Duxford's weird jet fighter boat

They probably did.

That post flight staged interview is magic. It’s as though they made it up as they went along:D

Hi Papa Lima,
Yes, Pathe is an amazing site. Anyone else had a go? It’s a real treasure trove. Takes a bit of practice to get a grips with, but worth it.
Cheers
James

Here’s Geoffrey Tyson (left) talking about the a/c after the flying.

Previous was the landing run, this is from the takeoff.

Please Mr, can I have one?

PS You need to go to ‘advanced search’ and put the film number in there, not the basic search.

Thanks, JDK, I finally managed to get the Pathe site working and it’s a great piece of film (for one who’s memories stretch back that far!). It really was a Golden Age of flying, and I’m sure Geoffrey Tyson was still in his lounge suit while in the cockpit!

And from that film I mentioned, in action:

Originally posted by Mike J
Saro A1, now in the Southampton Hall of Aviation. Legend has it that one of the engines from this aircraft was used in Donald Campbell’s ill-fated ‘Bluebird’ boat.

That’s right. The missing engine in DamienB’s last photo is the one that was fitted to Bluebird K7. This engine remained in the boat until 1966 when it was replaced with a Bristol Orpheus.
The Beryl is now down at the Filching Manor Motor Museum near Polegate at East Sussex. It was restored some 15 odd years ago and when stripped it still had fuel in it from it’s last run in Australia in 1964.

If you want to see and hear it fly, go to www.britishpathe.com and look up film 2403.16 which has footage of it taking off, landing and flying by. There’s probably the Farnbrough stuff there too, but I’ve not found it yet.
Cheers
James

Originally posted by aj_march
If I remember correctly there is a Saro A1 at the bottom of the Solent somewhere, Geoffrey Tyson was nearly killed when it inverted after touching down, does this sound familiar to anybody?

Very nearly right.
Eric “Winkle” Brown was flying it and was stuck under the wing. IIRC, it was Geoffrey Tyson that dived in and dragged him out.
The aircraft was never found, but I don’t know how hard they looked.

Quote from www.hazegray.org/faq/ram3.htm

Flight tests of all three (SR./A1) prototypes proceeded until August 1949 when both the second and third aircraft were lost in accidents, one sinking after hitting a floating object while landing on the Solent and the other after loss of control during an aerobatic display practice. Around this time the Ministry lost interest in the project, and also effectively cancelled development of the Beryl engine, but Saunders-Roe brought the first prototype out of storage for trials of their own for which purposes it received the “B-Conditions” civil registration G-12-1.
These trials continued until 1951 when, after being displayed at the Festival of Britain site on the Thames, it was retired to the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield.

They did seem to drop the tradition for a while (no name for the RB162 either). However, the Tay name was re-used in more recent times and their latest monster engine is of course, the Trent (again, the second use of a name – the original Trent being their first turboprob).

Originally posted by Eric Mc
Dart is actually not as “appropriate” as it might sound. The Rolls Royce jet engines are called after British rivers, Spey, Tay, Conway, Tyne, Avon, Dart etc. Dart just happened to be particularly appropriate. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a RR Thames or Severn yet.

More to the point. Where the hell is the River RB211?

Moggy

The Metrovick F.2 engine was first called “Freda”, having followed earlier prototype engines named “Betty” and “Doris”. The third F.2 flew from Baginton in the tail of Lancaster LL735 on 29 June 1943, and on 13 November 1943 at Farnborough two mounted in underwing nacelles powered the third Meteor, DG204/G. Unfortunately one of the Meteor engines exploded fatally on take-off on 1 April 1944.
The F2/4 modified version was to become the “Beryl”, with a thrust of 4000 lb.
Source: “The Development of Jet and Turbine Aero Engines” 3rd Edition2002 Bill Gunston

Ah, so the Beryl wasn’t named after the tea lady at Vickers then.

I had never heard of a gemstone called a Beryl beofre. You learn something every day. Why would it have been inspirational as such?

I did look it up, honest, couldn’t find much of interest. I did discover that the first jet engine to fly on a Lancaster was the Beryl in 1943, and yes Campbell’s Bluebird had been Beryl-engined but they were later changed.

I have read that this aircraft was usually flown inverted and scandalously low along the Farnborough runway when it was displayed at the SBAC Show 7-12 September 1948. The pilot was Geoffrey Tyson (the mildest of men).

Do any photos exist of this remarkable feat, and if so could someone please post them here?

Incidentally TG271 is said to have carried the very first Martin-Baker ejection seat.

Source: “40 Years at Farnborough” by John Blake and Mike Hooks, Haynes 1990

Dart is actually not as “appropriate” as it might sound. The Rolls Royce jet engines are called after British rivers, Spey, Tay, Conway, Tyne, Avon, Dart etc. Dart just happened to be particularly appropriate. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a RR Thames or Severn yet.

I always thought that Bristol Siddeley’s penchant for classical mythology was better – e.g. Proteus and Olympus. Their jets more or less continued the tradition started with their piston engines (Centaurus, Pegasus, Taurus etc).

As for Beryl. Maybe they had an Edith or Daphne in the pipeline. Thank goodness they gave up on jet engine design before they went any further. Seriously, didn’t they pass their work on to Armstrong-Siddeley which resulted in the most famous of the “gem” engines, the Sapphire?

Originally posted by Dave Homewood
I also had to chuckle at the engine’s name. The likes of Rolls Royce found imspiring names for their engines like Merlin, Griffon and Dart. But Metropolitan-Vickers called their one Beryl !! :confused: 🙂

Yes – a hard, green gem.
Look it up! It would have been inspirational at the time…

Flood.

Cheers guys, that tells me a lot more than I knew before. I had no idea the design went back as far as 1943-4, imagine if they’d gone into service, that would have been interesteing. Jets in the Pcific was rare enough, but a jet fighter flying boat!

I also had to chuckle at the engine’s name. The likes of Rolls Royce found imspiring names for their engines like Merlin, Griffon and Dart. But Metropolitan-Vickers called their one Beryl !! :confused: 🙂

For more about this intriguing machine, look here . 😎