R.A.E. Farnborough Fairchild Packet

Bit late adding to this but have Just found a copy of ‘Forever Farnborough’ by P.J.Cooper and that states that a C119 was loaned to the RAE in the early 50’s continuing para drop trial work previously done by Halifax and Hastings. A number of large load drops were accomplished.
The C119 was also used to return much of the wreckage of one of the Comets that crashed in the Mediterranean in 1954.
Strange that no pictures or details have turned up especially with the publicity surrounding the Comet.

If anyone is interested I have the AP for UK supply drop from the C82 and C119 in my collection, first issued in 1953.

CKing, that fits with the photos I have of heavy load drops.

If they threw out and earth mover then it would have been the HSP not an MSP.
The design authority on many components is not the MoD and ithere is a lot of single source supply involved because of this.
A common failure scomponent apparently is the BARCP which transitions the chutes from horizontal to vertical… There have been some shortened Land Rovers due to this…
A fascinating thing to watch…

I was at Farnborough during the eighties. One of the engine fitters there was the late Tom Eagle. He was involved with this aircraft. It never had a RAF serial as it was on loan from the USAF. The aircraft came compleate with a USAF ground and aircrew. Now the exact details of what it was used for were never mentioned, although Tom did say they were dropping very heavy loads out of it beneath special parachutes. He told a story of them dropping a HUGE earth mover out of it over Lasham and the chute failed!. When it hit the ground it burried it’s self so deep that they just filled the whole in rather than try to dig it out!.
Now there is an R.A.E Farnborugh expert about, who is trying to compile details of all the experimental flying carried out there. He is after me for some details of a trial I was involved with in the Isle of skye. (That should flush him out!) He might be on this forum!!!! So I’m sure he will add some thing to this.

Rgds Cking

I have photographs of both a C-82 and a C-119 operating on trials work with the Joint Air Transport Establishment out of Abingdon, which may well have involved Farnborough. They are both normal USAF machines.

Was it possibly a USAF C119 being used for the development of the Medium Stressed Platform (MSP)?
The MSP which is still in British service today was devised to replace the WWII crash pan method of parachuting heavy items and was originally dropped from USAF C82 and then C119 whilst the Beverley was being developed. The lack of clearance to drop the MSP from the Beverley in 1956 meant that the heavy drops that went into Suez were the old system using the Hastings.