Actress Kristin Scott Thomas' Sea Vixen father

I don’t recall the recent FlyPast article on the type mentioning the loss rate.
At any rate, this is a good reminder that “Cold War” military flying was quite a different thing than today’s ops.

Think he meant the one who was shouting…

It was John Derry who lost his life when the deH 110 crashed at Farnborough in September 1952. Flight test observer Tony Richards also lost his life.

From the comments section:

The Sea vixon was the de HaVILAND 110 DURING PROTOTYPE AND HAD A FATAL CRASH AT FANBOROUIGH KILLING A FAMOUS TEST PILOT WHOSE NAME NOW EXCAPES ME. Sorry did not mean to shout

One of you lot?

Not new news, but interesting read nonetheless.

My friends Dad flew with Simon Idiens on 892 Sqn Phantom’s shortly before his death in Jan 1972. He was telling me that after the time of Cdr Idiens death, the story/rumour in the crewroom was that as the CO of the squadron, he wasn’t party to conversation amongst the crews that agreed to release the awkward parachute clips being used at the time shortly before entering the water should they ever have to eject at sea. Cdr Idiens ended up ejecting off Trevose Head one dark, cold wet night in January – makes me shudder just thinking about it… still not certain if his body was ever recovered?

“…..Of the 145 Sea Vixens built, 54 were lost in accidents and 55 crew members killed during the 13 years of frontline service with the Fleet Air Arm from 1959 to 1972.
This was a worse rate of attrition than the notorious F-104 Starfighter, which became known as the ‘Widowmaker’ in Cold War West Germany because 30 per cent
were lost to accidents….”

Was the Vixen a difficult airplane to fly, or was the loss rate due to the mission it flew ?

See the Daily Wail managed to get a good Sea Vixen photograph!