“Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies”

The cancellation of the project was mainly due to the potential high cost involved in producing the larger ‘Type Z’ while resolving the outstanding development issues, which included noise.

Did they mention the sales success it had in the USA and Japan?
Also, Kaman took out a license for the type.

Odd that they highlighted the Rotodyne but not a mention of the SARO Princess.

Considering the amount of good film material freely available, they could have done a lot better by showing the mature aircraft rather than its first flight.

The programme gave the usual emphasis on noise as the reason for cancelling Rotodyne, and then came out with the odd statment that it was deafening at two miles, which is rubbish.
I could not measure the light-up or helicopter regime noise above normal traffic noise on Westminster bridge.
That does not mean that the Rotodyne was not noisy.

The cancellation of the project was mainly due to the potential high cost involved in producing the larger ‘Type Z’ while resolving the outstanding development issues, which included noise.

It was not the cancellation of the project that was a disaster, but to destroy the prototype and to fail to preserve the data was unforgivable.
The Eurocopter X3 has much in common with Rotodyne, a fact freely admitted by Eurocopter, and hopefully they will achieve the success they deserve. Then you can rest assured that others are looking at the technology.
The battle of compounds is on, 50 years later.

The Comet really was unfortunate bad luck, the price we paid for being at the cutting-edge.

As John Cunningham said himself, “we paid the price of progress”.

However, the weakness that brought down the Comet were not a result of its new powerplant type….which was the only cutting edge part of the Comet. The rest of the fuselage wasn’t any more advanced than those found on other pressurized aircraft of the day.
Rather, it was just questionable engineering….the dangers of sharp cutouts in pressure vessels was already well known.

Plane Speaking, by Bill Gunston, 1991. The Chapter “No Fatigue Problem” pgs 195-201.
Empire of the Clouds, 2011 by James Hamilton-Paterson, pg 217
The Quick and the Dead, by former test pilot Bill Waterton, 1956, pg 232.

Anyone remember “Aces Four”? There was also a Hunter foursome, the Blue something or other. (ok, you did qualify it with “important team”).

You’re probably thinking of the “Blue Herons” from FRADU who flew GA.11s. They disbanded in 1980.

Anyone remember “Aces Four”? There was also a Hunter foursome, the Blue something or other. (ok, you did qualify it with “important team”).

Never heard of any of those teams. I expect that someone from the Aerobatic Display Teams Special Interest Group will soon tell us?

The Black Arrows (111 Sq) were followed by the Blue Diamonds (92 sq), another Hunter team. Thereafter there was no official RAF team – a 4-ship Lightning team did appear at Farnborough and I think were the Firebirds (56 Sq), but I didn’t see them. CFS (I believe it was) started a Gnat team as the Yellowjacks and they lasted a year before morphing into the Red Arrows, which became the official RAF team and have been around every since. To everyone’s great pleasure.

I don’t think I’ve missed out any important team, but no doubt I’ll be corrected if I have……

Anyone remember “Aces Four”? There was also a Hunter foursome, the Blue something or other. (ok, you did qualify it with “important team”).

It’s still running on here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmV6_INb_p0 🙂

Does anyone know if/when the first programme will be repeated? I was on holiday when it was broadcast and it wasn’t available on iPlayer for very long afterwards so I missed it there too.:mad:

If you want some info on the pros and cons of the VC10 layout when compared to the Il-62’s, have a look at this article on my site: http://www.vc10.net/History/Comp_il62.html (written by Peter Skipp).

The Russian copy, the Il-62, used to have a prop under the tail when it was parked.

Interestingly if you overlay a plan view of the Il-62 and VC-10, and align from the tail cone forward, the ’62’s wing is mounted about half of a chord farther forward.

This gives a longer moment arm aft of the main gear, so the same load in the aft seats of a 62 would generate more of a down force than in the VC-10. Hence, presumably, the pogo tail wheel.

Oddly this layout should mean that the tail can be much smaller to provide the same aerodynamic force, but the fin and rudder are about the same area as the ’10. Possibly because the forward fuselage of the ’62 is much longer.

So… I didn’t really clarify anything there!

2nd episode (airliners) repeated tonight – BBC4 10.00pm

Nice to see the LPG boys getting some much deserved coverage too……

I’ve just seen on another forum that both programmes are now available on YouTube!

Not sure whether this has been posted already but here are the links. 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmV6_INb_p0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPLdtPWERNg

Enjoy!!

Efiste, you obviously haven’t seen my posts on the subject:D, but at the end of the day the aircraft wasn’t tested enough to know one way or the other.
It was refreshing to hear the other side for a change.

Well Maggie when she got in power looked to see if the programme apparently could be restarted, sadly it wasn’t feasible.

Thats great info, shifting subject slightly the programme gave a two sided opinion on TSR2, and I was suprised to hear one chap saying that it wasnt anywhere near what it was cracked up to be so to speak…….I havent heard a statement knocking the aircraft as such, but then again I have only probably watched and read the “propaganda” side of the story…..

You were correct in you assumption what I meant Pagen..

As for fuel and balance, we used to get the crew on who had worked out in a computer the fuel load required to say Dallas, I would be uplifting the fuel and the Flight Eng would say can you slip on a extra couple of K, the Copilot would also ask when he saw you, you used to fill it up add a couple of extra K of fuel which considering the tolerances we worked to required some jiggling of the Maths.. at the gauges you would look at what was in it then start shuffling the fuel about, you could quite easily hide a 2000kg up the fin and in the wings then shuffle it back and forth so it didn’t show in the wing tanks or on the gauges. But was there, the FE would then open the fin tank feed and draw the extra fuel that wasn’t there.. 😀

Only had one engine blow up on me… Ahh exciting times.

with having the engines mounted at the back, were there big differences to design into the airframe in terms of balance etc etc, as opposed to a standard wing mounted set-up.

I don’t know an awful lot about the design aspects of the rear engines installation, but the wings and main undercarriages are quite far aft, which suggests there’s a lot of weight rearwards to counteract. You can add the weight of the fuel in the tail fin tanks (10 tons I believe) to the equation as well, something which was possibly ovelooked with the incident that befell XR806!

The Canberra would certainly become a tail sitter if the tanks were filled in the wrong order!

I remember an old friend telling me that the Canberra had a habit of tipping up the front end if it wasnt fuelled up in a specific manner…….

With regard to the rear-mounted engines, I once got on a VC-10 at the newly opened airport at Mahe in the Seychelles bound for Colombo. We’d all just settled in our seats when the “hostie” asked us all to move forwards (the aircraft was only half full) as the captain says the “balance” isn’t correct. So I guess having all that weight at the back did have an effect. The Russian copy, the Il-62, used to have a prop under the tail when it was parked.