2016 04 (516) AEROPLANE.pdf

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FREE INSIDE!
U K
A
V I A T I O
N M
U
S E U
M S G U I D E 2 0
1 6
More than a Century of History in the Air
®
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IN BRITAIN
PLUS:
NEW-LOOK AMERICAN AIR MUSEUM
WIN!
DUXFORD AMERICAN
AIR SHOW TICKETS
AMERICANS
•
B-24 INTRUDER VICTIM
•
FORTRESS DISASTER
•
SAC STRATOJETS
•
THE UK, THE U-2 AND THE SR-71
HURRICANE
WORKSHOP
Big plans
at Hawker
Restorations
WA R B I R D S
‘WINKLE’ BROWN
REMEMBERED
TRIBUTE
APRIL 2016
£4.40
04
SOPWITH CUCKOO
9 770143 724101
Contents
44
64
52
NEWS AND
COMMENT
4
6
FROM THE EDITOR
NEWS
• Rare Northrop Delta saved
• Two-seat Hurricane being readied
• Bentwaters museum to get A-10
… and the month’s other top aircraft
preservation news
NEWS SPECIAL
Are UK airshows under threat from
new CAA regulations and charges?
HANGAR TALK
Steve Slater’s monthly comment
column on the historic aircraft world
Vol 44, no 4 • Issue no 516
April 2016
Claim your FREE
Malta Spitfire
worth
£9.99 when you take out
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subscription to
Aeroplane.
See pages 26 and 27
for details.
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28
70
FEATURES
28
CAPT ERIC BROWN RN
A special tribute to the outstanding
naval aviator, who has died aged 97
OVER
70
AEROPLANE
MEETS…
RAIMUND RIEDMANN
To Salzburg to meet the chief pilot of
the Flying Bulls, a man who simply
loves flying historic aircraft
DATABASE:
SOPWITH CUCKOO
Grant Newman recounts
the history of Sopwith’s
torpedo-carrier, an
aircraft that never got
its chance to shine
HERE
34
Marking the re-opening of IWM
Duxford’s American Air Museum, we
focus on US air power in Britain
77
16
B-24 INTRUDER VICTIM
The night when two Eighth Air Force
Liberators fell victim to the guns of
Luftwaffe intruders
FORTRESS TRAGEDY
After a hazardous mission over
Europe, men of the 78th Fighter
Group were killed back at their base
in a B-17
B-47 DEPLOYMENTS
Strategic Air Command’s Stratojets
in the UK
U-2s AND SR-71s
The UK’s role in supporting
operations from British bases by
these two ‘black’ programmes
AMERICAN AIR MUSEUM
A preview of IWM Duxford’s
revamped attraction —
PLUS!
Win American Air Show tickets
ITALIAN AIRLINE PIONEERS
The tale of an inauspicious first
day — 1 April, no less — for Italy’s
inaugural commercial air services
42
IN-DEPTH
PAGES
13
19
100
HAWKER RESTORATIONS
Major projects are under way in the
Suffolk workshops of the UK’s main
Hurricane rebuilder
44
52
REGULARS
21
24
78
SKYWRITERS
Q&A
Your questions asked and answered
HOOKS’ TOURS
More colour images from Mike
Hooks’ incredible collection
BOOKS
FREE INSIDE!
UK AVIATION
MUSEUMS 2016
Your essential — and fully
updated — 32-page guide
COVER IMAGE:
The Collings Foundation’s B-24J
d ti ’ B 24J
Liberator
Witchcraft
introduces our special features
on US air power in Britain.
COLLINGS FOUNDATION
60
95
64
106
NEXT MONTH
See page 26 for a great subscription offer
Aeroplane
traces its lineage back
to the weekly
The Aeroplane,
founded by C. G. Grey in 1911
and published until 1968. It was
re-launched as a monthly in 1973
by Richard T. Riding, editor for 25
years until 1998.
ESTABLISHED 1911
AEROPLANE APRIL 2016
www.aeroplanemonthly.com
3
he issues surrounding the Civil Aviation Authority’s
recent consultation on air display charges (see pages
16-17) are complex — rather more complex, indeed,
than might immediately be apparent. As the CAA
seeks to reduce the extent to which more lucrative areas of its activity
subsidise the oversight of general aviation, including airshows, higher
charges have been in the wind for some time. Yet even with an
increased regulatory burden following the Shoreham accident, to take
this opportunity seems at best unfortunate.
Aspects of the proposed new charging system have clearly been
developed without much consideration of the potential consequences.
Given the CAA’s rather awkward status as a public body funded
not by the public purse but by those it regulates, we should not be
surprised if the interests of the biggest contributors to its coffers
win out. In its response to criticism of the new charging system,
the authority itself refers to how “the regulation of air shows has
historically been subsidised by other aviation industry charge payers
and ultimately their passengers”. By comparison, general aviation is a
mere minnow. Those other charge-payers and their passengers might
wish to consider how many of their pilots will have been tempted to
fly in the first place by watching aircraft flying at airshows.
Could the regulation of air displays go elsewhere? Self-
administration has been discussed several times by airshow industry
bodies, most recently the British Air Display Association (BADA).
The proposition has never proved practical. Some would argue — and
I would agree — that it is, in any case, undesirable. And, traditionally,
the airshow community has been satisfied with CAA regulation. It is
all the more disappointing that a heavy-handed approach to charging,
presumably emanating from within the organisation’s higher echelons,
should now jeopardise what was a largely constructive relationship.
Aeroplane
— and I responded to the consultation in exactly
these terms — hopes the CAA will have a rethink. A delay to the
T
E D I TO R
new charges would be welcome; so too would be their phased
implementation. More broadly, it must be hoped that this unhappy
affair makes the authority’s top brass clearly aware of the wider
benefits a successful air display industry brings to British aviation as
a whole.
In the wake of Shoreham, the CAA had no option but to act.
It had similarly little choice but to ensure that recommendations
resulting from its civil air display review group are implemented prior
to the 2016 season, although some of those are, as we report, causing
disquiet. Following major tragedies, air displays are hardly unique
in being subject to change — look at the introduction of all-seater
football stadia in the wake of Hillsborough, or the alterations to
motor racing circuits after various high-profile fatalities. The difficulty
always comes in achieving a balance between protecting participants
and spectators, and retaining an appealing spectacle.
But despite the understandable furore surrounding the charges, we
should not lose sight of the objective to avoid, as far as can ever be
reasonably possible, future loss of life resulting from flying displays.
That, in my opinion, represents a more significant threat to the future
staging of British airshows.
It was during the final throes of preparing this issue that news broke
of the death of Capt Eric Brown. Given his contribution to British
aviation and to our knowledge of its history, it went without saying
that we would make space for a suitable tribute. This documentary
film-maker Nicholas Jones, who knew ‘Winkle’ well, provides inside.
In shuffling our pages, the planned articles on the USAAF’s 5th
Emergency Rescue Squadron and the delivery of Duxford’s B-29
Hawg Wild
had to fall by the wayside, but both will appear in
future editions.
Ben Dunnell
From the
CONTRIBUTORS
THIS MONTH
Ben
GRIFFITHS
Anne
HUGHES
Ian
M C L AC H L A N
G ra n t
NEWMAN
One of Ben’s earliest memories is seeing
Concorde soaring over London. Since
then aviation has been close to his
heart. Having trained as a journalist and
specialising in the aerospace and
defence industry, Ben has been lucky
enough to experience flying a range of
aircraft from vintage trainers to modern
military jets. He is a keen private pilot
with a particular enthusiasm for historic
taildraggers, and has a share in a
Chipmunk based at Old Warden. In
2012 he fulfilled a childhood ambition
by flying the Spitfire.
Anne has always had a passion for
aircraft, and her first flying experience
in the early 1980s was in Beagle Pup
100 G-AXUA, currently under
restoration. The bug bit, and soon she
had her private pilot’s licence. Now
retired, Anne edits
Beagle News
for the
Beagle Pup and Bulldog Club. She also
enjoys working as a volunteer
researcher at IWM Duxford, delving
into the archives and sharing her ‘finds’.
This month, in our ‘Over Here’ special,
she writes about a tragic B-17 Flying
Fortress accident in 1944.
Ian is an aviation historian and the author
of several books and numerous articles.
He has made media appearances in such
series as ‘Time Team’ and ‘The One
Show’, and a series currently in
production features him as the resident
historian. Ian’s books all contain aspects
of aviation archaeology, his interest in
aircraft having stemmed from being
given the gunsight from Rudolf Hess’s
Bf 110. This prompted other
investigations focusing on powerful
human-interest accounts, as the article in
this month’s edition illustrates.
Employed with Air New Zealand as a
line maintenance engineer, Grant
services regional airliners at night and
is a freelance author by day, writing for
local publications. His hobbies include
photography and flying, of which he
does precious little these days. Prior to
becoming an aircraft engineer, Grant’s
career was in museums, with time
spent at the RAF Museum at Hendon
and at Scotland’s National Museum of
Flight at East Fortune, where he gained
an interest in the lesser-known tale of
Sopwith’s ‘Torpedoplane’.
4
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