"Main Point" (Archive 31).Main Point Newsletter Archived 7th September 2011.
Spring Event Tuesday 29th March 2011 Visit to Newark Air Museum
The following pictures are a small record of a grand day out.
A Motley Crew (taken by Tony Pulford's guest)
Dave Neal, Taff Goodenough, Graham Napthen
Michael Anderton, Tony Merry, Michael Lewis, Tony Pulford
(Dave Allsep had already left)
Graham "Mothballs" Napthen and Shackleton Mk.3
Vulcan B2
Waiting to Board XM594
A Discussion on various aspects of the Buccaneer.
A total of eight members plus one guest visited the Newark Air Museum.
When suggestions for a boys' day out were called for only two were forthcoming: The RAF Museum at Cosford and the Newark Air Museum. The second was a purely selfish suggestion from Taff Goodenough, whose mother in law lives in Lincoln so that he could lodge Hillary there whilst enjoying himself with the lads. As we had visited Cosford in April 2008, the second suggestion was acted upon and proved to be an excellent choice.
On the Monday evening several of us met in the Ferry Inn in North Muskham for a meal and a drink or three. During the course of the evening it was remarked that the date was quite auspicious in that it was 55 years to the day since our Graduation!
The museum has a collection of some 60 aircraft.
45 of which are well displayed in two hangars. There is also a display of 20 plus engines. During the course of our visit we were escorted by museum volunteers, whose knowledge, and anecdotes of their experiences, greatly enhanced our enjoyment. We were able to climb into the Hastings, the Shackleton, the Vulcan and a Varsity, and peer into a Buccaneer and an Anson.
Dave Neal and I were the last to pass from hangar 2 to hangar 1, having lingered over the superb display of models of every Canberra variant, when Dave nudged me and asked, "Is that what I think it is?" I responded in the affirmative as the last flying Vulcan HX558 passed sedately overhead in a northerly direction. On entering hangar 1, I could not resist the taunt "You are not going to believe this but...". What a perfect ending to a magnificent day out.
Tony Merry (74th).
Tim Johnson: News from Bodmin Moor.
An email from one of our members who has the dubious pleasure of starting on a new hobby on the Web. If you would like to contact Tim Johnson I can put you in touch if you send me an email requesting same.
"Hi Joe,
"Now I am 74 my family have given me a laptop, a greenhorn with just a couple of weeks experience as an e-mailer.
So I thought it would be easier for the 74th Secretary to e-mail me now and save on postage.
As I live in Cornwall, Bodmin Moor to be exact, it makes it almost impossible to travel outside the county. Especially as I
have a Smallholding with a large number of 4 legged dependants. But I do like to be kept informed on the 74th's activities.
"For your records my number is 588525 Afr. I was Hospitalised while at Halton (Princes Mary's Hospital Halton) and graduated with the 76th.
"Best regards.
"Tim Johnson."
Thanks members for your continuing support in the production of this 74th Entry Newsletter. Keep sending in those stories and especially the autobiographies.
Visitors to the Site Have Their Say
I have been contacted by more visitors to the 74th website and hence the following: If you have any comments about the subjects please let me know. Ring any bells?
From Dennis Purvis - Hello Joe.
I don't know if you remember, in the early/mid 50s a Canberra flew from the UK to the USA, beating the sun across the Atlantic. Quite an achievement in those days. If memory serves me right, the aircraft was named "Aries 1V (Can't do Roman numerals very well on this computer).
Headquarters Flying Training Command at Manby had a satellite station - RAF Strubby, a wartime station, and it was always considered a bit of a punishment to be moved from Pre-war Manby, to the Quonset hutted Strubby, about five miles down the road.
Manby was home to our flock of Lancs, with an Anson, and meteor in the Com. Flight. This Meteor was flown almost exclusively by a Polish squadron leader, who had flown "Spits" during the war, and was flying a desk before retirement. This Squaddie would take the Meteor up and do beautifully executed loops, rolls and figure eights over the airfield whenever he got the chance.
Strubby was home to the Canberras. Like the Lancs at Manby, these Canberra airframes were reaching the end of their useful life, and had been relegated to training flights. Among them was Aries four.
I'm not absolutely sure of the date, but it must have been late Autumn 1958, (I know I was on embarkation leave at the time ).
Aries four took off from Strubby, and suffered catastrophic electrical problems over the airfield, crashing nearby. A tragic end to an historic aircraft.
[Ed. A Canberra B2 WH699 Aries IV crashed at Strubby 28th Nov 1959.]
In Germany, I was stationed at Laarbruch, and in the winter of 1960, one of our Canberras, which had been practicing "Stand-Off" bombing over the range at Nordhorn crashed, and we were detailed to drive up there to retrieve whatever was left of the crew. To this day, the combined odour of pine tar and AVTAG fuel, which lay like a blanket over the crash site, is permanently etched into my memory.
Take care,
Dennis.
Thanks for your continuing support in the production of this 74th Entry Newsletter. Keep sending in those stories.
From Greg Potter.
Dear Sir,
I served with Nos 141 and 41 Squadrons in the back seat of both the NF Meteor and both early and late versions of the Javelin and so was quite used to the misconceptions which arose concerning this exceptionally capable weapons platform.
The ban on looping the aircraft was entirely due to the idiosyncracies of the Q Feel system. This dynamic system (Fed by the pitot intakes on top of the aircraft fuselage) repositioned the pilots stick according to the speed and trim setting at the time. As the speed reduced during a loop the stick moved forward which was the opposite to what the pilot required but was easily overcome and so long that the pilot was aware of this tendency there was no problem and the aircraft would perform the manoeuvre beautifully. A related fighter combat manoeuvre - the vertical Yo Yo had the same characteristics but was not limited by pilots notes. Anecdotally, the limitation was placed in the pilots notes after a certain Test Pilot failed to understand how the feel system worked and frightened himself silly.
At high angles of attack which could be easily achieved with the delta configuration and the powerful tailplane, the airflow over the top of the fuselage would become very turbulent and strongly affect the airflow into the Q Feel Pitot Heads which resulted in a forward movement of the pilots stick which was considered a desirable recovery feature.
The full spin in the Javelin was very flat in character with the tailplane and rudder completely blanked by the fierce turbulence from the stalled wing. The only available recovery action was to use the ailerons to attempt to make the spin oscillatory in the hope that it would flick inverted and make recovery possible. The later marks of the Javelin were fitted with a braking parachute to slow the heavier aircraft during the landing run and one adventurous pilot who managed to get into a spin had the presence of mind to deploy the parachute which pitched the nose down and allowed him to recover the situation. After this event it became the standard spin recovery action.
The Javelin took care of all bad weather and night operations and the Hunter looked after the daylight and good weather time. Statistics showed that during the exercise season with massed raids by Bomber Command aircraft most Javelins would return to base claiming 4 missile kills, one gun kill and a 'Sprinkle' whereas the hunters would be claiming one or maybe 2 kills. This was no fault of the trusty Hunter or its pilots but simply because they could not find the bombers with no radar. Towards the end of the era the 'Hen and Chicken' ploy was adopted where a hunter would attach itself to a Javelin and stay with it until a bomber was sighted whereupon the Hunter would break off and attack the bomber whilst the Javelin sought its next target. Frequently it would aquire another Hunter before it completed the attack.
Once the sister Squadrons began to co-operate in this manner, a further major problem was solved and this was - how do you recover 26 aircraft, all short of fuel via a radar approach when a visual approach is not possible and the minimum separation on the radar approach was 3 minutes? The answer was quite simple - The Hunters and Javelins all converged on a common decent point and joined up in formations of 2 or 3 aircraft with the Javelin leading and taking care of the navigation to the 'Dive Point' then the formation descended on radar to a formation landing. There was some official resistance to this practice until a number of Hunter aircraft were lost one day due to running out of fuel when diverting in bad weather. This resistance evaporated overnight and it became a standard operational procedure.
Yours faithfully,
Greg Potter Flt Lt (Retired)
Any Comments?
News Items and Stories Needed.
[Editor] Please send me any news items or stories that may be of interest to members of the 74th Entry Association or any other visitors to the 74th Entry Website.
Joe Bosher (74th).