Now here is an interesting formation…

The T7 Hunter is also in 56 markings as it would be the Squadron trainer, before T-bird Lightnings .

The One That Got Away is an excellent film. Here are a couple of screen grabs of LF363 which has quite a good scene in the film.

Nice picture Mark and one I’ve never seen before, LF363 is in her late 1950’s early 1960’s scheme with the codes US-A seamingly taped on, notice the incorrect position of the fuselage roundel, it’s to far back. No LF wasn’t in Angels One Five but if you wan’t to see her in this scheme (minus the codes) she has a part in the film The One That Got Away.

Spade Grip,

My first shot of LF363 was in this scheme at BoB day Biggin Hill in 1957. C1 fuselage roundels with brown/green camou, incorrect of course, but these were early days. I am sure these US-A codes must just have been a temporary application, to have received so little exposure on a national display aircraft.

‘The one that got away’. Yes I remember the shot at the time, looking through the window at LF363 as a potential escape route. Shot at Northolt as I recall.

Interestingly it is only in recent times a very close study of the 35mm reel stock revealed that both Spitfires P9444 and K9942 were used in Angels One Five

Septic,

I have a low res ‘screen grab’ of LF363 taken at Middle Wallop in May 1947, presumably the correct grey/green with C1 roundels and no codes.

Mark

Nice picture Mark and one I’ve never seen before, LF363 is in her late 1950’s early 1960’s scheme with the codes US-A seamingly taped on, notice the incorrect position of the fuselage roundel, it’s to far back. No LF wasn’t in Angels One Five but if you wan’t to see her in this scheme (minus the codes) she has a part in the film The One That Got Away.

JDK – The Bulldog certainly could have flown again if she had crashed just a few years later. Sadly she was just a little ‘early’ in crashing – after her crash numerous parts were cast to the seven winds and it was a task to bring what they could of her back together again. The extreme rear fuselage was recovered from Hawkinge – the missing section of fuselage shown in the post crash pictures was never recovered . It could potentially still be out there but after all these years and the amount of publicity involved it’s probably been reduced to scrap.

Hi Mark, thanks for posting this great shot.

Finally this photo will clear up the myth that LF363 did not fly in the film ‘Angels One Five’.

LF363 was given the white tail band camouflage scheme in about 1957, prior to this date the aircraft was painted in an overall silver dope scheme.

Septic.

Thanks for that Mark, I too have a copy of the Luff book, but it’s at the other end of the house and that room’s cold! 😀 Nice of you to save the trouble of me checking, and fits another couple of bits of the jigsaw. Clearly a ‘nice’ bit of flying, that!

Incidentally, it’s best to remember (as you’ve shown) that G-ABBB (its real ID) was never a RAF (or Air Min) aircraft, and was not, thus properly ‘entitled’ to serial; ‘K2227’ being a representative one – ironically like the Shuttleworth’s Hind serial. The 1961 repaint carried an (animal) Bulldog logo on he tail, also non-standard.

Cheers!

I too felt the photo looked doctored, particularly the hunter looking superimposed over the Lightning.

However Paul is correct, which caused me to review a book which details the rebuild and “first” life of Bristol’s Company’s Bulldog Demonstrator G-ABBB/K2227.

The photo is reported in detail on page 152 to have been taken in September 1961 following the Bulldog being flown to RAF Coltishall

“now with Godfrey Auty at the controls to join with No. 56(F) squadron’s Hawker Hurricane, Gloster Meteor, Hawker Hunter and EE Lightning in order to participate in a Battle of Britain Flypast”.

“The next day a photographic sortie was arranged in which four of the aircraft would attempt a formation pose, with the photographs being taken from the Meteor…. Air Chief Marshall Sir John Rogers was piloting the Lightning on that day and recalls….”

“Due to runway re-surfacing at Wattisham the sortie was flown from Coltishall on 17 September 1961. we could not actually fly formation, even in a turn, as the minimum safe speed of the Lightning was some fifty knots above the maximum of the Bulldog. The Meteor was also some ten knots “too fast”, this we had to do a double fly-by, one on either side of K2227 and hope that the photographer got a reasonable shot…. The other difficulty was that it was a misty day with no horizon, not great for low level, low speed manoeuvring in a Lightning. In fact we almost got a close-up of Norwich Cathedral in one pass!”

“The outcome of that historic sortie was to be at least two memorable photographs, both of which are, to this day, proudly displayed at RAF Wattisham, the home of No 56(F) Squadron…..”

Attached is a copy of what I assume to be the “other” memorable photo, taken on the same day, of the Bulldog just with the Lightning, from page 154, titled as:

“Godfrey Auty in K2227 alongside Squdron Leader John Rogers in Lightning XM174 over Coltishall on 17 September 1961.”

JDK,

In regard to the painting of G-ABBB as K2227 page 151 records

“The Shuttleworth Collection felt that G-ABBB would be more in keeping with its “Brisfit” and “Gladiator” exhibits as well as more truly reflecting the large RAF usage of the type with the ten pre-war squadrons if it too were finished in military livery. A decision wwas therefore made to finish the Bulldog in No.56(F) Squadron’s red and white chequerboard markings, and to allocate it wirth one of their old Bulldog serial numbers – K2227. It was in this form that, on 12 September 1961, a handing over ceremony took place at Filton, with representatives of the Shuttleworth Trust receiving their new addition to the collection”.

regards

Mark Pilkington

Ref pg 151, 152 & 154 “Bulldog, the Bristol Bulldog Fighter” – David Luff

Paul, Impressive bit of work, there, my hat’s off to you.

You’ve also answered a query on the date of G-ABBB’s painting into RAF colours (only ever being a civvie aircraft, they are, strictly speaking, spurious).

And finally, the crash at Farnborough would today be regarded as hardly an unrestorable level of damage – and we could have (should have!) seen this Bulldog flying with Shuttleworth’s Hind, Gladiator and a certain pair of Nimrods. Mmmm.

At least it’s been superbly restored by Tim Moore’s team and is on show at Hendon.

“56 Sqn “as was” and “as is,” depicted by the Bristol Bulldog (squadron equipment 1932-36) and English Electric Lightning (1961- ). The
Bulldog, recently restored, was flown by Bristol Aircraft chief test pilot Godfrey Auty; the Lightning by the commanding officer, Sqn Ldr J. R.
Rogers. 56 wear red-and-white checkerboard markings. K-2227 was featured in last week’s issue

The previous weeks issue referred to:

http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1961/1961%20-%201375.pdf

Eeeep! Hot topic, hard to keep up!

If as seems likely this is circa 1961, can we confirm LF363 in US-A livery at this time?

This appears to be the ‘Angels One Five’ livery, but I had previously photographed LF363 in 1957 and 1958 without codes.

Hmmm. Good question, and I’ve a nasty feeling on this. As you know, preserved, Hurricanes aren’t nearly as well documented a Spitfires, but I’m sure someone can come up with something. Catch is, I’ve a suspicion that anyone looking at a print of ‘363 with a ‘US’ code will assume it’s a 1950s Angels period shot; so there might be proof out there no-one’s realised yet – unless there’s something like a Lightning in the background.

Septic’s got a selection of Angels’ shots (as he should do…)

Good one!

Speeds: there’s a famous colour shot (After the Battle) of a similar line – IIRC, Hurricane, Hunter, Javelin, Lightning… A trick I’ve seen used with a two a/c dissimilar speed photo-shoot is a race-track pattern with the slowest nearest to the camera aircraft which is on the inside. Doesn’t look like that here, but the angles of attack tell a story…

http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1961/1961%20-%201413.pdf

Dates it before 28th September 1961

Is it not possible that the photo shoot was created to celebrate the introduction of the Lightning into 56 Sqn service in Jan 1961 or cthe completion of the restoration of the Bulldog… So they got all the aircraft together and just temporarly recoded the Hurricane to represent a 56 Sqn one…

56 Squadron. Of course.

Paul you have cracked it.

Mark

Is it not possible that the photo shoot was created to celebrate the introduction of the Lightning into 56 Sqn service in Jan 1961 or cthe completion of the restoration of the Bulldog… So they got all the aircraft together and just temporarly recoded the Hurricane to represent a 56 Sqn one…

As 56’s Hurricane codes were ‘US’ this makes sense (the Hurricane this being in a 56 Sqn scheme, rather than Angels) and does that put all the schemes / types in the same place / time?

Looks like XM174/Y

Mark

XM174 ‘Y’ was on charge from 15/12/60 untill 23/01/01 when she was sent to Boscombe Down for trials.

I go with Pauls theory on staging the colour scheme for the shoot.

Creakingdoor, stall speed of the Lightning s about 150kts IIRC.

John.

JDK,

If as seems likely this is circa 1961, can we confirm LF363 in US-A livery at this time?

This appears to be the ‘Angels One Five’ livery, but I had previously photographed LF363 in 1957 and 1958 without codes.

I was temporarily out of circulation in the early 1960’s concentrating on further education…and getting married.

It was the BoB film that got me sparked up again!

Mark

Looks like XM174/Y

Mark

Looks like your eysight is ok

http://www.aviation-picture-hangar.co.uk/xm174.html

http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=XM

XM174 Lightning F1A

f/f 15/11/1960, d/d 15/12/1960, w/o 29/11/1968

XM174 was involved in a collision with XM 179 (which was now coded Y) on 6th June 1963 – So the photo has to be after 15/12/1960 and before 06/06/1963

Not doubting the photograph but a very interesting formation in terms of airspeed.

A Bulldog does about 174 mph flat-out…

…can a Lightning even go that slow?

Maybe it was taken just as the Lightning ‘shot-by’ as slowly as it could?

The Lightning seems to have full flap deployed but the angle-of-attack doesn’t seem that great. Anybody know what the stall speed is for a Lightning?

Is it not possible that the photo shoot was created to celebrate the introduction of the Lightning into 56 Sqn service in Jan 1961 or cthe completion of the restoration of the Bulldog… So they got all the aircraft together and just temporarly recoded the Hurricane to represent a 56 Sqn one…

Nice picture mark, just to add a little more ‘evidence’ the Lightning is a 56 Sqd machine and they did not get equiped with them until January 1961.

Can you see the serial number on her?.

John.

Looks like XM174/Y

Mark