It's Yeovilton.

He's doing circuits to 27L. The guy in the hover on the left is over Charlie pad and the final approach is made to the MEXE which borders 22L on the eastern side, just north of the intersection with the main.

The MEXE was quite small compared to those at Cottesmore so probably worth avoiding without a wind that allowed you to taxy straight off onto 22/04.

(MEXE probably stands for something but equally might not - it's metal planking.)

I know this one.

MEXE was the Military Engineering eXperimental Establishment at Christchurch, which was run down in the '70s. They also developed the Mexeflotes (still, I think) used by the assault ship fleet.

MEXE were the people in Hants or Dorset that designed and made the planking to place the old PSP (with the holes in it). It was the Military Engineering Experimental Establishment. Even better than MEXE planking was AM2 matting.

Beat me to it, Dave.:ok:

The Mexe
 

Orca,

The mexe looked quite big to me. In the early days a normal mexe was 75' and a small one 50'. The really skilled guys - JF,Profit, Day,Pook, Dodworth etc could do a 'corner of the pad' landing (without markers) killing the fwd/side drift at about 10'. I used it once in anger and the heart-rate was off the clock.

Any mexe landing requires awesome skill so hats off to the driver but in my previous life he got a 9 for being a bit back and right.

'Lifts a gift'

You missed out Ward, Mate.

Coffman starter

Top tip buddy! Video is now a singleton...

The B Word :ok:

Back to the video. Given the aircraft's number by the forward nozzle, surely a Bond theme tune would be more appropriate? :ok:

Low and fast over the North Sea before the last landing onboard Lusty...

http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/o..._filtered2.jpg

and the last ever launch...

http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/o...unch280206.jpg

SMT

Thrust's a must,

The pads probably grew over time - but the one at Yeovs was definitely smaller than those that were at Cott/Witt by the time I got there. I had no dramas landing in any direction at Cott/Witt but would only go to the Yeovilton MEXE if I knew I'd be facing the concrete, not the grass. Probably yet another of my weaknesses and inabilities that I managed to cover up over the years!

As regards the technique Pook talked about in his book it sounds eminently sensible to me - I took it to mean maintaining an angle from head to a single fixed point as opposed to maintaining your horizontal position by virtue of being at the confluence of two straight lines - maintained by aligning two markers on each. (He probably explained it far better in 1/10th of the verbage!)

Some stunning photos stickmonkeytamer
:ok:

tuc


Can you expand?

Nice to see positive comments about SHAR. UK(Ltd) at its best. Great photos.

"Some stunning photos stickmonkeytamer"

+ 1


That low and fast shot is awesome.

That top photo is a real stunner! :ok:

Orca,

What's with the 27L and 22L? Did Yeovilton get parallel runways after I left?

There used to be a 'proper' mexe pad adjacent to the northern taxyway enroute to 09 (L, C & R).

dervish

Briefly, Blue Fox was still a top class radar when it was disposed of during the conversion from SHAR FRS1 to FA2. It was disposed of because parts of the design were, and probably remain, top secret. Many asked to buy it; all were politely turned away. India had a basic variant, but weren’t allowed the full spec.



At the last disposal meeting (a huge task for TS kit) an RAF OR Branch pitched up and tabled a draft spec to fit a radar into a Tornado variant, with a view to undertaking a key Buccaneer role. The chief designer had a look and replied “The RN is scrapping 50+ Blue Fox radars that will more than meet this spec”.



OR was ecstatic but then the penny dropped. “If the RN are scrapping something that exceeds our wildest dreams, WTF are they getting as a replacement?” Blue Vixen. Plan A was quietly ditched and we heard no more.



More a commentary on the complete disconnect between OR Branches, their reluctance to engage civilian specialists and their flat refusal to conduct proper Requirement Scrutiny (which would have revealed all this in 2 minutes flat). The RN was slightly better at this, the Army infinitely worse. Still is. (Sorry!)

Pontius,

I am truly sorry and repent of all my sins, of which runway naming convention slip ups are a little 'second tier' but in their own way significant nonetheless.

Believe it or not I had to edit it my post because the mists of time, ale and a bit too much JD had turned 22 into a right hand circuit.

Please pass on my apologies to all who genuinely thought Yeovilton had mysteriously grown a few bits of concrete.

Great photo, believe it was AR at the controls...although the other pilot that day was IT. That 'last embarkation' was a real shame to me as it was a hastily planned and executed add-on to the last one in squadron strength a little earlier. I have the 'Last CVS SHAR launch' crossed out of my logbook as a direct result. Boo hoo.

Nice to see some of the complimentary remarks about the final FRS1 ie the Phase 1 Avionics update which included the I/A Blue Fox, 32K Weapon Computer, Digital ADC, MADGE (Head Up and Head Down), A NAVHARS that worked (it had the FIN 1064 'Jag' CPU) .The integration of I/A Blue Fox with the bigger WAC gave the FRS1 lots of goodies e.g DGS -a predictor Gun Sight which was used to good effect against the towed SAMDU (towed by A&AEE aircraft) for the gun trials (XZ 440 pilot Steve Thomas).

I was programme manager at BAe Dunsfold (1984-1987) for this thoroughly enjoyable Avionics Integration programme before I was 'hoiked' off to BAe Kingston in Dec 1987 to programme manage the build of the first FA2 -ZA 195and subsequently the 2nd FA2 XZ439.

Seeing as we seem to be in a 'SHAR loving' period at the moment, here is a video of some more 'Sharkey Porn' from 801 NAS flying Sea Harriers from HMS Invincible - none of which are sadly with us any more!

Are we really? Perhaps the decission to scrap Harrier was bonkers.