties, but was a write off due to fire damage.
One was lost with a reduced crew due to pilot error.
One was ditched due to a fire, all crew survived.
One was lost with full crew due to a fuel fire.
So, five losses, of which only two could be attributed to the aircraft itself, and on three of them all or most of the crew survived..
This was in 40 years of service, with 400,000 hours flown, and, as with the Shackleton, in all weathers and much of it at low level.
Not a bad record.
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Old 14th Apr 2020, 07:19
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Thanks Oxenos. It had been my understanding that the Mk3 phase 3 was definitely more of a handful, largely because the C of G was a bit aft and also because of a propensity to accelerated stalls? I have memories of Dad, rather upset, saying that they had wanted the testing done but funding wasn’t available that would have been IIRC December 1967. Now I read about - for example - failure to replace scissor shackles in the Hawk mk1 and dodgy DECU connectors in the Chinook HC2. Which leads me to wonder if the latter has matured into a safe aircraft, and if not, perhaps it merited a place in the 10 worst aircraft.....

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Old 14th Apr 2020, 11:12
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'Problem' aircraft and systems were very much dependent on MoD's (or A.M.'s) PE or equivalent. Two examples - the civilian Viking noted,and took remedial action for, wing spar cracks. The same problem, obviously, was occuring in the Valetta but no remedial action was taken until one of the 'Pigs' out of Aqaba folded its wing. All grounded and inspected - out of our 14 squadron aircraft 12 had cracked main spars and skin wrinkles.
On S&R Whirlwinds we used to have frequent 'birdcaging' on the winch cables because of poor cable 'lay'. At the 'Wastelands' meeting to discuss/remedy this, I mentioned, in passing, that we had occasional hyd motor 'pauses', easily solved by reselection but the focus immediately changed to the less important matter. We did, eventually get the Lebus drum but it could easily have been diverted.
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Old 14th Apr 2020, 11:47
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Surely most things by Blackburn: Skua, Roc, Botha, Firebrand... Leave alone their hopelessly inadequate inter-war aircraft. And passing not much judgment on the Beverley, which was another firm's design and entered service at about the same time as the C130... Although the Buccaneer with new engines was a good aeroplane by all accounts
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