Odiham 1953

[Garry Russell]

Never see the likes of this again

A wave of 192 Meteors in the flypast :o

http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/nos10.html

Anyone on the forum involed in this?

Garry

[DaveB]

Good god Garry.. just look at the aircraft we had back in those days :o I suppose similar could be said of our Fleet to.. eg, we had one then! :-( Nice site ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Garry Russell]

It's hard nowadays to comprehend such numbers

Same as you mentioned the fleet..they could hold the fleet review in port with space to spare now.
:-(

Garry

[ianhind]

OFFTOPIC

Weird - I was checking my browser links yesterday and visited that site but missed that.

Used to be some Flightsim scenery there

[Kevin]

Anyone on the forum involved in this?

Well, my Dad flew in the leading formation (UAS Chipmunks - he was instructing at Hull UAS at the time). Apparently, each formation was given plus/minus 7 seconds :o on their timings at each "gate": if any formation failed to make their time, they were to abort. Aircraft formations originated from all over the country; for example the Chipmunks operated from White Waltham, while the Sunderlands came down from Scotland, yet all met their timing constraints for the flypast.

The formations consisted of more aircraft than the RAF has in total nowadays, and most consisted of a single type, represented by one aircraft from each Squadron. It was a much bigger Air Force in those days, and yet still smaller than in 1945.

There was a Midland Counties Publications book on the 1953 Royal Review produced a few years ago which had lots of photos and tried to identify every aircraft and crew participating; it's a good reference as a snapshot of the RAF of the time.

Kevin

[FlyTexas]

Simply amazing! Thanks for the additional info, Kevin.

Brian

[cstorey]

What I found fascinating was that the (parked) Shackletons appear to have been tailwheel aircraft at the time. Is this correct, and if so, when did they become tricycle u/c?

[Garry Russell]

Hi Chris

Only the MR3 Shackletons were nosewheel

The Mk.1 and Mk.2 were tailwheels and infact the tailwheel was the more common and they lasted well after the last of the Mk.3 had gone in AEW 2 form.

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.s ... entry=true

Garry

[DaveB]

Hi Chris,

The MR3's didn't start coming in until 3 or 4 years later. WR970's first flight was 2.9.55 but this aircraft crashed in '56.. second aircraft (WR971) first flight in '56.. so on and so forth ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Garry Russell]

Thanks Dave

I was just off looking for the dates but not had any luck so far

Garry