Another Navy Wings article...

Message
Author
User avatar
FD2
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5110
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 10:11 pm
Location: New Zealand
Gender:
Age: 76

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#521 Post by FD2 » Fri Jan 20, 2023 8:18 pm

And the British fleet sails to re-take the Falklands. The weasel Conservative Defence Minister Knott, had just been about to flog two of the carriers to Australia. Admiral Sir Henry Leach convinced Thatcher it could be done and the Americans did indeed help the RN with the latest version of Sidewinder.

Remember Knott having a tantrum when referred to in an interview by Robin Day as a here today and gone tomorrow politician? Great!


User avatar
FD2
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5110
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 10:11 pm
Location: New Zealand
Gender:
Age: 76

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#522 Post by FD2 » Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:04 pm

Just in case anyone missed it:


User avatar
FD2
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5110
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 10:11 pm
Location: New Zealand
Gender:
Age: 76

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#523 Post by FD2 » Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:34 pm

Over 50 years ago, two Buccaneers from Ark Royal saved (British) Honduras from being invaded by Guatemala in an extraordinary long range mission launched from Ark Royal up near Bermuda. Two buddy tanking Buccaneers refuelled them outbound and inbound. The mission is well covered in the book 'Phoenix Squadron' by Rowland White, who also wrote the book about the Vulcan missions in 1982.

28 January 1972. Following threats to British Honduras (Belize) from neighbouring Guatemala, two 809 NAS Buccaneer S.2s launched from HMS Ark Royal in the Atlantic. 40 mins later they refueled from two other squadron aircraft, using a buddy-buddy system, then routed at a high level across the Bahamas and the Florida Keys and through the Yucatan Channel, avoiding Cuban airspace to Belize.

They overflew Belize City at 1000-feet then the airfield at 400’ as a show of force. Returning on a similar track, intercepted over the Keys by two Air National Guard F-102 Delta Daggers from Homestead AFB, again air-to-air refueled and recovered to HMS Ark Royal.

This was a 2,600-mile round trip, lasting 5 hrs 50 mins, at that time a record distance for FAA aircraft, and notable in that it was totally unsupported by outside assets. The aircraft were flown by Lt Cdr Carl Davis with Lt Steve Park and Lt Cdr Colin Walkinshaw with Lt Mike Lucas. They were later awarded the Boyd Trophy.



January 8, 2013
Personally, I think Rowland White's Phoenix Squadron is even better than Vulcan 607! The story goes far beyond the core event, where aircraft from the Ark Royal are tasked with a mission which is a true record breaker. The wealth of history included, and the vivid descriptions, are worth reading regardless of the actual point of the tale.

With Britain looking to scrap her strike carriers, Ark Royal earns a brief reprieve. That means that the Fleet Air Arm (the Royal Navy's air force) enjoys a similar brief stay of execution for their fixed wing aircraft. It proves fortunate indeed when Guatemala is proven to be on the brink of invading British Honduras, Britain's sole remaining American mainland colony. The colony is aiming for independence, as the sovereign state of Belize. Unfortunately, it lacks any means to defend itself. And that's where the Fleet Air Arm comes in. Britain must prove a willingness to defend Belize and only the Buccaneer squadron aboard HMS Ark Royal can react quickly, so far from home.

Rowland White covers both sides of the crisis, and draws together the threads with skill. I would recommend this book to everybody interested in aviation history, naval history, and a general audience who simply enjoy a great true story.


These photos are not the actual launch and recovery - I took them myself when we worked with Ark for a while in the Bristol Channel in 1972.
Bucc Launch.jpg
Bucc Launch.jpg (100.02 KiB) Viewed 2061 times
Bucc recovery.jpg
Bucc recovery.jpg (109.11 KiB) Viewed 2061 times

User avatar
FD2
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5110
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 10:11 pm
Location: New Zealand
Gender:
Age: 76

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#524 Post by FD2 » Sat Jan 21, 2023 4:15 am

Over Belize.jpg
Over Belize.jpg (141.88 KiB) Viewed 2048 times

The Return.jpg
The Return.jpg (123.28 KiB) Viewed 2048 times

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#525 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sat Jan 21, 2023 5:15 am

As an aside, the Buccaneer was used extensively in the Angolan War being pivotal in the Battle of Cassinga.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#526 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:37 pm

G-CPTN wrote:
Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:05 pm
We are sailing.
Great, if poignant, song.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#527 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:06 pm

From this week's newsletter.
Ralph Hooper OBE, the remarkable aeronautical engineer who designed the revolutionary Harrier jump jet, died on December 12, 2022, aged 96. His obituary was featured in The Times this week and you can read it via the button below. His loss will be felt across the Fleet Air Arm community.

Ralph Hooper Tony Hawkes.JPG
In the small cottage where Ralph Hooper lived on his own in old age, the drawers and cupboards were stuffed with boxes of model aeroplanes, almost all of them military aircraft — British, German, American, Japanese and Russian — that he had built over the years and studied intently.

Few of the plastic models were ever painted. Hooper wanted to see the detail in the design and construction of those aircraft. He liked to see the bolts and rivets.

Elsewhere, amid the flotsam and jetsam of his life, were piles of aeronautical magazines, photographs, honours and awards, and correspondence with distinguished engineering bodies.

To many observers, the cottage and its occupant appeared to exist in a state of chaos, but the opposite was true. Hooper was a master of organisation and precision.

A tall, quietly spoken man, he could be ranked alongside RJ Mitchell and Sydney Camm, the men who designed the fighters that won the Battle of Britain, as one of this country’s great aeronautical engineers. While Mitchell designed the Spitfire, and Camm the Hurricane, Hooper was the pioneer responsible for creating the Hawker Siddeley Harrier “jump jet”.

The Harrier was unique as a military aircraft, with vertical/short-take-off and landing capabilities — known by the acronym V/Stol — and played a decisive role in the British victory in the Falklands conflict in 1982.

Hooper devised an aircraft with vertical lift, using a jet engine that had four swivelling nozzles for directing the power or thrust generated by the aircraft in different directions. Most jet engines have only one nozzle directing thrust. The Harrier also had small auxiliary exhaust nozzles fitted in the nose, tail and wingtips that provided further balance while the aircraft hovered, an action activated by the pilot’s normal flying controls.

Such innovations meant that the first operational Harriers, which were ordered by the RAF as ground-attack aircraft during the Cold War, could operate from isolated positions far from the main airfields. In other guises, as a fighter ordered for the Royal Navy, the Harrier could virtually stop in mid-air as a chasing fighter flew past, and then suddenly attack the enemy from behind. By any benchmark, it was a remarkable manoeuvre.

According to one colleague, “the Harrier would never have existed without Ralph’s unique vision and his subsequent determination to find the simplest possible design solutions. It is the world’s only vertical take-off and landing jet fighter.

“Eventually, over 800 were built for the RAF, the Royal Navy and, mostly, for the US Marine Corps, who still use the later versions to this day, over 50 years since the first Harrier went into service.”

After being interviewed by Camm for a job with Hawker in 1948, Hooper joined the design department at its factory in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, working on the Hawker Hunter jet fighter. Four years later, he moved to an office looking at potential new aircraft.

In 1957 Hooper started work on a project known as P.1127, which led to the development of the Harrier. Unlike most modern British military aircraft, the Harrier was not developed in response to government requirements, but was a private initiative pursued by the Hawker company. The cost of developing its engine was supported by the Americans through Nato.

As it turned out, this was fortuitous. Many projects initiated by the British government at this time were later scaled back or cancelled because of defence cuts.

Hooper worked closely with an engineer from the Bristol Aeroplane Company, Gordon Lewis, who was a specialist in jet propulsion and had been working on a short take-off engine called the BE53 with two rotating nozzles. Hooper realised that, with four rotating nozzles, the engine could provide enough thrust to lift a relatively light aircraft vertically from the ground before rotating the nozzles rearward and flying away conventionally.

By the spring of 1958 Hooper had succeeded in marrying the new engine, known as the Bristol Pegasus, with the aerodynamic and engineering requirements of an airframe for the proposed Harrier, with its distinctive anhedral wings and a bicycle undercarriage with wingtip outriggers. In October 1960 the prototype successfully demonstrated controlled vertical take-off, hovering flight and vertical landing, proving that Hooper’s design concepts worked. He was appointed “Project Engineer P.1127” in 1961 and given responsibility for technical control. He led all further development, drawing together the work of Hawker’s specialist teams.

In a typically self-deprecating interview with the British Library years later, Hooper said: “Any fool could do it . . . There was at one time a series of cartoons of what an aeroplane would look like if it was designed by the aerodynamicist, which if I remember is that it would have an enormous wing and no fuselage; what it would look like if designed by the structures people, which was just two planks of wood with a very large nail between them; and what it would look like if designed by the systems engineers, and so on.

“Now, if it was designed by the test pilot, well, it would be just one magnificent cockpit with a coffee machine in one side and a cigar lighter on the other, and that sort of thing. But they all have to interact and they all have to compromise their desires to suit all the others. So perfectly simple, as I said.”

In 1968 Hooper was made executive director and chief engineer at the Kingston plant. Under his guidance, the company, now known as Hawker Siddeley, won a competition to design a new jet trainer for the RAF, which was the renowned Hawk. The aircraft flew for the first time in 1974.

The Hawk, which is still used by the RAF’s display team, the Red Arrows, has been a big success; more than 1,000 have been built for air forces around the world.

Elected a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1970, Hooper was awarded the society’s Gold Medal in 1986. He was also honoured by the Royal Society and the American Institute of Aviation and Aeronautics.

Ralph Spenser Hooper was born close to the site of the RAF aerodrome at Hornchurch in east London in 1926. He was the son of Herbert, a senior civil servant at the Board of Trade, and his wife, the former Sheila Spenser, whose forebears included the 16th-century poet Edmund Spenser. The couple also had a daughter, Sheila.

As a boy, he was influenced by his grandfather, who was chief draughtsman for a railway company, and showed early promise as an engineer. He used his Meccano construction kit to link his alarm clock to his bedroom light so that they worked in tandem.

Flying, however, became his passion. He took an early interest in birds, read articles about aeroplanes and listened avidly to an uncle who had served with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. When he was seven, the family moved to Hull, where Ralph attended Hymers College. He enjoyed playing rugby, struggled with languages, but developed an interest in applied mathematics.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Hull was heavily bombed and the school was evacuated to Pocklington, outside York.

By the age of 15, Ralph had decided to follow a career in the aircraft industry and embarked on a five-year apprenticeship with the Blackburn aviation company. He started work in the fitters’ shop, moved to the welding research shop, and took night classes at Hull Municipal Technical College, where he studied technical drawing, mechanics and design.

After the end of his apprenticeship at Blackburn, he gained a diploma in aeronautics at University College Hull. He was then among the first intake of students at the newly created College of Aeronautics at Cranfield in Bedfordshire in 1946.

Although Hooper had several girlfriends, he was unlucky in love. At University College Hull, he courted one young woman whose father was a representative of the Civil Service Clerical Association, which sometimes clashed with Hooper’s father, who had become a senior manager at Hull Docks. “It was most unfortunate,” he said. He never married. Nor did his sister, Sheila, a botanist who became a notable curator at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in west London. She died in May last year.

A good-humoured man, Hooper enjoyed skiing and remained involved with the Hawker Association, which brought together former employees of the company, and the Brooklands motoring and aviation museum in Weybridge, Surrey.

At Cranfield, Hooper had learnt to glide and then fly. He went solo in a Tiger Moth after four hours and 20 minutes of tuition, “which is not a record”, he said, “but is quite good”. He later became a lifelong member of the Surrey Gliding Club and flew high- performance sailplanes. He believed that learning to fly benefited his work as an aircraft designer.

“Yes, I think it helps, even if it’s only fairly rudimentary stuff. You get used to the idea of what it feels like to pull a hard turn or to fly inverted. It just gives you a feel for the whole thing.”

Later, he said, “I was lucky enough to fly in the company’s products”, including the Harrier and the Hawk. “It’s a delight, I mean the controls are light and it’s not like using manual controls, and it does whatever you want. As one of the marines once said in respect of the Harrier, ‘It goes where you point it and the engine keeps running. Who could ask for anything more?’”

Ralph Hooper OBE, aeronautical engineer, was born on January 30, 1926. He died on December 12, 2022, aged 96
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Hooper
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#528 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:18 pm

My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

ROnnie Scott Part 1

#529 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Jan 27, 2023 4:45 pm

An Anglo Argentinian in the FAA. I find these personal stories fascinating.

Ronnie Scott 105 years old and still going.
Ronny Scott was one of more than 2,000 Argentine volunteers who joined the British forces in World War Two. Today, aged 105, he is among the oldest surviving Fleet Air Arm veteran pilots. But he still has a vivid memory of his aviation career.

Ronnie Scott.JPG

Ronny Scott was born in Villa Devoto, a western district of Buenos Aires, on 17 October 1917, to a former Scottish soldier and a British nurse who had emigrated to Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century. His father passed away circa 1922, when Ronny was still a child.

His first contact with aviation occurred in March 1931, when the Royal Navy’s HMS Eagle became the first aircraft carrier to visit Argentina. It arrived at Base Naval Puerto Belgrano on 25 February in support of the British Empire Exhibition, the aircraft of its three embarked flights having deployed to Campo Sarmiento airfield a week earlier. At the same time, the Prince of Wales — the future King Edward VIII — and his brother George were travelling through Peru, Chile and Argentina in a de Havilland Puss Moth, G-ABFV, landing at El Palomar air base near Buenos Aires on 13 March.

By then, Ronny was a member of the Hurlingham Club, close to El Palomar, where he played rugby and other sports. “One Saturday or Sunday”, Ronny recalls at his home in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Isidro, “I was watching a game of polo when one of the players came towards me at full gallop, stopped his horse with its hooves outstretched and looked at me. I looked back at him and it was Prince Edward. ‘I urgently need a tonic water’, he said. I replied, ‘Yes, sir’ and I fetched one with some lemon. At that moment his aide arrived. They exchanged a few words, he went back to his game and the aide told me, ‘There is an aircraft carrier, the Eagle, in Buenos Aires. Would you like to go and see it?’ I said yes, but I explained there was no way for my family to take me. He replied, ‘No, we’ll come and get you’, and they did.”

From that point on, Ronny was interested in naval aviation. It was an interest he maintained even though, when he finished school, he didn’t think of becoming a pilot. His plan was to work in farming and go to university to become a doctor or an architect, but his mother asked him to help her and her sister in the family home, so he stayed in Buenos Aires.

When war broke out, he wanted to enlist in the British forces, but it was not until May 1942 that he did so, now aged 24. “I went to the British embassy saying, ‘I’m a volunteer — I have an ambition to be a navy pilot’”. He was asked to improve his English first, and it was in March 1943 that Ronny embarked in the MV Highland Brigade, bound for the UK along with another 300 Argentineans and about 70 Chileans. In Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, the ship took on some 30 more passengers from each country. “At Rio”, says Ronny, “we also embarked two captains and 18 officers from two ships that had been torpedoed off the coast of Africa”. On the way he was asked to man one of the 20mm Oerlikon guns on the stern of the ship, despite having no relevant experience. They sailed to Bermuda and New York, where he wasn’t authorised to go ashore. The ship crossed the Atlantic as part of a convoy, arriving in Liverpool, from where Ronny travelled by bus to London. As he found he had to wait seven weeks, he went to Manchester to stay with an uncle.

“When I arrived back in London”, Ronny recalls, “I went to the Board of Trade. I went to the counter, and there was an 18- or 20-year-old girl. I said, ‘I’ve come from Argentina, I am a volunteer’. She looked at her books and said, ‘Ah, yes, you’re going to the army’. I told her, ‘I’m not going to the army. I’m going to the navy first and I’m going to see if I have the ability to be a pilot’. ‘No, here it says army’. I explained, ‘I’m not interested in the army at all’ and she said, ‘If you’re not back in 48 hours I’m going to have to inform the police that you’re a deserter’.

“I looked at her and asked, ‘Do you know where Argentina is?’ She had no idea. I said, ‘I have travelled for two months from Buenos Aires to get to London and I have papers saying I am a candidate to become a naval pilot. Tell me where the Fleet Air Arm office is’. She said, ‘It has to be near Trafalgar Square’”. Ronny went to Trafalgar Square and found a Royal Navy office, where he was met by a lieutenant who happened to have visited Argentina. He told Ronny to hang on a couple of weeks, after which he was sent to Portsmouth for three months of training.

His ambition to become a pilot finally attainable, Ronny made his way to Glasgow, where he boarded the Queen Mary to start his journey to Canada. It docked in New York, and he proceeded by train to Edmonton and then Goderich, Ontario, where No 12 Elementary Flying Training School was based. Run by the Kitchener-Waterloo Flying Club and the County of Huron Flying Club, it operated de Havilland DH82C Tiger Moths with blind flying kit. There, Ronny started flying on 17 November. His maiden solo came after 10 hours 25 minutes, on 2 December 1943.

The final exercise was a solo cross-country navigation to Kitchener, lasting two hours 20 minutes. “We were given the information and had to plan the flight on our own… We went from a church in one town to a church in another town, and when we came back to the field, at the end of the third leg, it began to snow. I was looking for reference points, but everything was white. There were 10 minutes left and I couldn’t make anything out… But I landed, and that was the end of my first 60 hours.”

By way of a brief period in Montreal, Ronny moved to No 31 Service Flying Training School at Kingston, Ontario, on 17 January 1944 for intermediate and advanced training on Noorduyn Harvard IIs. “There we did 60 hours or so, with instruments and everything. To get your wings you had to fire the gun, drop bombs, do night navigation and complete another triangular cross-country navigation, but this time they lowered the blind flying hood. You took off from point A, they lowered the hood and you couldn’t see out. Following your flight plan, you set course to point B, and from point B you returned to base. Only then did they lift the hood. That was the flying part — there was half a day of flying and half a day of theory.

“You also had to be able to identify the ships of five navies: German, Japanese, English, French and USA. Imagine a table […] with models of their ships, all well-built. You looked at them for no more than half a minute and you had to mark down more than 20 ships, saying what type, of which country, their speed, their weapons… It was the same with aeroplanes. They showed you half-light photos and if you failed, no matter how well you had flown, you were out.”

After six hours on type, Ronny soloed the Harvard on 24 January. Completing advanced training on 10 March, four days later he started the bombing and gunnery phase at the same base, including a lot of night and formation flying as well. This finished on 16 June, affording the time to hitch-hike with a friend to New York for a holiday. “We went back to Canada, and went from Gananoque, near Kingston, to Halifax. From there we left for England on a ship that was originally called Empress of Japan, but the ‘Japan’ was half-erased and they’d put Empress of Scotland.”

Once in the UK, he was commissioned at Bootle, sent to the Royal Naval College in Greenwich and thereafter to Scotland for refresher training on Harvard IIs, starting on 19 September, with the RAF’s No 9 (Pilot) Advanced Flying Unit at Errol. “We had not flown for three months”, remembers Ronny. “After that we went to Henstridge and flew Seafires”. But first he had to pass through the Naval Instrument Flying School and he flew his first twin, an Airspeed Oxford, on 17 October with 758 Squadron at RNAS Donibristle, Scotland. Ronny’s posting to 761 Squadron, part of No 2 Naval Fighter School at Henstridge, Somerset, came on 20 November, but before he could get his hands on its Spitfire Vs or Seafires he flew three sorties in a Miles Master II trainer. The big occasion arrived on 23 November 1944 when he completed his first trip in a Spitfire, followed the next day by a Seafire.

One memory of his time with 761 comes to mind. “Flying a Spitfire, I had to land at another airfield, and while waiting for them to put glycol in it an older lieutenant from our unit came over. He said, ‘How good, I’m going to be able to fly it back’. I told him, ‘No, […] I plan to fly it myself’. He didn’t like that because he was superior. And with that they sent me to 794 Squadron, which provided aerial gunnery targets.”

Otherwise known as the Naval Air Firing Unit, 794 was also part of No 2 Naval Air Fighter School, and Ronny joined its strength in December 1944. To learn the art of target-towing, during February 1945 he went to 772 Squadron, the Fleet Requirements Unit School, at Ayr. It was there he first flew the Fairey Swordfish and the Miles Martinet, as well as making two familiarisation sorties each on the Hawker Hurricane and Fairey Firefly. By the month’s end he was back with 794, stationed at St Merryn in Cornwall.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Ronnie Scott Part 2

#530 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Jan 27, 2023 4:48 pm

On 8 March 1945, Ronny had the most traumatic experience of his career. “It was in a Martinet, a very simple aeroplane. The engine failed, naturally when we were over the sea. I called the tower to say, ‘Mayday, I am ditching’… I touched down on the water in a three-point attitude. Behind me I had a gunner, who was part of the exercise, and I told him, ‘Open the hatch beneath your feet. Don’t hurry to get out — wait until we touch the water, because the harness is very good. The hatch is going to open’. He did just that, but when we struck the surface a column of water came into his cockpit and ejected him from the aeroplane.”

Ronnie Scott2.JPG

His pilot wasn’t much more fortunate, as the Martinet overturned. “Because of the shock I was unconscious for three or four seconds”, he recalls. “Despite the cold water, when I came to I realised I had my head on the pedals and I had to get out of there”. Ronny having sent a distress message to say he was ditching, No 282 Squadron, RAF received a report at 14.52hrs. The crew of Walrus I X9471, Flt Lt L. A. King, Fg Off H. W. Hall and Flt Lt R. J. Packer, was scrambled to search for the Martinet crew off Trevose Head. At 15.00hrs, they saw a Hellcat, a Martinet and a Stinson circling around a fluorescent patch and one survivor wearing a Mae West. The Walrus landed on the water two minutes later and taxied towards Ronny who was paddling towards some rocks, his face bleeding. Owing to the proximity of the rocks and the danger of a collision, the amphibian stood by while high-speed launch number 2641, which had also arrived on the scene, effected the rescue.

Airborne again at 15.10, the Walrus searched the area but nothing further was sighted. Ronny’s gunner, with the surname Fowler, was never found. After the war, ironically, X9571 was one of eight Walrus Is selected for sale to the Argentine Navy. “The water temperature was 3°C”, says Ronny. “I was shivering. I was taken to hospital, where they gave me a hot bath and put me in bed. The next day they told me, ‘You are fine’, so in the afternoon I got dressed, and a day after that I was back flying.”

Ronny kept on flying Martinets until the end of the war. In August 1945, after spending just one day on 725 Squadron, he was transferred to 718 Squadron at Ballyhalbert in Northern Ireland. There he had one flight in a de Havilland Dominie and, besides the Martinet, started to pilot the Stinson Reliant.

A more interesting experience began in January 1946 when Ronny was assigned to the Ferry Pool at Stretton, moving different types of aircraft between bases with No 2 Ferry Flight. The first of these was a Grumman Hellcat, followed by the likes of the Fairey Barracuda and Firefly, the Seafire Ib and XVII. “I once went to Oxford to ferry a Seafire 45, which had a 2,400hp engine and a five-blade propeller. I barely had to open up the throttle, because the rudder was so small. If you fed in too much power it would swing. And I couldn’t close the canopy because of the slipstream. The power was tremendous.”

Retiring from the Fleet Air Arm as a sub-lieutenant, in December 1946 Ronny returned to Argentina to work for a textile company, but soon he wanted to be back in the air. So it was that, during February 1948 he was taken on by Aeroposta Argentina, flying Douglas DC-3s. He joined Aerolíneas Argentinas when all the country’s airlines were merged to create it, going on to fly the DC-4 and DH Comet 4. Ronny’s career as a pilot ended in 1978 on the Boeing 747-200, retiring with more than 23,000 hours in his logbooks.

His story was shown to the British public for the first time in the 2021 film Buena Onda: The Tale of Ronny Scott, made by UK documentary-maker Alex Bescoby. That led to Vice Admiral Sir Adrian Johns of the Fleet Air Arm Officers Association to write to Ronny offering honorary membership and enclosing a Fleet Air Arm tie.

He was married to Marion for 64 years until her death in 2014. They have two sons, David and Roger, and three grandchildren. Ronny remains very active, even flying when he is invited to do so by fellow pilots.
https://www.key.aero/article/105-year-o ... -interview
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#531 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Jan 27, 2023 4:50 pm

I have posted this before but it is appropriate here I think.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

User avatar
CharlieOneSix
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5005
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 12:58 pm
Location: NE Scotland
Gender:
Age: 79

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#532 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sun Jan 29, 2023 10:20 pm

Just watched ‘The Warship - Tour of Duty’ episode 2 on BBC2. Filmed before the invasion of Ukraine on board the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Mediterranean with F35s operating in Syria and the Russians trying to stir up things with multiple ship and aircraft tactics against the carrier. An excellent programme with real tension.

I particularly liked the operational name ‘Poke The Bear’ for the transit of HMS Defender off Crimea. All quite enthralling stuff and it’s worth watching on iPlayer.
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
https://www.glenbervie-weather.org

Boac
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17209
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:12 pm
Location: Here

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#533 Post by Boac » Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:35 am


User avatar
FD2
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5110
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 10:11 pm
Location: New Zealand
Gender:
Age: 76

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#534 Post by FD2 » Wed Feb 01, 2023 6:06 pm

I hope Babcock get fined a lot of dosh for their quality control system failing to pick that up when it happened. Small bolts about 2" long for holding lagging over a pipe - it's a mystery why someone didn't just go and get some more from Stores when he/she broke/them it in the first place. Very strange.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#535 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:38 pm

FD2 wrote:
Wed Feb 01, 2023 6:06 pm
I hope Babcock get fined a lot of dosh for their quality control system failing to pick that up when it happened. Small bolts about 2" long for holding lagging over a pipe - it's a mystery why someone didn't just go and get some more from Stores when he/she broke/them it in the first place. Very strange.
Talk about a bodge, or should that be Bostik, job!
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#536 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:19 am

Another great image from the Navy Wings Newsletter.

NW2.JPG
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#537 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:51 am

There was an interesting link to this article in the Navy Wings news letter...

Collision1.JPG

At least they collided the enemy unlike the SA Navy in this case...

SS President Kruger
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

Boac
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17209
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:12 pm
Location: Here

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#538 Post by Boac » Fri Feb 03, 2023 3:15 pm

The Defence Select Committee have been told that the port shaft on HMS PoW has 'the same problem' as the starboard and is also being 'repaired' at Rosyth. Wrong sort of glue, perhaps?

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#539 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:23 pm

TheGreenAnger wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:51 am
There was an interesting link to this article in the Navy Wings news letter...
This article... https://navywings.org.uk/portfolio/collision
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

User avatar
FD2
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5110
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 10:11 pm
Location: New Zealand
Gender:
Age: 76

Re: Another Navy Wings article...

#540 Post by FD2 » Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:29 pm

The games played during the Cold War meant that our and the USN SSNs used to travel around and spy on their exercises as well as their harbour defences and other capabilities. When our boats were detected it frequently turned nasty as the Soviets were not shy of using real weapons to force subs to surface or worse.

In their turn they sent destroyers and no doubt some of their very antiquated (at the time) subs to spy on 'Western' exercises and facilities such as the Swedish archipelago and of course the various American fleets around the World and what was left of our rapidly shrinking fleet. There was always a Soviet AGI floating around the entrance to the Clyde hoping to gain intelligence about the comings and goings of the SSNs and of more interest to them, the Polaris equipped SSBNs. There have been a few very good books published lately about Western SSN adventures around the north of the Soviet Union and their attempts to station SSBN patrols close to the USA.

The carrier escort duty was a a dangerous business at night with just a radar screen and dimmed navigation lights as clues to what the carrier's movements and position actually were after the radio order had been given to re-orientate the screen for flying stations or to resume the original course and speed when flying was complete. Perhaps 6 escorts would have to make their way from their 'sector' at e.g. red 20 to red 60/ 4000x to 8000x (x = yards TGA) relative to the carrier round to the same sector after the carrier had maybe turned anything up to 180 degrees to allow flying to take place with the best relative wind.

The Soviets no doubt had their own copies of the NATO ATP (Allied Tactical Publication) through the espionage channels which were available to them at the time and besides trying to disrupt flying activities by forcing Rule of the Road incidents where they could lie about not seeing the signals and flags flying which showed that the carrier could not manoeuvre IAW the normal rules. Less belligerent Soviets would insert themselves into the carrier's screen and manoeuvre just as though they were part of the Group. Some were even very good at it. Sometimes they misjudged things and made fools of themselves but being good Russians they lied about the circumstances - just as we see all their lies about events in Ukraine.

Ark Royal collided with a Kotlin in the Med and one of their crewmen was thrown overboard. He was either picked up by the SAR helo or the seaboat but after a tot and medical check over was issued with clean dry overalls and some souvenirs and taken back to his ship. The Commissar had him stripped off on the quarterdeck in front of their crew to show how the man had disgraced himself by becoming a western stooge and lackey.

Other incidents were not so minor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne ... _collision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne ... _collision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(CG-26)

Post Reply