Great compilation! I was there as ground crew member of the Black Arrows of Treble One Squadron (also there 1947 and 1958) Happy daze so long ago and now I am almost 85!
Great days when we had proper industry and engineers.. We replaced all our greatness with ''injury lawers'' and payday loan sharks.. very sad to see what 'Britain' is now. But at least with footage like this, future generations can see that we were once a great nation albeit a long time ago. A lot of the development we pioneered back then has benefited other countries who still build aircraft.. thanks for posting..
Blimey, that was a memory jogger!! Wish Airshows were like that today - all British with planes flying at 50 feet at ridiculous speeds. Glad I am pre-H & S and can remember those displays!!!
Wow, thanks for posting this took me right back to my childhood where we went to the Farnborough air show every year, in fact many of the aircraft in the film were what I remembered seeing but even today the EE Lightning is still remembered head and shoulders above all others.
Better not. Don't you know that's racist and white supremacist? If you are of European descent, your duty if to feel guilt for your ancestry and work to atone for the wrongs they worked on the rest of the world. Your duty is to sacrifice all you can to "minorities" and try to cleanse the guilt of your white ancestry from your soul. It's the new religion these days. Has a built in guilt complex, original sin, atonement, salvation, everything.
I was there that year, also '60 and '61, as my father made gyroscopes for the inertial navigation of the Blue Steel stand-off nuclear bomb for the Vulcans. It was a time i will never forget, a time when Britain was still in division one of STEM ( science, technology, engineering ,maths) , how did we lose our way?
Roger Hudson my dad was in ‘division 1’ of STEM in those days (and had been since 1939), numerous of his colleagues joined ‘the brain drain’ overseas because our country seemed to value them so little.
Good old British built aircraft, Comet, Hunter, Victor, Vulcan, Buccaneer, Lightning - those were the days! Today we build aircraft jointly with other nations and they are years late and millions over budget!
Boy! Watching the English Electric Lightnings in their day was truly amazing. Faster than any US or Russian fighters of the same period and most of those that followed. During demonstrations in front of leading airmen from both those nations the Lightnings always drew applause. During a test interception involving a Concord passing over a gathering of multi-national fighters at full speed the Lightning was the ONLY interceptor ( from a standing start ) that not only caught up with Concord, it overtook it! A fairly recent renovator of a Lightning trainer had to get special permission just to take off once in a blue moon. The plane being so fast it showed up as an UFO!
Unfortunately it could only carry two missiles and because of it's nose intake was limited to a tiny radar dish. In the meantime the French cleaned up the export market with their simpler but much more versatile Mirage III.
@John Buick I do not know about the 106 but I found this on wiki: Hale also participated in time-to-height and acceleration trials against Lockheed F-104 Starfighters from Aalborg. He reports that the Lightnings won all races easily with the exception of the low-level supersonic acceleration, which was a "dead heat". Lightning pilot and Chief Examiner Brian Carroll reported taking a Lightning F.53 up to 87,300 feet (26,600 m) over Saudi Arabia at which level "Earth curvature was visible and the sky was quite dark", noting that control-wise "[it was] on a knife edge". Brian Carroll compared the Lightning and the F-15C Eagle, having flown both aircraft, stating that: "Acceleration in both was impressive, you have all seen the Lightning leap away once brakes are released, the Eagle was almost as good, and climb speed was rapidly achieved. Takeoff roll is between 2,000 and 3,000 ft [610 and 910 m], depending upon military or maximum afterburner-powered takeoff. The Lightning was quicker off the ground, reaching 50 ft [15 m] height in a horizontal distance of 1,630 ft [500 m]". Chief test pilot for the Lightning Roland Beamont, who also flew most of the "Century Series" US aircraft, stated his opinion that nothing at that time had the inherent stability, control and docile handling characteristics of the Lightning throughout the full flight envelope. The turn performance and buffet boundaries of the Lightning were well in advance of anything known to him.
@John Buick first of all the TWR of the Lightning was far higher. It had a higher service cealing, higher top speed. It was more agile as the roll rate was excessively violent and unlike in the wiki its RoC is not 100 m/s but 256m/s or 50,000ft in a minute. That RoC is so insane it took a modified F15 eagle to beat it. The Lightning would have demolished the F104 "widowmaker" and the horrible Delta Dart as the Lightning was head and shoulders above them in capability. So much so it was the only jet at the time that could Supercruise. Neither the Americans or Russuans could achieve it.
That's a load of crap. I love the Lighting, but what you are talking about is the myth, not the reality. As the fellow says, the F-104 and F-106 were both close matches in performance (and the F-106 had far more range, better radar, more weapons, better C-and-C equipment). The F-104 was far smaller, lighter and cheaper. If you want to go by the metric that the plane that could climb the fastest is the "best", go ahead (I don't admit that it was, but I won't argue it), but others would argue that that's only part of the argument. The LIghtning was large, heavy, expensive, hard to work on, had terrible range and endurance, poorly armed with only two quite marginal missiles. The F-104 could at least come pretty close to in in all categories, except being far smaller and cheaper. But the F-4 WAS faster and better than the Lightning all around, and it is basically a contemporary. Of course the Lighting was fast; anyone can strap two of the largest engines they can fit to something with wings and make it climb pretty fast. The hard part is doing it in the most efficient, effective way, and that the Lightning was not. Remember, I say this as a loving fan of the Lightning. I think it's a wonderfully interesting, charismatic, impressive plane. But it was not some magicaly world-beater that wasn't given it's fair day in court. It was an experimental Mach 2 plane that they tried to hang missiles on and use as an interceptor. As for your anecdotes, so the nation flying the Concorde has it's newest fighter out along with a bunch of older slower fighters. The new fighter accelerates and leaves the old fighters behind (shocking!) and even leaves the Concorde behind! First, the Concorde was not designed to accelerate quickly. It's designed for efficient Mach 2 cruising. So the Lightning can out accelerate the Concorde: so what? How LONG can the Lightning keep those reheaters lit up? 15 minutes, maybe? If he has an airfield right below to glide into. But anyway, who says the Concorde was TRYING to keep up? Who says they didn't tell the pilots to let the Lightning win? Anecdotes are almost worthless for telling you anything of real value. As for the "UFO story, again, ridiculous. IF a civilian Lightning was allowed to fly at Mach 2 and had a place to do it in where he was close enough to fuel, and wasn't over land where it's not allowed, it doesn't show up "as a UFO". That's typical hypperbole and exaggeration. What you are saying is a intentionally misleading way of saying "when the Lighting flew, they had to speak with Air Traffic Control first, because the speed of their plane was above the threshold of common private jets, and in the area associated with military jets. If the Lighting took off for a flight without telling ATC about it first, their radar would notice a jet flying at a much higher speed than a normal private plane, and it would trigger an automatic warning that there is a potential breach of airspace by a foreign military aircraft, which in turn would trigger an interception by the RAF. They get nervous when they see a plane cruising around Britain as Mach 1.2, while all the other traffic is cruising at Mach ,6-.7. Any unknown radar return that needs to be verified is classified as an "Unknown Flying Object" until the interceptors can close with it and verify its identity. This is your misleading claim that "it's so fast that they mistake if for a UFO". It's a military jet and flies like a military jet, and so ATC needs to be specially informed of when and where it will be flying beforehand. It's that simple. They'd have to do the same with any supersonic aircraft likely to be flying faster than average commercial planes. They obviously cannot ignore a plane flying like a strike fighter by assuming "well, it's probably just some guy out flying around in his surplus military jet, let's ignore it this time".
@ 2:26 minutes the crowd sitting on the hill to watch the display couldn’t do that now, the Farnborough organisers and airport owners took the hill right down so that watching the displays couldn’t be seen very well, they also put screens up on the boundary fencing so you can’t see into the airport at all, unless you had a ticket you weren’t going to see anything much at all, but they still expect us to put up with the traffic chaos and noise, any financial benefit to the area doesn’t get to the people who live locally and we can’t buy a discounted ticket anymore, in fact nobody outside the aviation industry and invited guests can get in, that’s how great Farnborough airshow is today, it just grates on us.
Little did those watching this spectacle realise they were witnessing the high watermark of British aviation achievement. The inspired designs shear engineering brilliance of those days have passed into the mists of time.
During a multi national interceptor trial which did include fighters from a large number of countries including the USA. Concorde was flying over at maximum speed. The fighters were required from a standing start to try to catch up with her. The Lightning was not only the only one to catch Concorde it actually over took it! At a display at an American airbase some Lightnings performed their near vertical take off lifting their noses straight up and roaring to intercept positions. The US top brass present were lost for words and without prompt applauded the display and yes I have personally witnessed this type of Lightning take off!
We were in a league of our own before and after ww2. We developed and sold aircraft and helicopter's to the world's air forces.. Where did it all go ? Very sad....
No. There is no such thing. Every person has their own preferences. The Vulcan is right up there on the list, and it's certainly UNIQUE looking. I don't choose "favorites", but the B-58 is a good candidate. The F-104 is another. It's really limitless though, since there is no real definition of what "cool" looks like. It could be ugly as hell and still be "cool looking".
I Was eleven remembering these air shows in 1959! We went too Oregon air force base an chased off with jeep mounted 50cal machine gun! Finding out air show was scheduled for next day, oops! Looking down barrel of 50cal, as eleven year old!
@edj66 Strange really since the US Marines now use the Boeing V22 Osprey which can only carry half the payload - sure it is about 80 knots faster but it took many years to develop and the Rotodyne was 50 years earlier!
Pissed away to pay for a bunch of whinging lay abouts and to pay for ever increasing Diversity (aka replacement of actual Brits with people who will never be British, regardless of their accent). Fucking shame.
I believe this is a bit after that period (and actually, it was only in Britain that to be called British was the highest compliment. Most of the rest of the world would be pleased to disagree with you on that score. Britains were respected as powerful and wealthy, stubborn and arrogant island eccentrics. Anyway, that was in the 1800s, after they defeated Napoleon (with a lot of help). By the 1900's they were in decline heavily. WWII destroyed what was left of their power base, and by the 1950s it was clear that the US was the premier world power. Britain was treated with gloves due to her past position, but in reality she was far below the US in power, wealth, influence by that point, and the writing was on the wall. I suppose in some ways you should be happy; it could have ended up a lot worse. Although personally I'd be angry if my entire culture and way of life as being threatened by huge crowds of people moving in, and I was told I didn't have any CHOICE, and that we couldn't prevent it if we wanted to. Bullcrap we can't: we WON'T, because it's good for those in power.
@zhotdune The Gnat first flew at Farnborough in 1959 and became the RAFs Advanced trainer. The Red Arrows were established in 1964 as a dedicated display team to promote the RAF taking pilots from numerous squadrons - usually on a 3 year tour - they switched the the Hawk in 1979. The previous "Black Arrows" were a front line squadron who also practised aerobatics in a squadron formation - they were not a dedicated aerobatics team/squadron
+bobst657 thank our "allies" from the U.S for the destruction of the British military aircraft industry ,through their greed, jealousy and insecurity .....hand in hand with the supposed leaders of the country at the time....what a waste and what a betrayal .........marty
+george385 absolutely ...I was referring here to British politicians , not to mention inter -service rivalries and sabotage by Lord Mountbatten himself. and I have in mind the filthy dealings of the Lockheed corporation...............marty
2:02 Avro Vulcan B. Mk.2 XH536 of the RAF Cottesmore Wing, flew into Fan Bwlch Chwyth in the Brecon Beacons on the 11th February 1966 while on a training flight. The aircraft struck near the top of the hill and broke apart over a large area, All died.
ted thanks for your reply.did we start off with 4 from uk only one went the full distance and dropped its pay load and returned home.the others pulled out on rout with problems. i do take my hat off to all the crews and tanker drivers that kept them fueled .
That's _en route_ , or I assume that's what you were trying to say. Unless you were just trying for the less-common English "on route" and just mistyped it.
I still glow with pride at our aircraft industry of the 50's. When you take a leap forward just see how many of the great ideas in aircraft technology is in use to day by other countries. But sady we dont make any aircraft ourselves now thanks to past and present governments in particular Labour and now the Conservatives.
Easy to blame governments for this, and they are partly responsible; but the real problem was the British workforce. Trade union disputes, poor management, lack of investment and the wrong attitude and philosophy to manufacturing led to the demise of British Industry. We blame Thatcher for it, but actually she was one of the few leaders who tried to modernise British Industry. The real damage was done by those who came after, in particular Tony Blair, who pursued the dangerous fantasy of Britain as "knowledge-economy".
@kolbpilot Not really - since this aircraft had dedicated uplift engines. The Kestrel was the precursor to the Harrier making use of a single engine and using vectored thrust.
It was in a way, it convinced them that nothing could come from using separate lift and propulsion engines and set them on the road to the Pegasus engine.
The rest of the world caught up. Post-war British industry did not compete, but chose instead a downward spiral of trade union disputes, lack of quality, poor management and generally the wrong attitude and philosophy to manufacturing. Both Germany and Japan never had this problem.
JasonJason210. _____ Germany and Japan were forbidden from pissing away billions on defence. They were kept in their box because of the war so devoted their manufacturing energies into making cars and ships and electronic goods instead. If you want a successful economy, start a war then lose it. Everyone then gives you shitloads of cash.
Ha, ha. Complete and baseless exaggeration is ALWAYS funny, right? Because you know those Comets, hardly a day went by when one didn't just explode without warning, and I believe it's said that not a single aircraft that left the factory survived as long as retirement without crashing. I think that's what it said. Or maybe it was that two of them suffered structural failure out of the 12 Comet 1s built, and the many dozens of the Comets went on to serve for decades with a commendable service record. But I might be wrong. I guess it's funnier to say they all crashed, so lets just go with that. Who needs truth?
i may be wrong but did we send 4 vulcan bombers to the falklands and 1 made it.my washing machine has a 5 year guarantee ? how many has a vulcan.X.R.N.
I blame it on the politicians, CEOs, shareholders, Unions. Each played their part in 'giving it away' because us British stopped being proud of what we have and became all about personal gain - greedy, selfish. But we are still world leaders when it comes to inventiveness. Stop your kids wasting their lives in front of TV's and computer games. Get them making, drawing, climbing trees - play with them. Anything is possible. Stop your moping and complaining - compete. And don't be greedy.
Bit of info on the Vulcan- XH538 Delivered: September 1959 Notes: Olympus 201 engines. Used for trials before going to Scampton, then onto Waddington. Finally sent to St. Athan and scrapped August 1981.
It seems in many ways, that the future must depend on history and the past. In order to prevent repeating the same mistakes in history. And, as a Canadian, I call for AVRO Co. to be revived, so as Canada may show the World what a Canadian Interceptor performs and looks like ;) Long Live the UK ! I celebrate British tenacity with this brilliant film.
3:45 So they were speeding up film of jets back then too. Interesting. They realized that jets don't LOOK fast enough on film, so they just speed it up a little to make the film "better reflect reality". There is no way that Comet 4 is really landing at that speed.
@xcaibur 1960's Labour Government - massive defence cuts including cancelling of the TSR2 which would still have been a world leader well into the 1980's
We went wrong in several ways(1)the labour government of the time dramatically reduced aviation funding(2)Unions-same problem as today,everyone can design,build&manufacture cheaper than us cos of the worker demands on employers(3)Comet crash gave boeing the info and time to catch up &overtake the comet program(4)we didnt react quick enough to competition-us brits love to pat ourselves on the back in self congratulation on how great we are,too much of that went on back then & we got left behind
3:00 Keep it together, man. Keep it together! I feel sad that this design failed so badly. It is by far the most beautiful airliner aver made. I wonder if this design had succeeded and the Boeing design had failed if airliners today would have their engines buried in the wing roots (like in this plane) rather than hung under the wing, like in the Boeing 707.
+Eric Taylor I think Boeing succeeded thanks to Comet’s demise. De Havilland was the very first in the field of jet powered passenger aircraft and had no data to relate to when designing the Comet. Then, when the pressurized cabins failed, dH had to investigate and find ways to prevent further mishaps. Boeing learned from the results and was able to design a fuselage that could better cope with the forces acting on it. THE American forte is mass Production, so they were able to produce (the same) goods at lower prices and constant quality (remember the Merlin, designed and built by Rolls-Royce, licenced by Packard. The latter had a much longer TBO) This, combined with the lessons learned, made the 707 such a success. Apart from that, Boeing had gained heaps of experience with jet engines suspended underwing. Just think of the B-47 and B-52 bombers that featured this engine arrangement. Concept-wise the only bonus of the engines in the wing was that they generated less drag. Maintenance however was much more cumbersome, jet pipes had to be longer, meaning less engine efficiency, there would be less room for fuel, the wing structure had to be stronger, thus heavier, to withstand the forces otherwise evened out by the underwing engines’ weight.So, much as I like the Comet, even if it had been successful, I think de Havilland would not have used engines buried in the wing roots when designing a successor to the Comet.
omepeet2006 Basically you had the Comet and the 707 come out at more or less the same time. Because the Comet failed so spectacularly every airline design after that was more or less based off the 707. I agree, but both De Havilland and Boeing were well known by then for their very good airplane designs, both in civil and military. If they had just used round windows...
+Eric Taylor Actually there were 5 years between the maiden flights of the Comet and the 707 (27 July 1949 vs 12 July 1954). The dates of them entering service were even further apart (2 May 1952 vs October 1958). Back then a five-year span meant a quantum leap in aviation. What eventually probably killed the Comet - even if the fatalities wouldn’t have happened - was its narrow fuselage. With only 4 seats abreast the passenger capacity was limited. Douglas was first to design a wider fuselage, making 5 abreast possible. Upon learning this, Boeing decided to redesign its fuselage, making 6 abreast possible. Douglas was already too far advanced in tooling up for production to redesign its DC-8, so had to settle for 5 abreast. According to de Havilland's chief test pilot John Cunningham, who had flown the prototype's first flight, representatives from American manufacturers such as Boeing and Douglas privately disclosed that if de Havilland had not experienced the Comet's pressurisation problems first, it would have happened to them. Another very similar aircraft was the Convair 600, later renamed in Convair 880. This aircraft was slightly smaller than the 707 and the DC-8, and tried to win customers by offering a higher speed. One might be tempted to say that four jet engines suspended from swept wings were more or less the standard for passenger aircraft. The round windows were introduced on the Comet Mk. 2, as were the Avon engines. Now what would have happened if the Comet had a 5 abreast configuration and / or Conway engines..? Speaking of good aeroplane designs, the last design by de Havilland, the DH.125, was being produced till 2013, albeit under a different name and with numerous updates. No mean feat for an aircraft that first flew in 1962…
omepeet2006 Thanks for that! Sometimes it's easy to forget how much time went by between two events, especially if those are repetitively close together. "Nearly the same time" might apply to say the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A380, but there hasn't been much advancement (relatively speaking) as compared to the advances made in the late 40's through the 60's. Might say the same thing about computers in another 60 years. I got a 1TB hard drive about 2 years ago. It was HUGE at the time. Now I can get a 4TB drive for LESS than I paid for the 1TB drive 2 years ago. In 60 years you'd say these two drive came out at the same time, while they use their, while they laugh at such a puny amount of memory. From your picture I'm guessing you're old enough to remember when a 1.5MB floppy disk was "huge".
+Eric Taylor Whoa yeah, the floppy disk… 1,44 MB was heaps back then. And before that you had 5,25” floppies of 360 kB if my memory serves me well. And my first PC had a true King-size HDD: 7GB! Don’t think we’ll have hard drives in 60 years anymore. At least I won’t; I’ll be 118 by then. Most, if not all, of the data will be stored ‘in the cloud’ by then, methinks. Back to the aircraft then. One of the best features of the 707 was its flexibility. Its basic fuselage was used in the 707, 720, 727, 737 and even the 757. The latter was succeeded by the 767, which was essentially a wide-bodied version of the 757. The 767 eventually gave way to the 777, which was really not much more than an update; glass cockpit, improved avionics and new, more efficient, engines. Nothing revolutionary really. The next step forward was the 787 Dreamliner with its extended use of composite materials. A step forward indeed, no longer leaps like in the 1950s. The basic concept of the intercontinental passenger aircraft has evolved from four-engined planes to twin-engined ones. Engines have become so immensely powerful and reliable that a twin will get you across the Pacific without any problem. On top of that they’ve become very efficient with fuel and the noise levels have gone down dramatically. To achieve this the size and shape of the jet engine has changed from the slender turbo-jet of the 1950s and early 1960s to the leviathans of these days. (Imagine a modern jet engine in a ‘buried-in-wing’ configuration…) It seems nowadays the airport is the limiting factor for aircraft design. It gets harder to use an unorthodox size or shape. Hence the advent of the A380: twice the amount of passengers in an aeroplane that is hardly longer or has a greater span than a 747.
cioneach What you are referring to was the flying tail/elevator, but nice try look at the Curtis XP55 Accenders elevator, a flying tail/elevator when all of the elevator moves rather than just the back half ! ! ! this was an American expermental plane of 1940.....Before the Brits had it...
Well that makes things even: because I wonder how long it would have taken the US to develop fighter jets if the 1945 labour government had not given them the secret of the movable tail-lane?
Dickus...The USA already had the flying tail in 1940, like I said the XP 55 had it and the USA sure didn't need the Brits help in developing Jet fighter aircraft RE F80 F84 F86, swept wing with USA developed Axial flow Jet engine J35 J47 certainly better than the British Meteror and the B47 B49 and The B52...need I go on....wheres the British help????
Wilbur Finnigan Then why was the main US fighter contribution the P51 and even then with a RR Merlin engine built under licence. The only US jet contribution was the Lockheed P80 Shooting Star and only then from January 1945 onwards. Next we shall be hearing how the US cracked the Enigma code as the film suggests. Just as well you had a german to get you to the moon.
Dickus The Brits came to the USA to BUY the Rolls Royce engine that they WANTED Packard to build BECAUSE RR COULD NOT build them fast enough...also the Brits needed planes and wanted North American to build the P40 but Dutch Kindelburger had a BETTER design in mind and due to circumstances the Brits gave him the OPPORTUNITY to build the Mustang..It was still US designed and the Merlin was used because the Brits wanted it first,When the USAAF needed a long range escort fighter the Mustang was the ONLY fighter that had the range to escort the bombers. .it was US engineered and built as was the Merlin RE ENGINERED and BUILT in the USA...Where was all this supposed Brit "assistance" in developing the J35 the J47 the J79 Axial flow jet engine that GE/Allison developed or the F80 the F84 the F89 and the Swept wing F86 ALL with the GE /Allison Axial flow jets??? Brits were still trying to get the Meterite to fly and not explode....Remember too the B45 the B47 the B52 state of the Art JET bombers that the Brits had no equal to....and OOOHH where is your aviation industry today...building a few parts for the Scarebus...real "great" aviation industries....yeah right....
Wilbur Finnigan That's what we like about our big ally across the pond, nothing is ever understated. We failing Brits watch with interest as you leave us behind to compete with a much more worthy opponent, the ancient civilisation of China across the Pacific. On a historical note I can understand the US angst at the Brits as it was a traitor in the Royal Navy who trained the Japanese navy to fly aircraft off aircraft carriers in the 1920s and 30s. Perhaps we were partly responsible for Pearl Harbour.
I didn't see anyone get killed. They used to do this all the time, and it was rarely a problem. If something happened, they figured A. it was your responsibility, B. shit happens, it's not the end of the world. They just lived through WWII and people dying by the millions, it wasn't time to stop the presses because some people died. Then we became obsessed with "safety culture" and how it's our duty to spend most of our time, money and effort making everything proof against the stupidest of people. We need to save everyone from themselves, and if some Official Organization somehow fails to foresee every possible eventuality and provide for it, and someone dies, they'd better be ready to pay out tens of millions in lawsuits. Meanwhile, a hundred people are killed every day in car accidents in the US. But that's not NEWS. A guy getting killed because no one stopped him from climbing over the fence onto the tarmac and trying to stand behind a 747 running its engines up: that's news; fake news, really. A lot of bullshit about how the airport ought to have done more, should have prevented him from getting there at all, even if it meant hiring twice as many guards...just in CASE, you know? And memorializing the dead man as if he was a great loss to the world, and dead only because of the negligence and calousness.....or at least incompetence...of the airport officials.
Scooter George That's the melancholic thing. Even if they had spotted the problems way in advance, it was just too small. We needed something like the Trident, but larger, longer-legged, and a couple of years earlier.
Ashley Pomeroy And it needed more power. Had the RR Avon been available the Comet could have been larger and built with more structural strength. But Dehavilland not only wanted to be first with a jet airliner, they wanted to do it with their own engines.
+Scooter George In fact Scooter and Ashley,Vickers did design and start building a prototype in 1953 the V1000/VC7 for the RAF and BOAC.It was based on the Valiant bomber had six abreast seating and was to be fitted with RR Conway engines,more powerful and fuel efficient than on the 707 and DC8.But it was cancelled in 1955, BOAC bought American!It makes me think something underhand was going on.
Eric Taylor Inboard engines make for a very stable flying platform...the plane is empty and at an airshow..it'll be 'tossed' around somewhat as part of the show
spottydog4477 Pretty cool video overall. To think more time has past from when this was made to now than from the Wright brother's first flight to when this was made.
If time travel ever gets invented, can someone stop in 2020 and pick me up on the way to this day and place in 1959? I promise I won’t scare anyone by mentioning how “advanced” we’ve become.....you know, gluten free, Starbucks, Trump etc
check out the Vulcan-that is on three engines.No smoke from the number 3.Also after the low pass the go-around is def on three.All turns are to the two live engines-was that pilot displaying it no-matter-what?
![[4K] Awesome: Many Fighter jets LOUD take off - NATO exercise "Air Defender 2023"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZAqSEiQvGkM/mqdefault.jpg)
Great compilation! I was there as ground crew member of the Black Arrows of Treble One Squadron (also there 1947 and 1958) Happy daze so long ago and now I am almost 85!
Sadly, the Vulcan shown here XH536, crashed in 1966 whilst on training, killing all the crew. May they rest in peace.
Great days when we had proper industry and engineers.. We replaced all our greatness with ''injury lawers'' and payday loan sharks.. very sad to see what 'Britain' is now. But at least with footage like this, future generations can see that we were once a great nation albeit a long time ago. A lot of the development we pioneered back then has benefited other countries who still build aircraft.. thanks for posting..
We still are a great nation. It's just we've got to look a bit harder to see it, that's all ;-)
Brits spent their money on things no other nation wanted! Verily a great nation!
1/01/2020, 61 years after this was filmed and they still take your breath away!
The black arrows before the red arrows, amazing 👏 😍
Blimey, that was a memory jogger!! Wish Airshows were like that today - all British with planes flying at 50 feet at ridiculous speeds. Glad I am pre-H & S and can remember those displays!!!
Think about this: More time has passed between when this was made and now than when this was made and the Wright Brothers flight.
Glorious time of stagnation ...
Wow, thanks for posting this took me right back to my childhood where we went to the Farnborough air show every year, in fact many of the aircraft in the film were what I remembered seeing but even today the EE Lightning is still remembered head and shoulders above all others.
I love this. Thanks. The DH Comet was a the most beautiful airliner ever.
Glad to find this video - I was there, aged eight . . . .
At least we can be proud of our history.
Better not. Don't you know that's racist and white supremacist? If you are of European descent, your duty if to feel guilt for your ancestry and work to atone for the wrongs they worked on the rest of the world. Your duty is to sacrifice all you can to "minorities" and try to cleanse the guilt of your white ancestry from your soul.
It's the new religion these days. Has a built in guilt complex, original sin, atonement, salvation, everything.
Until the liberals revise it and put a negative spin on everything.
Very very interesting. The british aircrafts always had their own standing in aviation history (like them very much). Thanks for sharing!!!
I was there that year, also '60 and '61, as my father made gyroscopes for the inertial navigation of the Blue Steel stand-off nuclear bomb for the Vulcans.
It was a time i will never forget, a time when Britain was still in division one of STEM ( science, technology, engineering ,maths) , how did we lose our way?
Roger Hudson my dad was in ‘division 1’ of STEM in those days (and had been since 1939), numerous of his colleagues joined ‘the brain drain’ overseas because our country seemed to value them so little.
Margaret Tatcher distroed GB and transformed into UK
Oh the wonderful memories. Thank you! :)
HMM, EXCELLENT TO WATCH. FARNBOROUGH AIRSHOW 1959. THUMBS UP.
Good old British built aircraft, Comet, Hunter, Victor, Vulcan, Buccaneer, Lightning - those were the days!
Today we build aircraft jointly with other nations and they are years late and millions over budget!
Boy! Watching the English Electric Lightnings in their day was truly amazing. Faster than any US or Russian fighters of the same period and most of those that followed. During demonstrations in front of leading airmen from both those nations the Lightnings always drew applause. During a test interception involving a Concord passing over a gathering of multi-national fighters at full speed the Lightning was the ONLY interceptor ( from a standing start ) that not only caught up with Concord, it overtook it! A fairly recent renovator of a Lightning trainer had to get special permission just to take off once in a blue moon. The plane being so fast it showed up as an UFO!
Unfortunately it could only carry two missiles and because of it's nose intake was limited to a tiny radar dish. In the meantime the French cleaned up the export market with their simpler but much more versatile Mirage III.
@John Buick I do not know about the 106 but I found this on wiki:
Hale also participated in time-to-height and acceleration trials against Lockheed F-104 Starfighters from Aalborg. He reports that the Lightnings won all races easily with the exception of the low-level supersonic acceleration, which was a "dead heat". Lightning pilot and Chief Examiner Brian Carroll reported taking a Lightning F.53 up to 87,300 feet (26,600 m) over Saudi Arabia at which level "Earth curvature was visible and the sky was quite dark", noting that control-wise "[it was] on a knife edge".
Brian Carroll compared the Lightning and the F-15C Eagle, having flown both aircraft, stating that: "Acceleration in both was impressive, you have all seen the Lightning leap away once brakes are released, the Eagle was almost as good, and climb speed was rapidly achieved. Takeoff roll is between 2,000 and 3,000 ft [610 and 910 m], depending upon military or maximum afterburner-powered takeoff. The Lightning was quicker off the ground, reaching 50 ft [15 m] height in a horizontal distance of 1,630 ft [500 m]". Chief test pilot for the Lightning Roland Beamont, who also flew most of the "Century Series" US aircraft, stated his opinion that nothing at that time had the inherent stability, control and docile handling characteristics of the Lightning throughout the full flight envelope. The turn performance and buffet boundaries of the Lightning were well in advance of anything known to him.
@John Buick first of all the TWR of the Lightning was far higher. It had a higher service cealing, higher top speed. It was more agile as the roll rate was excessively violent and unlike in the wiki its RoC is not 100 m/s but 256m/s or 50,000ft in a minute. That RoC is so insane it took a modified F15 eagle to beat it. The Lightning would have demolished the F104 "widowmaker" and the horrible Delta Dart as the Lightning was head and shoulders above them in capability. So much so it was the only jet at the time that could Supercruise. Neither the Americans or Russuans could achieve it.
That's a load of crap. I love the Lighting, but what you are talking about is the myth, not the reality. As the fellow says, the F-104 and F-106 were both close matches in performance (and the F-106 had far more range, better radar, more weapons, better C-and-C equipment). The F-104 was far smaller, lighter and cheaper. If you want to go by the metric that the plane that could climb the fastest is the "best", go ahead (I don't admit that it was, but I won't argue it), but others would argue that that's only part of the argument. The LIghtning was large, heavy, expensive, hard to work on, had terrible range and endurance, poorly armed with only two quite marginal missiles. The F-104 could at least come pretty close to in in all categories, except being far smaller and cheaper. But the F-4 WAS faster and better than the Lightning all around, and it is basically a contemporary.
Of course the Lighting was fast; anyone can strap two of the largest engines they can fit to something with wings and make it climb pretty fast. The hard part is doing it in the most efficient, effective way, and that the Lightning was not. Remember, I say this as a loving fan of the Lightning. I think it's a wonderfully interesting, charismatic, impressive plane. But it was not some magicaly world-beater that wasn't given it's fair day in court. It was an experimental Mach 2 plane that they tried to hang missiles on and use as an interceptor.
As for your anecdotes, so the nation flying the Concorde has it's newest fighter out along with a bunch of older slower fighters. The new fighter accelerates and leaves the old fighters behind (shocking!) and even leaves the Concorde behind! First, the Concorde was not designed to accelerate quickly. It's designed for efficient Mach 2 cruising. So the Lightning can out accelerate the Concorde: so what? How LONG can the Lightning keep those reheaters lit up? 15 minutes, maybe? If he has an airfield right below to glide into. But anyway, who says the Concorde was TRYING to keep up? Who says they didn't tell the pilots to let the Lightning win? Anecdotes are almost worthless for telling you anything of real value.
As for the "UFO story, again, ridiculous. IF a civilian Lightning was allowed to fly at Mach 2 and had a place to do it in where he was close enough to fuel, and wasn't over land where it's not allowed, it doesn't show up "as a UFO". That's typical hypperbole and exaggeration. What you are saying is a intentionally misleading way of saying "when the Lighting flew, they had to speak with Air Traffic Control first, because the speed of their plane was above the threshold of common private jets, and in the area associated with military jets. If the Lighting took off for a flight without telling ATC about it first, their radar would notice a jet flying at a much higher speed than a normal private plane, and it would trigger an automatic warning that there is a potential breach of airspace by a foreign military aircraft, which in turn would trigger an interception by the RAF. They get nervous when they see a plane cruising around Britain as Mach 1.2, while all the other traffic is cruising at Mach ,6-.7. Any unknown radar return that needs to be verified is classified as an "Unknown Flying Object" until the interceptors can close with it and verify its identity. This is your misleading claim that "it's so fast that they mistake if for a UFO". It's a military jet and flies like a military jet, and so ATC needs to be specially informed of when and where it will be flying beforehand. It's that simple. They'd have to do the same with any supersonic aircraft likely to be flying faster than average commercial planes. They obviously cannot ignore a plane flying like a strike fighter by assuming "well, it's probably just some guy out flying around in his surplus military jet, let's ignore it this time".
Mig 21 was faster
@ 2:26 minutes the crowd sitting on the hill to watch the display couldn’t do that now, the Farnborough organisers and airport owners took the hill right down so that watching the displays couldn’t be seen very well, they also put screens up on the boundary fencing so you can’t see into the airport at all, unless you had a ticket you weren’t going to see anything much at all, but they still expect us to put up with the traffic chaos and noise, any financial benefit to the area doesn’t get to the people who live locally and we can’t buy a discounted ticket anymore, in fact nobody outside the aviation industry and invited guests can get in, that’s how great Farnborough airshow is today, it just grates on us.
It must have seem to the spectators that the far future had arrived..amazing.
I love UK Planes and people. So classy
Little did those watching this spectacle realise they were witnessing the high watermark of British aviation achievement. The inspired designs shear engineering brilliance of those days have passed into the mists of time.
Excellent ! Thanks for posting this !
Thanks for this posting..what a great shame when one considers the sad decline of British Aerospace
The paid-off politicians ran it down to give the field to the Americans
During a multi national interceptor trial which did include fighters from a large number of countries including the USA. Concorde was flying over at maximum speed. The fighters were required from a standing start to try to catch up with her. The Lightning was not only the only one to catch Concorde it actually over took it! At a display at an American airbase some Lightnings performed their near vertical take off lifting their noses straight up and roaring to intercept positions. The US top brass present were lost for words and without prompt applauded the display and yes I have personally witnessed this type of Lightning take off!
We were in a league of our own before and after ww2. We developed and sold aircraft and helicopter's to the world's air forces.. Where did it all go ? Very sad....
A Lightning did that vertical climb at the 1968 R.A.F. display at Abingdon airfield.
Wonderful ❤️❤️❤️
Is the Vulcan the coolest looking plane ever built?
Leighton Burtt yes - I agree...it is!
Not even close.... XB-70 by far... Or The B-58 Hustler
Leighton Burtt victor ugly beautiful
No. There is no such thing. Every person has their own preferences. The Vulcan is right up there on the list, and it's certainly UNIQUE looking. I don't choose "favorites", but the B-58 is a good candidate. The F-104 is another. It's really limitless though, since there is no real definition of what "cool" looks like. It could be ugly as hell and still be "cool looking".
CF 105 !
Fantastic, but bittersweet.
What crowed line!.........love it
I Was eleven remembering these air shows in 1959! We went too Oregon air force base an chased off with jeep mounted 50cal machine gun! Finding out air show was scheduled for next day, oops! Looking down barrel of 50cal, as eleven year old!
@edj66 Strange really since the US Marines now use the Boeing V22 Osprey which can only carry half the payload - sure it is about 80 knots faster but it took many years to develop and the Rotodyne was 50 years earlier!
Two years after I was born. Some very interesting aircraft for the time.
When Britain led the world and to be called British was the highest compliment...
Pissed away to pay for a bunch of whinging lay abouts and to pay for ever increasing Diversity (aka replacement of actual Brits with people who will never be British, regardless of their accent). Fucking shame.
I believe this is a bit after that period (and actually, it was only in Britain that to be called British was the highest compliment. Most of the rest of the world would be pleased to disagree with you on that score. Britains were respected as powerful and wealthy, stubborn and arrogant island eccentrics.
Anyway, that was in the 1800s, after they defeated Napoleon (with a lot of help). By the 1900's they were in decline heavily. WWII destroyed what was left of their power base, and by the 1950s it was clear that the US was the premier world power. Britain was treated with gloves due to her past position, but in reality she was far below the US in power, wealth, influence by that point, and the writing was on the wall. I suppose in some ways you should be happy; it could have ended up a lot worse. Although personally I'd be angry if my entire culture and way of life as being threatened by huge crowds of people moving in, and I was told I didn't have any CHOICE, and that we couldn't prevent it if we wanted to. Bullcrap we can't: we WON'T, because it's good for those in power.
I’m American, and a British descendant by my grandmother. I still hold a high regard for most British citizens.
Well said but it was
Great Britain back then 👍🏻
For our multitude of faults, we sure as hell knew what we were doing back then... And we were good at it!
Yep some great types here especially the hawker hunter!!!
@PhantomUAV thanx mate..it is arather splendid era.......cheers
If only the Comet had been designed with round windows....we might still have an aircraft industry.
"The Lightning is fully syuper sonic" - syuper indeed.
@zhotdune The Gnat first flew at Farnborough in 1959 and became the RAFs Advanced trainer. The Red Arrows were established in 1964 as a dedicated display team to promote the RAF taking pilots from numerous squadrons - usually on a 3 year tour - they switched the the Hawk in 1979. The previous "Black Arrows" were a front line squadron who also practised aerobatics in a squadron formation - they were not a dedicated aerobatics team/squadron
I will never forget the gut churning roar of the Vulcan as it climbed after a slow pass.
That NA-39 was still active is Desert Storm.
weren't we a confident nation then? if it was a british airshow then we obviously thought it was the best in the world.
+bobst657 Indeed!
+bobst657 thank our "allies" from the U.S for the destruction of the British military aircraft industry ,through their greed, jealousy and insecurity .....hand in hand with the supposed leaders of the country at the time....what a waste and what a betrayal .........marty
+bobst657 It WAS the best in the world.
+louislungbubble Our own politicians had a major hand in it.
+george385 absolutely ...I was referring here to British politicians , not to mention inter -service rivalries and sabotage by Lord Mountbatten himself. and I have in mind the filthy dealings of the Lockheed corporation...............marty
The days when we were world leaders till that "special relationship" we have with the septic tanks stitched us up
Now we can't even make a tin opener.
@tomburley In spirit it was.
2:02 Avro Vulcan B. Mk.2 XH536 of the RAF Cottesmore Wing, flew into Fan Bwlch Chwyth in the Brecon Beacons on the 11th February 1966 while on a training flight. The aircraft struck near the top of the hill and broke apart over a large area, All died.
6:48...WOW
kenns9 lol
kenns9 She is 75 now
Degsy Jones she wasn't then :D
Michael Crawford Do you know her
Sept. 4, 2018---Thanks for the video. Wonder how many people still have the pamphlets/ brochures from this and other air shows held every year there?
Old, bald fat man - I have the programme for Farnborough ‘86 which I attended.
Thankyou for the video. Nice to see so many classic British aircraft.
5:07 nice, they had GoPros back then too!
What is that, a 16mm battery-powered home-video-camera?
ted thanks for your reply.did we start off with 4 from uk only one went the full distance and dropped its pay load and returned home.the others pulled out on rout with problems. i do take my hat off to all the crews and tanker drivers that kept them fueled .
That's _en route_ , or I assume that's what you were trying to say. Unless you were just trying for the less-common English "on route" and just mistyped it.
Look how close to the crowdline the aircraft performed at, these days we can see better from the next village
And they just cancelled the public weekend. So now there's nothing.
Everybody spoke like that in those days.
I still glow with pride at our aircraft industry of the 50's. When you take a leap forward just see how many of the great ideas in aircraft technology is in use to day by other countries. But sady we dont make any aircraft ourselves now thanks to past and present governments in particular Labour and now the Conservatives.
Easy to blame governments for this, and they are partly responsible; but the real problem was the British workforce. Trade union disputes, poor management, lack of investment and the wrong attitude and philosophy to manufacturing led to the demise of British Industry. We blame Thatcher for it, but actually she was one of the few leaders who tried to modernise British Industry. The real damage was done by those who came after, in particular Tony Blair, who pursued the dangerous fantasy of Britain as "knowledge-economy".
uh yes ,its featured around 7 .00..
great film btw
cool - the pinnacle of the British aircraft industry....and a cabin full of nurses
By the mid 1960s the country was effectively bankrupt and something had to give. It was defence and aviation that got the chop.
Look at all those *BRITISH* aircraft.
After the closing credits, I keep expecting to see Robert Osbourne to come up and talk about the film.
Yes and 70 yrs later Britain has made more of this , mmm. I have seen the electrogravitic version of the Vulcan in 1971.
Superb! Where did we go wrong?
Some of the aircraft looks like a MIG-21?
5:57 and 6:26 work only 3 engine in Vulcan ?
I think that hovercraft is full of eels!
mindblowing, what they just had - few years after the worldwar...
Today they do not bring anything together...
EE Lightning at 4:13
Everyone Ignores the Passenger with the square windows
A Lightning pilot said he would break sound barrier in a vertical climb w/o afterburner....and yet still I say (6:48) YOWZER!
+tytewire The English Electric Lightning still holds world records for performance.
When we could buld 'planes and a lot more besides; not like now!
@kolbpilot Not really - since this aircraft had dedicated uplift engines. The Kestrel was the precursor to the Harrier making use of a single engine and using vectored thrust.
It was in a way, it convinced them that nothing could come from using separate lift and propulsion engines and set them on the road to the Pegasus engine.
The Fairey Rotodyne failed because it was too noisy for a city-center landing platform--the task it was designed for.
The military potential was sadly ignored.
What happened?
And now what are we left with? Absolutely nothing' in any sphere.
The rest of the world caught up. Post-war British industry did not compete, but chose instead a downward spiral of trade union disputes, lack of quality, poor management and generally the wrong attitude and philosophy to manufacturing. Both Germany and Japan never had this problem.
UK did choose the nukes instead of other qualities, so you can tell UK dismantled its defence, really.
So sadly true John.
JasonJason210. _____ Germany and Japan were forbidden from pissing away billions on defence. They were kept in their box because of the war so devoted their manufacturing energies into making cars and ships and electronic goods instead. If you want a successful economy, start a war then lose it. Everyone then gives you shitloads of cash.
Sheer amazing
Omg they had red arrows back then?
Nice of Stewie Griffin to provide narration. And it's good that the Comet managed to stay in one piece.
Ha, ha. Complete and baseless exaggeration is ALWAYS funny, right? Because you know those Comets, hardly a day went by when one didn't just explode without warning, and I believe it's said that not a single aircraft that left the factory survived as long as retirement without crashing.
I think that's what it said. Or maybe it was that two of them suffered structural failure out of the 12 Comet 1s built, and the many dozens of the Comets went on to serve for decades with a commendable service record. But I might be wrong. I guess it's funnier to say they all crashed, so lets just go with that. Who needs truth?
i may be wrong but did we send 4 vulcan bombers to the falklands and 1 made it.my washing machine has a 5 year guarantee ? how many has a vulcan.X.R.N.
:-) i been on one, actually both, my dad designed the nose radar cone. don't mention th red arrows x (man hug, whatever)
I blame it on the politicians, CEOs, shareholders, Unions. Each played their part in 'giving it away' because us British stopped being proud of what we have and became all about personal gain - greedy, selfish. But we are still world leaders when it comes to inventiveness. Stop your kids wasting their lives in front of TV's and computer games. Get them making, drawing, climbing trees - play with them. Anything is possible. Stop your moping and complaining - compete. And don't be greedy.
DILLY DILLY! I CONCUR SIR!
Bit of info on the Vulcan-
XH538
Delivered: September 1959
Notes: Olympus 201 engines. Used for trials before going to Scampton, then onto Waddington. Finally sent to St. Athan and scrapped August 1981.
That's what I thought, two port & one outer starboard. A bit dirty weren't they?!
It seems in many ways, that the future must depend on history and the past. In order to prevent repeating the same mistakes in history. And, as a Canadian, I call for AVRO Co. to be revived, so as Canada may show the World what a Canadian Interceptor performs and looks like ;) Long Live the UK ! I celebrate British tenacity with this brilliant film.
All of it killed by Shortsighted, bean counting UK politicians, apathy, and the US 'defense' industry.
ah yes, avro Canada...
I wish the arrow did better than it did, a proper Canadian fighter jet would be the best ridiculous spectre ever.
3:45 So they were speeding up film of jets back then too. Interesting. They realized that jets don't LOOK fast enough on film, so they just speed it up a little to make the film "better reflect reality". There is no way that Comet 4 is really landing at that speed.
@xcaibur 1960's Labour Government - massive defence cuts including cancelling of the TSR2 which would still have been a world leader well into the 1980's
The black arrows look awesome! When fuel was cheap, and the Empire alive!! Fantastic!
Eeee by gum.
@eezy1972 yes - i believe it is a sea vixen indeed!
We went wrong in several ways(1)the labour government of the time dramatically reduced aviation funding(2)Unions-same problem as today,everyone can design,build&manufacture cheaper than us cos of the worker demands on employers(3)Comet crash gave boeing the info and time to catch up &overtake the comet program(4)we didnt react quick enough to competition-us brits love to pat ourselves on the back in self congratulation on how great we are,too much of that went on back then & we got left behind
@ 6:27... is the Vulcan climbing on 3 engines ?
Vulcan, shows UK sub Orbital capability..
You are wrong, no Vulcans were lost during the Falklands conflict. I think you are getting mixed up with Chinooks, only 1 ended up being serviceable.
3:00 Keep it together, man. Keep it together! I feel sad that this design failed so badly. It is by far the most beautiful airliner aver made.
I wonder if this design had succeeded and the Boeing design had failed if airliners today would have their engines buried in the wing roots (like in this plane) rather than hung under the wing, like in the Boeing 707.
+Eric Taylor I think Boeing succeeded thanks to Comet’s demise. De Havilland was the very first in the field of jet powered passenger aircraft and had no data to relate to when designing the Comet. Then, when the pressurized cabins failed, dH had to investigate and find ways to prevent further mishaps. Boeing learned from the results and was able to design a fuselage that could better cope with the forces acting on it.
THE American forte is mass Production, so they were able to produce (the same) goods at lower prices and constant quality (remember the Merlin, designed and built by Rolls-Royce, licenced by Packard. The latter had a much longer TBO) This, combined with the lessons learned, made the 707 such a success.
Apart from that, Boeing had gained heaps of experience with jet engines suspended underwing. Just think of the B-47 and B-52 bombers that featured this engine arrangement. Concept-wise the only bonus of the engines in the wing was that they generated less drag. Maintenance however was much more cumbersome, jet pipes had to be longer, meaning less engine efficiency, there would be less room for fuel, the wing structure had to be stronger, thus heavier, to withstand the forces otherwise evened out by the underwing engines’ weight.So, much as I like the Comet, even if it had been successful, I think de Havilland would not have used engines buried in the wing roots when designing a successor to the Comet.
omepeet2006
Basically you had the Comet and the 707 come out at more or less the same time. Because the Comet failed so spectacularly every airline design after that was more or less based off the 707.
I agree, but both De Havilland and Boeing were well known by then for their very good airplane designs, both in civil and military. If they had just used round windows...
+Eric Taylor Actually there were 5 years between the maiden flights of the Comet and the 707 (27 July 1949 vs 12 July 1954). The dates of them entering service were even further apart (2 May 1952 vs October 1958). Back then a five-year span meant a quantum leap in aviation.
What eventually probably killed the Comet - even if the fatalities wouldn’t have happened - was its narrow fuselage. With only 4 seats abreast the passenger capacity was limited. Douglas was first to design a wider fuselage, making 5 abreast possible. Upon learning this, Boeing decided to redesign its fuselage, making 6 abreast possible. Douglas was already too far advanced in tooling up for production to redesign its DC-8, so had to settle for 5 abreast.
According to de Havilland's chief test pilot John Cunningham, who had flown the prototype's first flight, representatives from American manufacturers such as Boeing and Douglas privately disclosed that if de Havilland had not experienced the Comet's pressurisation problems first, it would have happened to them.
Another very similar aircraft was the Convair 600, later renamed in Convair 880. This aircraft was slightly smaller than the 707 and the DC-8, and tried to win customers by offering a higher speed. One might be tempted to say that four jet engines suspended from swept wings were more or less the standard for passenger aircraft.
The round windows were introduced on the Comet Mk. 2, as were the Avon engines. Now what would have happened if the Comet had a 5 abreast configuration and / or Conway engines..?
Speaking of good aeroplane designs, the last design by de Havilland, the DH.125, was being produced till 2013, albeit under a different name and with numerous updates. No mean feat for an aircraft that first flew in 1962…
omepeet2006
Thanks for that! Sometimes it's easy to forget how much time went by between two events, especially if those are repetitively close together.
"Nearly the same time" might apply to say the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A380, but there hasn't been much advancement (relatively speaking) as compared to the advances made in the late 40's through the 60's.
Might say the same thing about computers in another 60 years.
I got a 1TB hard drive about 2 years ago. It was HUGE at the time. Now I can get a 4TB drive for LESS than I paid for the 1TB drive 2 years ago.
In 60 years you'd say these two drive came out at the same time, while they use their, while they laugh at such a puny amount of memory.
From your picture I'm guessing you're old enough to remember when a 1.5MB floppy disk was "huge".
+Eric Taylor Whoa yeah, the floppy disk… 1,44 MB was heaps back then. And before that you had 5,25” floppies of 360 kB if my memory serves me well. And my first PC had a true King-size HDD: 7GB! Don’t think we’ll have hard drives in 60 years anymore. At least I won’t; I’ll be 118 by then. Most, if not all, of the data will be stored ‘in the cloud’ by then, methinks.
Back to the aircraft then. One of the best features of the 707 was its flexibility. Its basic fuselage was used in the 707, 720, 727, 737 and even the 757. The latter was succeeded by the 767, which was essentially a wide-bodied version of the 757. The 767 eventually gave way to the 777, which was really not much more than an update; glass cockpit, improved avionics and new, more efficient,
engines. Nothing revolutionary really. The next step forward was the 787 Dreamliner with its extended use of composite materials. A step forward indeed, no longer leaps like in the 1950s. The basic concept of the intercontinental passenger aircraft has evolved from four-engined planes to twin-engined ones. Engines have become so immensely powerful and reliable that a twin will get you across the Pacific without any problem. On top of that they’ve become very efficient with fuel and the noise levels have gone down dramatically. To achieve this the size and shape of the jet engine has changed from the slender turbo-jet of the 1950s and early 1960s to the leviathans of these days. (Imagine a modern jet engine in a ‘buried-in-wing’ configuration…) It seems nowadays the airport is the limiting factor for aircraft design. It gets harder to use an unorthodox size or shape. Hence the advent of the A380: twice the amount of passengers in an aeroplane that is hardly longer or has a greater span than a 747.
Pre European Union days, good days.
cioneach What you are referring to was the flying tail/elevator, but nice try look at the Curtis XP55 Accenders elevator, a flying tail/elevator when all of the elevator moves rather than just the back half ! ! ! this was an American expermental plane of 1940.....Before the Brits had it...
Well that makes things even: because I wonder how long it would have taken the US to develop fighter jets if the 1945 labour government had not given them the secret of the movable tail-lane?
Dickus...The USA already had the flying tail in 1940, like I said the XP 55 had it and the USA sure didn't need the Brits help in developing Jet fighter aircraft RE F80 F84 F86, swept wing with USA developed Axial flow Jet engine J35 J47 certainly better than the British Meteror and the B47 B49 and The B52...need I go on....wheres the British help????
Wilbur Finnigan Then why was the main US fighter contribution the P51 and even then with a RR Merlin engine built under licence. The only US jet contribution was the Lockheed P80 Shooting Star and only then from January 1945 onwards. Next we shall be hearing how the US cracked the Enigma code as the film suggests. Just as well you had a german to get you to the moon.
Dickus The Brits came to the USA to BUY the Rolls Royce engine that they WANTED Packard to build BECAUSE RR COULD NOT build them fast enough...also the Brits needed planes and wanted North American to build the P40 but Dutch Kindelburger had a BETTER design in mind and due to circumstances the Brits gave him the OPPORTUNITY to build the Mustang..It was still US designed and the Merlin was used because the Brits wanted it first,When the USAAF needed a long range escort fighter the Mustang was the ONLY fighter that had the range to escort the bombers. .it was US engineered and built as was the Merlin RE ENGINERED and BUILT in the USA...Where was all this supposed Brit "assistance" in developing the J35 the J47 the J79 Axial flow jet engine that GE/Allison developed or the F80 the F84 the F89 and the Swept wing F86 ALL with the GE /Allison Axial flow jets??? Brits were still trying to get the Meterite to fly and not explode....Remember too the B45 the B47 the B52 state of the Art JET bombers that the Brits had no equal to....and OOOHH where is your aviation industry today...building a few parts for the Scarebus...real "great" aviation industries....yeah right....
Wilbur Finnigan That's what we like about our big ally across the pond, nothing is ever understated. We failing Brits watch with interest as you leave us behind to compete with a much more worthy opponent, the ancient civilisation of China across the Pacific.
On a historical note I can understand the US angst at the Brits as it was a traitor in the Royal Navy who trained the Japanese navy to fly aircraft off aircraft carriers in the 1920s and 30s. Perhaps we were partly responsible for Pearl Harbour.
Safety shmafety. Stand by the runway!
I didn't see anyone get killed. They used to do this all the time, and it was rarely a problem. If something happened, they figured A. it was your responsibility, B. shit happens, it's not the end of the world. They just lived through WWII and people dying by the millions, it wasn't time to stop the presses because some people died.
Then we became obsessed with "safety culture" and how it's our duty to spend most of our time, money and effort making everything proof against the stupidest of people. We need to save everyone from themselves, and if some Official Organization somehow fails to foresee every possible eventuality and provide for it, and someone dies, they'd better be ready to pay out tens of millions in lawsuits. Meanwhile, a hundred people are killed every day in car accidents in the US. But that's not NEWS. A guy getting killed because no one stopped him from climbing over the fence onto the tarmac and trying to stand behind a 747 running its engines up: that's news; fake news, really. A lot of bullshit about how the airport ought to have done more, should have prevented him from getting there at all, even if it meant hiring twice as many guards...just in CASE, you know? And memorializing the dead man as if he was a great loss to the world, and dead only because of the negligence and calousness.....or at least incompetence...of the airport officials.
......
The Comet was back after redesign necessitated by tragic crashes but the American DC-8 and 707 were superior.
Scooter George more likely superior due to back handers like the killing of the Concorde and TSR2 If you have big pockets you can buy almost anything
ronaldrobin
The newer American designs were superior in speed and passenger capacity.
Scooter George That's the melancholic thing. Even if they had spotted the problems way in advance, it was just too small. We needed something like the Trident, but larger, longer-legged, and a couple of years earlier.
Ashley Pomeroy
And it needed more power. Had the RR Avon been available the Comet could have been larger and built with more structural strength. But Dehavilland not only wanted to be first with a jet airliner, they wanted to do it with their own engines.
+Scooter George In fact Scooter and Ashley,Vickers did design and start building a prototype in 1953 the V1000/VC7 for the RAF and BOAC.It was based on the Valiant bomber had six abreast seating and was to be fitted with RR Conway engines,more powerful and fuel efficient than on the 707 and DC8.But it was cancelled in 1955, BOAC bought American!It makes me think something underhand was going on.
5:45 Doesn't look all that controllable.
Eric Taylor Inboard engines make for a very stable flying platform...the plane is empty and at an airshow..it'll be 'tossed' around somewhat as part of the show
spottydog4477 I was talking about the hover craft.
ahaha..........yeah..not THAT is a wobbly looking item indeed!
spottydog4477 Pretty cool video overall. To think more time has past from when this was made to now than from the Wright brother's first flight to when this was made.
I know - I know....so much original aviation types for one little country...!!
If time travel ever gets invented, can someone stop in 2020 and pick me up on the way to this day and place in 1959? I promise I won’t scare anyone by mentioning how “advanced” we’ve become.....you know, gluten free, Starbucks, Trump etc
check out the Vulcan-that is on three engines.No smoke from the number 3.Also after the low pass the go-around is def on three.All turns are to the two live engines-was that pilot displaying it no-matter-what?
Boy do they pronounce the name wrong! "FUN-brah"??? Looks like "FARN- burrow" to me??!