Awesome indeed. We took our (then) baby son to an airshow at RAF Gaydon (now the home of Jaguar/Landrover and Aston Martin) in 1975. He screamed when the Vulcan went over, and I had to put my fingers in his ears!
Living on the flightpath for both Cambridge Airport (home of unusual maintenance contracts like RAF Tristars) and IWM Duxford, we get rather spoiled. Last week sitting in the garden it was the Red Arrows in full display mode, the week before it was the only B17 Flying Fortress in Europe, doing training circuits around my house.
Theo
Nah!, weren't the 'arraws 'twas this furrin lot;!...
On 08 Jun 2014, Harry Bloomfield grunted:
ITYF they called it a 'squadron' , but God yes. When I was a kid, in the late 60s me and my Dad were regulars at the annual RAF Finningley air display, and one of the highlights was the 'Vulcan scramble', when they'd all take off as if there'd been a 4-minute warning of nuclear attack. Unbelievable noise; smoke everywhere and the ground shaking beneath your feet.
When I still lived in that nekker the woods, it was a bit noisy one day, so I rushed out to see 29 Spits coming over in formation heading towards Duxford.
Yes the engines are those which were developed for concorde. I can remember standing there rather deaf and awe struck as that particular plane took off with its ring of jets squirting raw fuel into the exhaust and burning it and making clouds of black smoke, and yes the noise. I think the main reason that was retired was due to its anti social problems. I like the way that when something like burning fuel in the exhaust comes up its not given that name, its called reheat, which is somewhat of an understatement for such engines. Brian
Actually, no. Stealth only refers to their radar profile. Yes they can reduce the heat signature to some extent, but they still make a bloody racket. Brian
All we got here was lots of Dreamliner test flights last summer. Coming over at about 2000 feet.
The engines for the Vulcan were developed long before Concorde was even thought of. There was one Vulcan which was adapted as a test bed for Concorde engines, though, One engine on one side of the plane instead of the usual two. In the same way that there was a Shackelton with a Vulcan engine underneath the fuselage, flying out of Bitteswell in the 1950s.
charles scribbled...
It cost over a £1million for every bomb that hit the runway, when the fleet had the same bombs available for their aircraft, which were several thousand miles closer to the target. The operation was performed to wind up the RN, in an attempt to prove that aircraft carriers have no use. Looks like they won as we don't have any carriers now and all the aircraft the navy used have been scrapped.
You also had BA's A380 training flights last summer.
I went to one of those displays, and yes, it was something you would never forget.
The Lightning doing a low pass and rapid climb was another highlight.
I have been inside the Vulcan at Newark, and certainly wouldn't fancy 16 hours travelling backwards in those cramped conditions.
Chris
ditto.
We saw them last week on holiday over Falmouth. Doubly good because we didn't know it was on. Never seen them do a display live, before. Dead good, it was.
Er. We are building new ones.
Same here - but a different 'plane: cycling past the end of the runway at RAF Upper Heyford, a Merkinjet took off and went into full climb directly over me. For some daft 'reason', when I saw/heard it approaching I tried to get past the runway - stopping and covering my ears would have been far better.
Didn't the USAF refer to them as "aluminium overcast?.
harryagain scribbled...
One may not be built, if it is, it will be mothballed immediately. The second might be in service in 6 years time. So we would have been without a carrier for almost 10 years - they're not exactly vital to our defence are they?
Going back to the Falklands, we had 2 carriers and they were not used well. The admiral in charge was a prat. I've read a couple of books by harrier pilots and none have a good word for Woodward. His fuckups put pressure on the Navy afterwards.
Dennis Davis wrote in news:ln2f14$87p$1 @speranza.aioe.org:
Also - the in-flight refueling equipment had been removed some years earlier and the crew that flew the mission had not been trained in re- fueling until the mission was being prepared.
charles wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@charleshope.demon.co.uk:
Correct.(But I thought the Concorde Engine was under the bomb bay for flight testing) The Vulcan and the Victor were also used to carry our nuclear deterrant - the Blue Steel Missile. The missile (there were over 50 of them) carried a nuclear warhead. They were an air launced cruise missile with a guidance system that used valves (it predated the invention of the transistor)
Not sure I'd like that much noise. We get fast jets through here close enough to see the pilots at times. They are loud but up, past and gone in less than a minuet. Chinooks just make the windows rattle, Black Hawks nervous, having no real requirement to be streamlined, they just look like the killing machines they are.
display
Meh, it's OK I guess, the skill required is certainly not to be belittled but I'd like to seem 'em do it pushing the envelope of Typhoons or Tornados. Trouble is finding somewhere to do it or keeping sub-sonic. Look at the fuss that is made when an interceptor Typhoon is given permission to go super-sonic over land. B-)
Few years back three fighter jets had a dog fight over this area, now that was something to watch and listen to, didn't go super-sonic but flat out vertical climbs aren't quiet.
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