Thread: Ark Royal landings

Some video footage of Phantoms and Buccaneers landing on the Ark Royal during the 1970s

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5l...yal-traps_tech

Crackin video...reminds us when we had a Navy

:D good link

Brilliant. Do the Phantoms have flaps on the leading egdes of their wings?

Whats the prop driven plane at 5min 50 secs with wings folded ?

Great post. Everyone seems much more natural and less media savvy than these days.

Originally Posted by trooper142

Whats the prop driven plane at 5min 50 secs with wings folded ?

Its a Gannett. Early type of AWACs.

The phantoms have leading edge slats, which do the same sort of job as flaps, increasing the camber angle of the wing, giving increased lift at slower airspeeds.
The prop driven jobbie at 5. 50 on the video is a Fairey Gannett, providing airbourne early warning for the fleet until the scrapping of the carriers. The radar lived on though, in the Avro Shackleton AEW.

RP

Originally Posted by trooper142

Whats the prop driven plane at 5min 50 secs with wings folded ?

I'm very tempted to say a Fairy Gannet, but thought those were pretty much gone by the end of the 60s - so wait to be corrected

edit: due to leaving my computer for 10 minutes I've already been beaten to it, twice! Sorry...

I believe it is a Gannet:



-DC

Originally Posted by Dashing_Chap

I believe it is a Gannet:



-DC

Interestingly (or not) there is a pretty well restored Gannet at a pretty tiny aviation museum in Wokingham, Berkshire. Originally set up basically on the site of the Miles aviation works. Not only do they have a Gannet but also a full Handley Page Herald.

Most of the rest of their stuff is pretty scrappy, but they work hard!

Back to the original; that's some damn fine CGI for the 70s. How did they manage to make all those aircraft? I mean, we all know you never see more than two jets or three helis in the same place.

As a follow up to crabby's restored Gannett, I am sure that I saw one along with a few other frames, poking out of a hedge in Cirencester on the route of the old A419. This was many years ago, am I cracking up or does anybody else know of these?

RP

The RN used two types of Gannet, crabby, and you're partly right about them going.

The Gannet started life as an ASW aircraft, though, and this version looked a bit different:



The majority of the ASW Gannets went in the 1960s when helicopters took over the ASW role; the trainer versions remained in use, as did the Carrier On Board delivery conversions of the Gannet AS4.

The AEW3, though, stayed in use until the demise of the Ark Royal.

I really enjoyed watching that footage,thanks for the link

There's a Gannet in perfect condition at the Luftwaffenmuseum at the former RAF Gatow . The mail with the link was forwarded to me by a friend who used to be a KC-135 pilot for SR-71 refuelling and what was intriguing was the bit at the very end of the mail...
"Subject: British Carrier landings............
The Brits approach to flying is a bit different than we do. In 1964 a couple of us were sent out to the boat from Pensacola to wave the Lightning (over and under engines) during some hot weather sea trials. First we learned that they consider the LSO just a good looking wheels watch, they spot the deck. We had to remove the number one wire to stop them from smashing the PLAT camera with the hooks. For a cat shot they would raise the nose up about ten degrees. This gave them a flying angle of attack, without that the plane would just sink and skip off the water. They did some single engine cat shots. this was done by just shutting one engine down. Don't know if they have great engineers or are just stupid. Darrell..."

I will try and find out more.