I think it was two and a half rotor spans and line up eyeballs with a couple of features on the next aircraft. It looked really close and a little alarming from the cockpit with rotor blades thrashing towards each other at great speed but when seen from other viewpoints it appeared quite tame. We once had a new, very keen senior pilot who had just completed his conversion to rotary wing from Buccaneers. One of his new ideas was night formation flying in our Sea Kings - before the introduction of NVGs etc. He was quietly put straight by our Boss.
From Prestwick days - from the ground. Looks like cirrus but it's my thumb print. Looks like a sort of double Vic?
Boss insisted on calling us Stumpyfoot formation because of the 819 badge with an arrow through Italy's heal, after Taranto. All of us flying off to RDAF Aalborg for an anti-FPB exercise with the Norwegians.
I think it was two and a half rotor spans and line up eyeballs with a couple of features on the next aircraft.
Two times the rotor span: OK I might, maybe, be able to judge that or bluff that I could in nice weather and with a competent pilot in the other seat to advise me.
Four times span: Less difficult, but tricky. Blame it all on bobble factor.
2½ times? Fackorff. How **** do you measure that? OK, so you've got an 'Observer', but he's only in that seat 'cos he failed to become a piiot, ferfuxake!
I'm impressed. Not in the Naval way, ye unnerstand.
Boac - I think it looks better than an echelon from the ground, in a larger formation, and less chance of an undamped (horizontal and/or vertical) fugoid motion starting amongst the less experienced crew!
UP - 2½ times? Fackorff. How the **** do you measure that? OK, so you've got an 'Observer', but he's only in that seat 'cos he failed to become a pilot, ferfuxake!
How do you 'measure' twice or three times? You look and learn what you've been taught by an instructor wrt the size of the aircraft you're formating on in your Mk 1 eyeballs and brain. Likewise with two and a half or two and five eighths, or whatever is judged to be the 'correct' standard for impressing watchers, for a rumble in and break or whatever. Co-pilot in the left seat does the radios, the guy in the right seat flies it, or vice versa if you're formating on something to the left. ASW Sea Kings always flown with two pilots. Most observers hadn't had a go at piloting as they enjoyed controlling the ASW missions and telling the pilots what to do and where to go. Each spoke of the other as talking or whining ballast, in the bar.
"How do you 'measure' twice or three times? You look and learn what you've been taught by an instructor wrt the size of the aircraft you're formating on in your Mk 1 eyeballs and brain. Likewise with two and a half or two and five eighths, or whatever is judged to be the 'correct' standard for impressing watchers, for a rumble in and break or whatever."
I have not seen the Navy Wings Seafire in action but it is getting a lot of press in the recent newsletters... and I was very interested in the features that differentiated the navalised Spitfire from the other marques.
The Spitfire went through a complex evolutionary process and Seafire SX336 is a Mk. XVII, which is quite an advance on the early Spitfires with a more powerful Rolls Royce Griffon VI engine and greater firepower and speed over the early versions. This aircraft was built by British Aircraft Manufacturers Westlands, at Yeovil in 1946 and painted in post war Royal Navy colours with Yeovilton Squadron markings.
In 1940 there was a desperate need for an agile, capable fleet fighter and although the Spitfire wasn’t designed to be a ship borne aircraft, by the end of World War II the Seafire came into its own against the Kamikaze in the Pacific. The aircraft’s superb characteristics, speed, rate of climb and manoeuvrability made it uniquely qualified to deal with the Japanese suicide planes and it proved to be one of the best carrier interceptors of the war.
Carrier operations are notoriously tough on aircraft and the ‘Sea Spitfire’ had more than its share of teething problems. However, once adapted to operate at sea, the navalised Spitfire, with tail hook to catch the arrester wires, reinforced undercarriage, and folding wings, went on to achieve prestigious battle honours including the Communist Emergency in Malaya and the Korean War. The type served with the Fleet Air Arm well into the 1950s and the arrival of the jet age.
This video, focusing on the last of the line, and not the Navy Wings marque in particular, gives a superb outline of some of the general differences between the Spitfire and the Seafire, and particularly the differences between the Merlin engine and the Griffon engine... (well worth watching)...
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
This week the Navy Wings pilots visited a unique Spitfire training facility run at Goodwood.
Dave Mackay, Senior Company Instructor Pilot, took Chris Götke, Bill Dean and Alistair McLaren for a session that included normal and emergency procedures, general aircraft handling, aerobatics, slow speed flight and time critical decision practice. This is all part of the planned training programme for the commencement of SeaFire flying operations at Navy Wings.
Seafire1.jpg (42.11 KiB) Viewed 724 times
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
I remember Captain Eric Brown RN telling of the time he looped a Seafire. It was actually a triple loop with the lower limb of each loop going under each of the three spans of the Forth Bridge.
Complaints were made of course, but the complaints went to RAF Turnhouse because people presumed they were looking at a Spitfire. Nobody complained to HMS Merlin shore station at Donibristle on the other side of the Forth where he was based, so he got away with it.
I remember Captain Eric Brown RN telling of the time he looped a Seafire. It was actually a triple loop with the lower limb of each loop going under each of the three spans of the Forth Bridge.
Complaints were made of course, but the complaints went to RAF Turnhouse because people presumed they were looking at a Spitfire. Nobody complained to HMS Merlin shore station at Donibristle on the other side of the Forth where he was based, so he got away with it.
A truly extraordinary man with a list of aircraft types flown that must be one of the most diverse ever achieved.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
He also holds the world record for the greatest number of carrier decks landings. I can't remember the number, but it was in the thousands.
The USN wanted an American to beat that record, so a USMC pilot was assigned the task of endlessly repeated deck landings. He had a nervous breakdown when he got to about two thousand and had to retire from flying duties.
He also holds the world record for the greatest number of carrier decks landings. I can't remember the number, but it was in the thousands.
[edited to add that I've looked up the number: 2,407.
The USN wanted an American to beat that record, so a USMC pilot was assigned the task of endlessly repeated deck landings. He had a nervous breakdown when he got to about two thousand and had to retire from flying duties.
In a separate post I'll list the types he flew as pilot in command. It's only the types. For many of them there were many variants, such as 14 different Marks of Spitfire that he flew. The list is so long that it exceeds the limit on a post size.
In the 70's and early 80's when he was Chairman of the British Helicopter Advisory Board I was on their Operations and Air Legislation Committee for several years. After our regular meetings in London with the CAA, Winkle and I used to share the tube and train back to Gatwick as he lived in Copthorne and I in Ifield. I treasure those times - an amazing person and an honour to have known him. My moving to ABZ sadly ended that association although I still met him at the committee meetings.
Thinks - wonder how much my signed copy of "Wings on my Sleeve" would sell for....?
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
https://www.glenbervie-weather.org
I often wondered what it must have been like to land a Hurricane on a carrier. These men successfully did it without any prior deck landing training at all. Sadly most of them lost their lives and Hurricanes soon thereafter.
On 9 April 1940 German forces invaded Norway, and on 27 May British troops landed at Narvik, principally to deny transit of Swedish iron ore to Germany through the port. They were supported by one squadron of Gladiators and one of Hurricanes. In the ensuing short campaign, both covered the military and naval activity before withdrawal on 3 June. No. 46 Sqn, led by Sqn Ldr K.B.B. Cross, had been operating from Bardufoss airfield until the decision to evacuate. Cross was reluctant to abandon and destroy his undamaged Hurricanes. He persuaded Capt G. D’Oyly-Hughes to let them land on the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, which was sailing for Scapa Flow. Nobody had landed a Hurricane, lacking an arrester hook to catch the cross-deck cables, on a carrier before. Cross’s pilots strapped 15lb sandbags beneath the tail section to slow progress once they landed, which incredibly all ten did successfully on 7 June 1940. Unfortunately the very next day Glorious was sunk, and the Hurricanes were lost together with eight of the pilots; only Cross and Flt Lt P. Jameson RNZAF survived, to be picked up from a Carley float after three days adrift.
Quote from Sydney Camm: Hurricane and Harrier Designer.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Just came across an excerpt on The Spitfire Site web pages from a book, part of which is about getting Spitfires to Malta on board HMS Eagle in 1942. Crazily the book isn't named....
“Either, sir, we get the Spitfires here within days, not weeks, or we’re done. That’s it.”
Sqn/Ldr Stan Turner to AOC Sir Hugh Lloyd about the situation on Malta
HMS Eagle was sent with Spitfires on board.....
To enable the aircraft to get into the air within 660 feet of Eagle’s deck, the Spitfire needed take-off flaps. Unfortunately, the Spitfire only had one 90-degrees flap setting for landing. A simple solution was developed whereupon the flaps on ferried aircraft were locked half-way down by inserting wooden wedges between the flap and the wing. As each aircraft took into the air, the pilot had to lower the flaps fully, dropping the wedges to the sea, and then close the flaps again.
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
https://www.glenbervie-weather.org
Just came across an excerpt on The Spitfire Site web pages from a book, part of which is about getting Spitfires to Malta on board HMS Eagle in 1942. Crazily the book isn't named....
“Either, sir, we get the Spitfires here within days, not weeks, or we’re done. That’s it.”
Sqn/Ldr Stan Turner to AOC Sir Hugh Lloyd about the situation on Malta
HMS Eagle was sent with Spitfires on board.....
To enable the aircraft to get into the air within 660 feet of Eagle’s deck, the Spitfire needed take-off flaps. Unfortunately, the Spitfire only had one 90-degrees flap setting for landing. A simple solution was developed whereupon the flaps on ferried aircraft were locked half-way down by inserting wooden wedges between the flap and the wing. As each aircraft took into the air, the pilot had to lower the flaps fully, dropping the wedges to the sea, and then close the flaps again.
I suspect that that detail might have come originally from Richard Woodman's book (published in 2003) 'Malta Convoys 1940–1943'. I will crawl into the loft, after my better half has gone out and pull my copy out of the box to check.
A very good article on this subject appeared in Fly Past Magazine in 2019...
Moments of Triumph: Malta Air Combat Donald Nijboer describes how the Spitfire Mk.V clashed with Macchi’s C.202 Folgore for supremacy over Malta in 1942...
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
