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The Tangmere The Tangmere Logbook Magazine of the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Autumn 2013 Neville Duke Record-breakers of 1953 • RAF Astra Cinemas Pictures from the Past • Pranging Vampires Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Trust Company Patron: The Duke of Richmond and Gordon Hon. President: Duncan Simpson, OBE Hon. Life Vice-President: Alan Bower Council of Trustees Chairman: Group Captain David Baron, OBE David Burleigh, MBE Reginald Byron David Coxon Dudley Hooley Ken Shepherd Phil Stokes Joyce Warren Officers of the Company Hon. Treasurer: Ken Shepherd Hon. Secretary: Joyce Warren Management Team Director: Dudley Hooley Curator: David Coxon General Manager and Chief Engineer: Phil Stokes Events Manager: David Burleigh, MBE Publicity Manager: Cherry Greveson Staffing Manager: Mike Wieland Treasurer: Ken Shepherd Shop Manager: Sheila Shepherd Registered in England and Wales as a Charity Charity Commission Registration Number 299327 Registered Office: Tangmere, near Chichester, West Sussex PO20 2ES, England Telephone: 01243 790090 Fax: 01243 789490 Website: www.tangmere-museum.org.uk E-mail: [email protected] 2 The Tangmere Logbook The Tangmere Logbook Magazine of the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Autumn 2013 The Record-breakers of 1953 4 Four World Air Speed Records are set in a remarkably busy year David Coxon Neville Duke as I Remember Him 8 An acquaintance with our late President David Baron Adventures of an RAF Cinema Projectionist 11 Chance encounters with Astra cinemas at home and abroad, and one with Ava Gardner Phil Dansie Pictures from My Father’s Album 19 . of some interesting historical moments Stan Hayter Operation Beef 23 How to provoke official displeasure by pranging yet another pampered Vampire Eric Mold From Our Archives . 26 Three famous photographs the pilots of “A” flight, 161 Squadron, in 1943 Letters, Notes, and Queries 28 Seafires on D-Day; More Vampire engine troubles; and Is it an Me210A or Me410? Published by the Society of Friends of the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum, Tangmere, near Chichester, West Sussex PO20 2ES, England Edited by Dr Reginald Byron, who may be contacted care of the Museum at the postal address given above, or by e-mail at [email protected] Copyright © 2013 by the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum Trust Company All rights reserved. ISSN 1756-0039 The first prototype Hawker Hunter, WB188, pictured before the record-attempt modifications were made The Record-breakers of 1953 David Coxon Sixty years ago, on 7 September 1953, Group Captain Hugh J. (“Willy”) Wil- Squadron Leader Neville Duke landed son over a three-kilometre course at back at RAF Tangmere having achieved Hearne Bay, Kent. The flight was led a world air speed record of 727.63 mph. by another group captain, E. M. The next day’s newspapers proclaimed (“Teddy”) Donaldson, who announced him to be the “Fastest Man on Earth”. his intention to the media to raise the He was not the only pilot to achieve record to at least 621 mph. Two other this description that year. pilots were posted to the flight to assist But, before we look at the speed Donaldson: Squadron Leader W. A. achievements of 1953, we need to go Waterton and Flight Lieutenant Neville back to the summer of 1946 when the Duke. Based at Tangmere, the attempt RAF re-formed the High Speed Flight was to be made over a 3 km course off to make an attempt on the world air the Sussex coast at Rustington, near speed record set the year before by Littlehampton. The flight was provided 4 The Tangmere Logbook with standard line-production Meteor de Havilland DH 110 being developed F4 aircraft with cleaned-up fuselages in the UK. and uprated Rolls-Royce Derwent en- However, the Americans were able gines. After a difficult summer waiting to prove convincingly that the F-86D’s for the weather conditions to improve, performance was no fluke and that its a break in the poor weather finally ar- performance possibilities were far from rived on Saturday 7 September and at being exhausted. On 16 July 1953, Lieu- 17.45 hours Donaldson took off from tenant Colonel William F. Barns, a Tangmere in EE549 to make the most of USAF test pilot on secondment to it. He landed back fourteen minutes North American Aviation, flying a pro- later having returned an average speed duction F-86D, achieved a new world of 615.78 mph over the course and a record of 715.69 mph. new world air speed record. The first to challenge Donaldson’s record was a Lockheed P-80R Shooting Star. On 19 June 1947 Colonel Albert Boyd, one of the USAF’s chief test pi- lots, became the first pilot to pass the 1,000 km/hour mark when he set a re- cord of 623.61 mph. This record was broken just over a year later, in August 1948, by Major Marion Carl USMC fly- ing a Douglas Skystreak research air- craft at a speed of 650.78 mph. In 1949 The North American F-86D was an all-weather version of the Sabre, with a radome nose. The Major Richard Johnson achieved 670.84 record-breaking example flown by William F. mph in a North American F-86A Sabre. Barns was F-86D-35-NA serial 51-6145. The Korean War interrupted any fur- ther American attempts to improve the In the early summer of 1953 the record. Hawker Aircraft Company believed On 19 November 1952, an unmodi- that its new Hunter aircraft could re- fied North American F-86D Sabre took gain the world air speed record for Brit- off from Thermal, California, and with ain and decided to modify the proto- representatives of the American Na- type aircraft WB188 for the attempt. tional Aeronautical Association and the Neville Duke, by then Hawker’s chief Fédération Aéronautique Internationale test pilot, would fly it. WB188 was fit- (FAI) present, flew over a measured ted with a streamlined “needle” nose, a course in the Salton Sea at an average of rounded front windscreen to the cock- 698.50 mph. The Salton Sea is a brack- pit and a Rolls-Royce reheat RA.7 (9,600 ish lake 15 miles wide by 35 miles long lb thrust) Avon engine. The aircraft some 235 feet below sea level in south- was painted a bright red to assist the ernmost California. The British aviation photographic time keepers from the industry considered this new record to National Physical Laboratory. be unfair because of the climatic differ- As it was Coronation year it was felt ences between California and Europe, that in spite of the climatic disadvan- particularly the temperature difference. tages the record attempt should be Also, the fact that the course was below made in Britain. The choice was the sea level gave an unfair advantage to established course already surveyed for the Sabre whose performance they the 1946 High Speed Flight attempts. claimed was no better than the Hawker The base chosen was again RAF Tang- Hunter, the Supermarine Swift and the mere but unlike the full RAF support in Autumn 2013 5 1946 of multiple course markers, air-sea lowed by a loud bang as the Hunter’s rescue Walrus and marine rescue craft port undercarriage door was forced with balloons flown at 300 feet to assist through the wing; this structural failure the pilot, the 1953 attempt only had caused the aircraft to invert and de- marker buoys to indicate the beginning scend. However, Duke managed to and end of the 3 km measured course. pull out of the dive 200 feet from the Assistance for the pilot was not a prob- sea and after diverting to Dunsfold was lem; as Neville Duke said afterwards, able to make a perfect two-wheel land- he had “. flown the course a couple of ing. hundred times already”. WB188 suffered only minimum All was ready by the end of August damage and after a lot of hard work the 1953 and on the 30th Neville Duke took repairs were completed and the Hunter off from Tangmere for the first record was ready to fly within a week. After attempt. Unfortunately, on the last of the attempt of 1 September the actual four practice runs the Avon engine be- record-breaking run was somewhat of gan to run intermittently after reheat an anticlimax. On 7 September Neville had been opened up and the attempt Duke was back at Tangmere after fif- was abandoned. The problem was teen minutes having achieved a mean found to be in the complex divided fuel average over the four runs of 727.63 system which supplied the engine si- mph; a new record. multaneously from two internal wing In the early 1950s, Hawker’s main tanks. The problem was solved by the competitor for the new RAF day inter- aircraft being flown initially on the tank ceptor aircraft contract was the Super- with the faster feed first, so that when marine Swift. The chief test pilot of reheat was put in both internal tanks Supermarine during the Swift’s devel- were full, giving balanced conditions. opment period was Mike Lithgow, who The next attempt was on 1 Septem- had joined the company in 1945 after ber when it was decided to take off at leaving the Royal Navy with the rank of dawn when calmer weather conditions lieutenant commander. Following were likely to be present. Shortly after Neville Duke’s success on 7 September take-off, as Duke switched on reheat, 1953 in the rival Hunter, Supermarine there was a surge of acceleration fol- was determined to prove its aircraft. Supermarine Swift WK198 being refuelled, September 1953 6 The Tangmere Logbook Recognising that high air tempera- perfectly — turbulence didn’t bother tures would assist in achieving greater me a bit — I feel fortunate to have been speeds, a team from Supermarine and able to make the run.” Verdin’s record the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farn- flight was the last ever to be made at borough, travelled out to RAF Idris, low level under FIA rules and the last Libya for an attempt on the record.
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