Another Navy Wings article...

[Boac]

The “slip” indicator of the turn and slip instrument, for example, was a long tuft of wool tied to the pitot head just ahead of the pilot.

At least the bona-jet had a proppa weathervane.

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[CharlieOneSix]

How long before TGG has one of these......

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I wanted a bespoke one with a Bell 214ST but I was outvoted and ours is of a Labrador...

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[bob2s]

The above seem to be a god place to put all Robinsons!

[TheGreenGoblin]

What are they doing?

Playing hockey or perfoming some strange naval rite?

[ian16th]

At this Deck Hockey game, how many runs do you get for a lost ball?

[FD2]

Vicious game but many years since I played. I can't remember the rules, if there were any!

[G-CPTN]

Deck hockey.

[Pontius Navigator]

At this Deck Hockey game, how many runs do you get for a lost ball?

Bit of an open goal

[Pontius Navigator]

Interesting Obit in the Telegraph

Owen Lawrence-Jones
Naval officer who kept a vivid record of experiencing a kamikaze attack in the Pacific in 1945

OWEN LAWRENCE-JONES, who has died aged 97, survived a kamikaze attack in the British carrier Indefatigable in 1945.

On April 1 Sub-Lt Lawrence-Jones RNVR was at his action station in the Aircraft Director Room (ADR) high in the island above Indefatigable’s flight deck when a Japanese kamikaze bomber broke through the cordon of Seafires.

To observers it seemed that the pilot, as he turned over the ship, was looking to dive down the hangar lift or the funnel, but instead he hit the base of the island. “At the moment of impact,” Lawrence-Jones wrote, “I was looking at the heavy armour-plated deadlight, which was held shut over the porthole of the compartment by a heavy hinge and two thick turnbuckles on screw threads. I saw it bulge out from the armour-plated bulkhead and emit a spray of flames as if a giant blowtorch were working on it from the outside.”

Unable to escape through the next, smoke-filled, compartment, Lawrence-Jones’s ADR crew squeezed through a scuttle and shinned down a rope to the flight deck, which they found littered with debris and bodies

[TheGreenGoblin]

What are they doing?

Playing hockey or perfoming some strange naval rite?

I take it that the losers have to throw themselves down the aircraft elevator shaft in disgrace in a form of mass seppuku or is it just a simle case of keel-hauling for them?

[TheGreenGoblin]

Another week has passed and another article from Navy Wings has arrived in in-box (as well as one of the magazines though the post, with a fine air to air photo of 3 aviators in a Fairey Swordfish on the cover) and contains the reminiscences of a 101 years old pilot.

Herewith a brief summary of my WWII experiences as a fighter pilot from memory. My flying log book was lost when it was sent to the Admiralty for assessment as to my suitability for a permanent career in the peacetime Navy. Although I joined the Navy in 1940 it was 1942 before I was transferred for flying training. Minesweeping was a top priority role in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Having got my “wings” in 1943 after advanced training on Havards in Pensicola and Corsairs in Rhode Island, I was appointed to a Corsair squadron. 1835 Squadron were forming up with Corsairs as the US Navy were no longer assigning their pilots to Corsairs – too many losses of planes and pilots. They had not adopted the RN curved approach which Winkle Brown had perfected in trials. Even so there were still a lot of casualties.

The squadron was embarked on the carrier Victorious, escorting convoys in the North Atlantic based at Machrihanish in the Clyde. Cargo and merchant ships leaving the USA ports individually amassed 2/300 miles off the west coast of Scotland, escorted by the Royal Navy to various ports on the west coast – the Clyde and Liverpool being the biggest. U boats were waiting for them.
I, together with a couple of other pilots, was posted to land bases to fly a variety of other planes – Swordfish, Fulmers and other types with a greater range and economical fuel consumption. The object being to fly low (500 ft) looking for U boat periscopes above the water, spotting convoys and unescorted shipping.

In 1944 with the German U boat code broken by Bletchley Park, the Battle of the Atlantic was over. I remained at RN Air Station Ayr (HMS Ringtail) in charge of the RN fleet requirement squadron 772. This supplied pilots and different types of planes – Spitfires, Seafires, Hurricanes, Wildcats, where wanted.

I was also sent on a twin engine course (Blenheims, Beauforts) as the RN were intending to form squadrons of Hornets – a twin engine version of the Mosquito which Winkle Brown had landed on a carrier.
With the successful invasion of Europe over, the concentration was on Japan. The Hornet never materialised – the Atom bomb was dropped.

I declined the offer of a permanent career in the RN – 6.5 years of war was enough for me and came out in June 1946.

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Fleet Air Arm Veteran Laurence Allum

Laurence recently visited the heritage hangar to celebrate his 101st birthday with us. You can read more and see some great photos of his visit by following the link below.

https://eml-peur01.app.blackbaud.net/in ... 48A26B14/c

[TheGreenGoblin]

Another very interesting article in this week's Navy Wings update was this one:

35 years ago on the 11th August 1986, a Westland Lynx helicopter achieved the absolute world speed record over the Somerset Levels.

The Lynx flew a 15 km course and achieved an average speed of 400.87 km/h (249.10 mph) which made it the world’s fastest helicopter. The crew comprised of pilot *Trevofr Eggington and Derek Clews, the Flight Test Engineer. You can watch the story of the flight

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* Trevor Eggington

[TheGreenGoblin]

Good views of those special rotors here... going backwards as well as forwards... If the music grates, then turn the sound down and watch the film...

[FD2]

In 1972 we disembarked the Wessex to the French naval air station at St Mandrier, opposite Toulon, where the ship was undergoing a maintenance period. There was great excitement when the Westland guys arrived with the first Lynx pre-production aircraft which was available to show to the French naval customers. Naturally it was of great interest to us as well, especially when we noticed the large number of oil cans inside - the engineer told us the Gem engines used a great deal of it at that stage - we could see it smeared down the sides and under the aircraft.
They took off and during the demo flight they did several barrel rolls which drew gasps of appreciation from several hundreds of us, having only heard about it at the time and never seen it done!

[TheGreenGoblin]

It is interesting how the Westland Lynx, which was such a success in its military form, was such a disaster in its civilian Westland 30 incarnation and was integral in the collapse of Westland's fortunes and implicated in the Westland affair.

This story was well covered in Alan Bristow's ghost written autobiography...

The WG30 was Westland’s attempt to make a civilian helicopter, but it was an utter disaster. It showed how far removed Westland was from the realities of the civil market. I was widely quoted at the time as saying that it was “the wrong helicopter, for the wrong market, at the wrong time,” and that pretty much summed it up. The WG30 was noisy, heavy, complicated and expensive. I had told Basil Blackwell it was a non-starter. The payload was limited, the speed was inferior to the competition, and in hot conditions it could hardly get off the ground. The engines were too maintenance-intensive for a civilian machine, and they could never deliver on time and on price. In 1983 Westland had backed an American company called Airspur to put four WG30s into service, and were rewarded with a lawsuit from injured passengers when a tail rotor failed and one of them crashed in Los Angeles. The FAA grounded the WG30 and Westland lost more than £5 million on the Airspur operation. They managed to persuade British Airways to put two of them on the Scilly Isles run for a while, but it was never a feasible civilian proposition. The government had offered India £65 million in aid on condition the money was used to buy 25 WG30s, but the Indians didn’t seem to want them, even for nothing. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had signed up for them but after she’d been assassinated her son Rajiv took over, and he was a pilot who was better able to assess their value. He wanted nothing to do with them.

Westland had 21 WG30s in production and components for another 20 lying around the factory in Yeovil, but no buyers. My first act had I taken over Westland would have been to kill the WG30, probably by the usual expedient of sending it to the RAF at Boscombe Down and having them test it and turn it down. But unknown to anyone outside Westland and the Department of Trade and Industry, Westland had gone to the government in February 1983 seeking a bailout of £41 million. This was described as ‘launch aid’ which would enable them to improve the WG30 to the point where it could find a market. Somehow they persuaded the Industry Secretary Patrick Jenkin to lend them the money."

"Towards the end of 1985 Westland’s results came out, and they’d lost £100 million. The Sikorsky team insisted that the £41 million ‘launch aid’ for the WG30 be written off, and Leon Brittan finally agreed to do so. Under pressure from Mrs Thatcher, and in return for £65 million in aid money, India finally took 21 of the 25 WG30s they’d signed up for. The deal was done by Don Berrington, a friend of mine at Westlands who gave me a copy of a letter in which the British government agreed to give India an extra £10 million so they could afford spare parts. It must be one of the most expensive face-saving exercises the taxpayer has ever had to fund. The Indians grounded the aircraft soon afterwards, and today, 25 years on, they’re still languishing in hangars in Bombay and Delhi, and India is still looking for a buyer. But the ‘sale’ produced a small wave of optimism that the WG30 had a future, and Mrs Thatcher went full ahead to close the Sikorsky deal. She demanded that all Cabinet ministers sign up to a version of events which in effect painted the Europeans as unreliable and their offer as an insubstantial spoiler. For Michael Heseltine, this meant publicly abrogating tomorrow everything he had said today – an impossible position to be in. On January 9th, 1986, he resigned."

The Indian aircraft were bought and returned to the UK by a company that was minded to return them to airworthiness, or for spares, but that plan was scuppered by Westland who requested that the type's Certification be revoked by the CAA and the hulks still sit slowly deteriorating at a location in Gloucestershire to this very day!

[CharlieOneSix]

In October 1980 I was tasked with assessing the WG30 for our Company and flew the Westland first prototype G-BGHF with their test pilot Roy Moxam. I can't say I was that impressed. There was a joke going around at the time that when fully loaded with passengers the IFR range was from one end of Gatwick's runway to the other end. G-BGHF now resides in the Helicopter Museum in Weston-Super-Mare. http://helimuseum.com/heli.php?ident=wg30-100-1

.....especially when we noticed the large number of oil cans inside - the engineer told us the Gem engines used a great deal of it at that stage - we could see it smeared down the sides and under the aircraft.....

I seem to remember it was normal with early Army Lynx to see them when parked with empty paint cans attached to the back of the exhausts to catch dripping oil.

[TheGreenGoblin]

I seem to remember it was normal with early Army Lynx to see them when parked with empty paint cans attached to the back of the exhausts to catch dripping oil.

A compact engine as noted here...

RR Gem Control Panel TestingRolls Royce Gem Helicopter Engine
Rolls Royce Gem Engine

RR Gem Specification/Characteristics

Power Output...........….……………………………………….....900-1200 BHP (Depending on the Version)
RPM..............….……………………………….................Nh= 43,400rpm Nl=37,600 rpm Npt= 27,738rpm
LP Compressor……………………………………………………................4 Stage Axial with Bleed Valve
HP Compressor...….……………………………………………………………….........Centrifugal Impeller
Air Mass Flow..……………………………………………………………………….................7.5 Lbs/Sec
Overall Pressure Ratio..………………………………………………………………………………......12:1
Combustion Chamber..………………………………......Reverse Flow Annular with 17 Vaporising Burners
Compressor Turbines….……………………………………………………………….....1 Stage Axial each
Power Turbine..….…............2 Stage Axial with reduction gearbox in the nose, output shaft speed 6164 rpm ratio 4.5:1
Layout.....................….……......Coaxial Shaft Three Spool with Accessory Gearbox, Modular Construction
Starting................….………………………………………………………………….........Starter Generator
Ignition......….…………………………………….....................Two Torch Igniters with High Energy Plugs
Fuel System….……...................Gear pump with Hydro-mechanical or Electronic Fuel Controls, Electronic Protection System.
Oil System......….……...........Return System with Pressure and Scavenge pumps, Engine Mounted Tank and Oil cooler
Weight...........….………………………………………………………………………….................407 Lbs
Applications......….……………………………………………….............Two in Westland Lynx Helicopter



Apart from the Napier Gazelle engine the Rolls Royce Gem is the only truly British helicopter engine. The engine originally known as the RS 360 was developed in the early 1970s for a new multi role Westland helicopter. The engine is a complex British answer to the Lycoming T53 or perhaps the GE T700/CT7, the engine is a three spool machine featuring mechanically independent HP and LP compressors and a power turbine. The engine is of modular construction consisting of seven modules, a reduction gearbox module, a turbine shaft module, a LP compressor module, an accessory module, a HP spool and combustion chamber module, LP turbine module and a free power turbine module.

Forgive me and back to Navy Wings, my inner nerd ran away with me here.

[Woody]

Think that this article should fit in here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northe ... d-58274204

[TheGreenGoblin]

What a perfect National Service posting. From this week's Navy Wings newsletter.

I joined up for My National Service in November 1953 as an 18 year-old NSUY (National Service Upper Yardman) having been accepted for pilot training in the FAA.

The first three weeks were spent at HMS Daedalus / RNAS Lee-on-Solent being kitted out and swiftly transferred to HMS Indefatigable at Devonport. An uneventful couple of months taught us how to be naval officers after which I was commissioned as a Midshipman and sent to HMS Siskin / RNAS Gosport as 43 RNVR Course to learn about flying (and “forget about seamanship”). An enjoyable three months, mainly because of the Development Units on the – grass – airfield. I flew in Dragonfly and Hiller helicopters and a Lincoln bomber. The latter was landed by touching down on the tarmac lane passing the landing-strip threshold before clearing the hedge to land on the grass with the wheels spinning, making braking more effective. When I first joined Siskin I couldn’t understand why there were tyre marks across the road!

From there we went to RAF Syerston for six months basic flying training on (piston) Provosts and then to RAF Valley for a further six months on Vampire T11’s and FB5’s for jet training. All fairly uneventful with “work hard, play hard” being the motto. Having successfully completed this and been presented with Wings by Rear Admiral Fisher, who was Captain of Indefatigable a year earlier and greeted us as “shipmates”, I was transferred to HMS Seahawk at RNAS Culdrose. The refamiliarisation course on Firefly T2’s and T7’s of 765 Squadron took two or three weeks of a glorious summer – which left plenty of time to enjoy local pubs, beauty spots and beaches out of the three-month posting – as well as taking trainee observers around the coast.

Not knowing what to do with us after 18 months of our 24 month National Service their Lordships decided we should be sent to our RNVR (weekend) squadrons. This took me to 1844 Squadron of the Midland Air Division at HMS Gamecock / RNAS Bramcote where I spent weekdays flying Fireflies AS 6’s around the countryside, including making a visit to Culdrose for lunch – which lasted three days because of engine trouble. Other trips involved taking groundcrew home on leave around the country. For a limited period there were also a Sea Balliol T21 and a Sea Fury T20 for flying once checked out. As the RNVR was short of jet-trained pilots I was offered a transfer to MAD’s jet squadron; I took up the offer and joined 1833 Squadron flying Attackers. This meant flying from RAF Honiley as Bramcote was a grass airfield. Weekend flying involved “getting the hours in” so was frequently unorganised apart from some formation and instrument flying, live firing and rocketing practice.

Sadly all this came to a sudden end in 1957 when all RNVR flying was stopped. The MAD, along with all other RNVR Air Divisions, was disbanded although a few of us, still mobile, have an annual meeting to this day.

Fleet Air Arm veteran David Edwards

[Boac]

Interesting - as read, the guy never went near a ship in an aeroplane!