RAF Comets-such a beautiful sight!

Was certainly a problem on the Queens Flight Herons at one point, so it could be on the Comets.

Weere the wings on the 2s bare metal ? It always looked less ‘shiny’ than the fuselage, and I wondered if they were painted Aluminium/High Speed Silver.

Shots of the T/C2s on delivery look like the fuselage could have been painted as well.

D’you know I can’t honestly remember :confused:

I don’t recall ever polishing wings on the C2’s just fuselage bits and even then only a couple of times.
It was a punishment mainly for being in Chiefy’s bad books for being late into work or suffering from a bad hangover from a good Naafi Night. 😀

Even to this day I hate the smell of metal polish and the stuff we use to use was “Wadpol” which was like an impregnated cotton material full of brasso…ugh!

Strange things use to happen at Lyneham all the time…..anyone remember the Movements fella who went and found a nice aircraft hold to doss down in for the night shift and when he woke up he was on his way to Cyprus…….:D

I only worked on the 2’s for a couple of years at Lyneham as they were phasing them out of service (can’t remember why though :confused:) I know there was talk of polished metal thinness due to the RAF polishing the aluminium bodies up too often but that could be a load of bull….t but having said that the remaining 4c’s in RAF service were resprayed on the shiny bits to avoid corrosion and thankfully….. polishing.

Was certainly a problem on the Queens Flight Herons at one point, so it could be on the Comets.

Weere the wings on the 2s bare metal ? It always looked less ‘shiny’ than the fuselage, and I wondered if they were painted Aluminium/High Speed Silver.

Shots of the T/C2s on delivery look like the fuselage could have been painted as well.

Well thank you Adrian – made my day. One memory from the flight was that the cabin crew had little metal gold (?) Comet badges on their RAF ties.
Bill (who for today is 16 again).

Twenty very lucky CCF cadets were let out of a weeks camp at RAF Yatesbury on 2 September 1964 for a glorious tour of the west country down to the Scillies in XR395. Love to see a photograph of the aircraft – can anybody oblige please?
Cheers
Bill

Your wish is my command!

Twenty very lucky CCF cadets were let out of a weeks camp at RAF Yatesbury on 2 September 1964 for a glorious tour of the west country down to the Scillies in XR395. Love to see a photograph of the aircraft – can anybody oblige please?
Cheers
Bill

😀 I kept the destination secret just in case anybody else remembered.

Yes, it was a very nice day out at Hatfield and they made us most welcome.
Mick Edwards… I knew I would remember his name by next Friday. Smashing Bloke. Always had a big grin and a ready quip.

If I remember correctly he had a problem with his RAF Career at some point and left the RAF to join Civil Aviation on 747’s I think.
He was a top-rated ETPS test pilot and he and I were on the Tristar program at one point at BD. Excellent to work with and he never got the Grumps. 😀

Nice shot of Lyneham-on-the-Bump probably one of the best overhead photo’s I have ever seen actually…. and I have seen a few as well.

So you must have been at BD yourself? PM me your real name? or is that you on the copyright?

Me on the Copyright Melv. I was not at BD but at Lyneham at the time and working in Station Ops doing the Herk training programme, so had to allocate an aircraft for this sortie…and of course ‘allocated’ myself! I had a feature article and front cover photo in the October 92 issue of Aircraft Illustrated when you can read the full story.

….and I was on the ramp of that Hercules shooting you on that day – 29th July 1992. The Comet’s pilot of S/Ldr.Mic.Edwards and here is one of my shots taken about the same time, just as we overflew Lyneham with the DH88 Comet formating alongside. After we landed at Hatfield, I had the double-delight of flying back to Boscombe Down inside XS235.

😀 I kept the destination secret just in case anybody else remembered.

Yes, it was a very nice day out at Hatfield and they made us most welcome.
Mick Edwards… I knew I would remember his name by next Friday. Smashing Bloke. Always had a big grin and a ready quip.

If I remember correctly he had a problem with his RAF Career at some point and left the RAF to join Civil Aviation on 747’s I think.
He was a top-rated ETPS test pilot and he and I were on the Tristar program at one point at BD. Excellent to work with and he never got the Grumps. 😀

Nice shot of Lyneham-on-the-Bump probably one of the best overhead photo’s I have ever seen actually…. and I have seen a few as well.

So you must have been at BD yourself? PM me your real name? or is that you on the copyright?

I have put a picture up of Canopus post Major Servicing.

This photo was taken from the back of an open ramp Hercules as we headed up from Bath and over Chippenham area. Note the River Avon below. Note also the flaps are set at 30 degrees on Canopus.
I am on-board Canopus at the time of this photo shoot with a flying crew from EPTS.
I can’t remember the name of the Captain now! but it will come to me in the fullness of time…..about a week I reckon. 😀

….and I was on the ramp of that Hercules shooting you on that day – 29th July 1992. The Comet’s pilot of S/Ldr.Mic.Edwards and here is one of my shots taken about the same time, just as we overflew Lyneham with the DH88 Comet formating alongside. After we landed at Hatfield, I had the double-delight of flying back to Boscombe Down inside XS235.

XR399 Goose Bay 1972

Nice picture!

Lyneham was operating C4’s with 216 sqn. as a separate organisation from the Herc. fleet in 1972.

I use to transit quite often through Goose in the Trucky Fleet normally armed with a load of goodies for the Lads (steak & kidney pies were normally top of the list!).
We were always made so welcome in the bar. 😀

XR399 Goose Bay 1972

Sounds like a good yarn! The skinning was thinner on the Mks 1 & 2 and was beefed up with the 3 & 4.
Cracking stories Melv, keep em coming!

Thanks………Yes, rivet heads were also part of the problem.
I know the skin material had different thickness between a MK1,2 & 4. and if I remember correctly the RAF’s C2’s were suffering from corrosion but who knows at the time it was probably an excuse to get rid of the C2 fleet in yet another cost cutting exercise which plagues are Armed Forces even today.

I have always maintained that the difference between a Comet 2 and Comet 4 is quite pronounced and DH would have, perhaps, in view of what happened to the early Comets considered a change of aircraft name for the 4 series.
Anyway back on track……..

Let us not forget that Canopus was a 100% working aircraft at BD and not part of the historic flying club but I know any BD person reading this might disagree with that statement! :D….. and work it did.
It’s primary role was to test or trial equipment in the flying role before that equipment was released to RAF service or to carry out testing as directed by MOD PE Authority. Some trials work was secret… some was not …just routine stuff.

It was quite a difficult job keeping this Comet actually airworthy because, as you can imagine, spares were drying up fairly rapidly and it wasn’t always easy to source spare parts. Some of those spares searches I will come onto later.

The other problem was the Design Authority which was Bae at Hatfield which, and to be honest, they were not tooo keen to see this last airworthy Comet still flying for obvious historical reasons.
However, there was a very nice fella who acted on the DA’s behalf at Hatfield who I use to keep in regular contact with and who was, to all intents and purposes my sole DA contact in keeping Canopus going as best we could with what we had available.
Sadly he was forced to retire with the Big C and I did learn later he had susequently died. Pity because he had been with the Comet program as an apprentice through to the mid 90’s and had a wealth of good solid practical experience over many years. When he went Bae did not replace him as far as I am aware and the DA virtually closed down for the Comet and rightly or wrongly I took it upon myself to make the necessary judgements on what should be done taking my lead from the flow of technical information coming in appertaining to the Nimrod Technical Supplements. I would carry out Nimrod/Comet cross referencing to see if anything applied to Canopus and if it did then I would act upon it to implement it.

Whilst I am mentioning DH Apprentices I started my aviation career as a 16 year old DH Apprentice at Portsmouth. I say started because I never actually made it to the factory 😀 as DH Portsmouth closed down and the whole factory was moved to Hatfield. If any ex DH Portsmouth people are reading this then can I just say my Dad worked at DH Portsmouth and I would guess you would have known him quite well……he worked there for a fair number of years.

Coming up……Have you seen the corrosion on the main landing gear pivot pins? Jeez! That looks really bad and it’s way out of laid down design limits… what are we going to do about that then? :confused:
Anybody know if a set of Nimrod landing gear fits a Comet? :confused: Much shaking of heads in a sideways movement. 😀

How we grafted Nimrod main landing gear onto Canopus.

I was there on the sidelines taking it all in with the then Supervisor of the research into this but not in charge of this project or the subsequent fitting out.

To be continued……….

..I know there was talk of polished metal thinness due to the RAF polishing the aluminium bodies up too often but that could be a load of bull….t but having said that the remaining 4c’s in RAF service were resprayed on the shiny bits to avoid corrosion and thankfully….. polishing.

Sounds like a good yarn! The skinning was thinner on the Mks 1 & 2 and was beefed up with the 3 & 4.
Cracking stories Melv, keep em coming!

Hi Melv.. is that a pic of ‘695’ at Duxford? If yes then i presume you were sad to see her scrapped.. what with you two having such an intimate past.!?;)

Yes, Duxford it is…… 695 is not quite dead though as I understand the nose section is still around somewhere.

I only worked on the 2’s for a couple of years at Lyneham as they were phasing them out of service (can’t remember why though :confused:) I know there was talk of polished metal thinness due to the RAF polishing the aluminium bodies up too often but that could be a load of bull….t but having said that the remaining 4c’s in RAF service were resprayed on the shiny bits to avoid corrosion and thankfully….. polishing.

Hi Melv.. is that a pic of ‘695’ at Duxford? If yes then i presume you were sad to see her scrapped.. what with you two having such an intimate past.!?;)

I have put a picture up of Canopus post Major Servicing.

My apologies for my name on the photo but I obviously don’t want it scanned off by anyone and published without permission and I have to say I have already had 2 of my personal good ideas “poached” by TV Companies in the past so I am a bit more street-wise now when communicating on open Forums.

Anyway, back to Canopus.

This photo was taken from the back of an open ramp Hercules as we headed up from Bath and over Chippenham area. Note the River Avon below. Note also the flaps are set at 30 degrees on Canopus.
I am on-board Canopus at the time of this photo shoot with a flying crew from EPTS.
I can’t remember the name of the Captain now! but it will come to me in the fullness of time…..about a week I reckon. 😀
I do remember it was a very bumpy ride on our way up to Hatfield to shown off our shiny Comet.

The flight profile of the Comet …both 2’s and 4’s is still wonderful isn’t it? …never fails to impress me.

Here is my picture of the infamous C2 695.

I say infamous because it ruined my Christmas in 1966!

I have always got a story to tell Fella’s so get used to it 😀 and I havn’t even started on my 30 years of Hercules flying and maintenance either.

Christmas 1966… Lyneham…. I was a 19 year old J/T and the shift I was working on were the duty shift over that Christmas period. Needless to say I was a bit peeved because Christmas as a 19 year old was about having a good time not about working on aircraft.
“Don’t worry” everyone said “There won’t be anything on and it will be as quiet as the grave on shift over Christmas”.
How wrong could they be!

I got into work and had barely sipped my first cup of coffee and I was still nursing a grade ‘A’ hangover from a really heavy night in the NAAFI on Christmas Eve.
Chiefy arrived into the Crewroom and picked me out with a Corporal to go into 695’s fuel tank and replace it by the end of Boxing Day 😮 Top priority!
Anyone who has ever replaced a C2 rubber fuel cell tank will know the jaw dropping moment of how much work is involved in the replacement of these fuel cells.
The aircraft was required for the Gib. run and had moved up the priority list and had to be completed…..no if’s no but’s and no excuses.
So that was my Christmas in 1966 buried in the fuel tanks of C695 and I have never forgot it either and that is why I still have this picture of 695. 😀
Yes, the job was completed and the aircraft was ready to go.

One more for you !!! Canopus in motion !!!

A beautiful plane indeed. With RAF Lyneham maybe closing looks like Comet fans might need to move the gate guard to safety? 🙁

Please post more photos.:) and Melv please post some more stories.

Yes, I will do multivac but I have to make sure I crank up the brain cell and get my dates and story right. 😀
Lots of knowledgable people on this Forum! 😀

I do have some excellent photo’s we took during the Comet Major at Kinloss and I wish had taken a lot more but hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it.
I do have a RAF AIR CLUES Magazine Article that was written back in 1992 on the Canopus Major and I shall see if I can get that put up onto the Forum.

Regarding Lyneham I doubt very much whether it will actually close as the general election is almost upon us and I believe the prospective Tory candidate is saying it will stay open as indeed the present Tory MP has been stating for some while now as a Tory defence policy move.
Personally I don’t trust any of the Blighter’s! 😀

A beautiful plane indeed. With RAF Lyneham maybe closing looks like Comet fans might need to move the gate guard to safety? 🙁

Please post more photos.:) and Melv please post some more stories.

Talking of the factory at Chester next month is the 70th anniversary of the opening of the plant as built by Vickers to produce Wellingtons. Lanc PA474 was built there. At one stage the main assembly hall was the largest building of its type in the world until Boeing developed their huge plant at Seattle. Still active building building Airbus wings amongst other things.