Sound Barrier
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I guess this is the right place to be if you want any info on any kind of aircraft, especially British ones. Spiteful and Seafang? I'd never heard of those before until it was mentioned here and after looking them up I found out that they were going to be the Spitfire's replacement, that is until the jets came along. Thanks guys, all of you are a gold mine of aviation information here.
Something else I didn't know, ME 262 was also a tail dragger originally. Learn something new everyday.
Gordon
Something else I didn't know, ME 262 was also a tail dragger originally. Learn something new everyday.
Gordon
Just my few penn'oth on the film 'Sound Barrier' and supersonic airliners chat nature of this thread..
Firstly, on the film - there was some nice footage of the Comet 1. One thing puzzled me, when the engines started in Cairo to bring back the Test Pilot and his Missus, they seemed to have used a cartridge like a gun firing. Was this the method used on the Ghosts? or, was it film-makers licence? (I do believe some early military jets used this method.)
Additionally, there seemed to be some footage filmed in an office looking down on the D.H. Hatfield Factory showing the Comet 1 production line with the interiors of the unfinished airframes illuminated for effect. Historically of archive interest to us British aviation enthusiasts...
Moving on to 'supersonic' airliners - I have never heard of the Trident going through mach 1 although, she had a high max operating cruise number. Maybe somebody in the know can enlighten us? The only high speed story involving this type I read was, of a Trident outpacing a squadron of Spanish Airforce F-86's in level flight.
Don't forget a BUA Standard VC10 went supersonic over South America and, was unruffled by the event, as to be flown straight back to Gatwick in passenger service.
Firstly, on the film - there was some nice footage of the Comet 1. One thing puzzled me, when the engines started in Cairo to bring back the Test Pilot and his Missus, they seemed to have used a cartridge like a gun firing. Was this the method used on the Ghosts? or, was it film-makers licence? (I do believe some early military jets used this method.)
Additionally, there seemed to be some footage filmed in an office looking down on the D.H. Hatfield Factory showing the Comet 1 production line with the interiors of the unfinished airframes illuminated for effect. Historically of archive interest to us British aviation enthusiasts...
Moving on to 'supersonic' airliners - I have never heard of the Trident going through mach 1 although, she had a high max operating cruise number. Maybe somebody in the know can enlighten us? The only high speed story involving this type I read was, of a Trident outpacing a squadron of Spanish Airforce F-86's in level flight.
Don't forget a BUA Standard VC10 went supersonic over South America and, was unruffled by the event, as to be flown straight back to Gatwick in passenger service.
- petermcleland
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Venoms used a cartridge start...The cartridge was about 10 inches tall and slightly tapered from about 4 inches diameter, made of brass and filled with something like cordite.crisso wrote: One thing puzzled me, when the engines started in Cairo to bring back the Test Pilot and his Missus, they seemed to have used a cartridge like a gun firing. Was this the method used on the Ghosts? or, was it film-makers licence? (I do believe some early military jets used this method.)
The bottom shot here shows the smoke as a Venom starts:-
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Updated 28/8/2007
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Updated 28/8/2007
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- petermcleland
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Can't remember what the F1 used but our FGA9s used AVPINDaveB wrote:A recent DVD I got on the Hunter showed that versions of these were cartridge start too :shock:
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Updated 28/8/2007
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Another point of interest in that photo...The two airman standing by the tail of the starting Venom...Their job was to remove the Astbestos Blanket that is draped over the leading edge of the tailplane (if you look carefully, you can see it hanging down between the booms). As soon as it was established that the aircraft had finished any "torching", those two chaps recovered the blanket :think: ...Don't know what "Elf 'n Saifdee" would think about that, these days :roll:
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Updated 28/8/2007
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I'm an Elf and Saifdee rep at our place.petermcleland wrote:Another point of interest in that photo...The two airman standing by the tail of the starting Venom...Their job was to remove the Astbestos Blanket that is draped over the leading edge of the tailplane (if you look carefully, you can see it hanging down between the booms). As soon as it was established that the aircraft had finished any "torching", those two chaps recovered the blanket :think: ...Don't know what "Elf 'n Saifdee" would think about that, these days :roll:
With it being a Classic aeroplane I'd put the two bods in "Fearnought" suits too .
Mark :-({|=
You could see him thinking "Bleedin'pilots,don't know nuffin.All glammer" He's probably right.
A/C.2 Webber,Manston,1941,First Light by Geoff Wellum.
A/C.2 Webber,Manston,1941,First Light by Geoff Wellum.
Dave is bang on here Paul.DaveB wrote:There is a history with the Seafang Paul as this came from the Spiteful. The Attacker had the Spiteful's wings, was the F.A.A's first frontline jet fighter and some 145 units were built. A speacial aircraft in FAA history
ATB
DaveB :tab:
The Attacker was the first jet-fighter(?) used by the Fleet.
Seafang wing on a rather tubby fuselage containing the rather corpulent
Rolls-Royce Nene cetrifugal engine.
The Spitful/Seafang series were the very last in the line of the Spitfire
design expression.
The Spiteful/Seafang series were designed to have a laminar flow wing
from the outset to try to stave off compressability.
The Navy liked the Seafang as did the RAF the Spiteful but as the jet engine promised such a quantum leap in performance neither adopted
the aircraft except for little more than service trials.
If you look closely at the Attacker you'll see that the jet-pipe is actually
angled to be level with the ground when the a/c is sitting on it's tail wheels
for the very reasons that you've touched on about hot jet efflux
singeing airfield(and deck) surfaces.
Mark :-({|=
You could see him thinking "Bleedin'pilots,don't know nuffin.All glammer" He's probably right.
A/C.2 Webber,Manston,1941,First Light by Geoff Wellum.
A/C.2 Webber,Manston,1941,First Light by Geoff Wellum.