What is the story behind this?!!!!

Wow. Never thought I’d see this sort of thing while both sober and awake…:eek:

Not an aerodynamicist, but the tail-to-tail Venom/Venom pod combo has a pronounced Whitcomb/area-rule/”Coke bottle” look to it. I wonder, could this beastie be taxied supersonically?? :rolleyes:

Merry Christmas all–

S.

We used to try to trick the public/spotters at Abingdon open days too – fitting wingtip missiles ( white cardboard tubes ), odd ‘ECM’ bumps on the nose ( flap stop blisters ) etc. You then park the aircraft towards the back where it is not easy to see, and watch the fun.

Best wind up though? – mask out or alter the serial number!

They did that at one Dunsfold Families Day to stop us getting the serials of a bunch of Brawdy Hawks on rework. Pity they hadn’t covered over the ‘last three’ on the tail. Complete waste of time from their perspective 😉

Not Vampire – Sea Venom. Longer nose.

Mea culpa! Still, good to see the DH Police are still keping us educated!

Adrian

Looks like most of it is Vampire, with just a Gannet tailplane for a fin, to me.

Not Vampire – Sea Venom. Longer nose.

Looks like most of it is Vampire, with just a Gannet tailplane for a fin, to me.

I’d like to meet the person who thought of grafting two aircraft together tail-to-tail so it had a nose at each end – just the sort of idiot sense of humour I like!

Adrian

Thanks for that gang! I did get a bit worried that I might have stumped you!

Rgds Cking

We used to try to trick the public/spotters at Abingdon open days too – fitting wingtip missiles ( white cardboard tubes ), odd ‘ECM’ bumps on the nose ( flap stop blisters ) etc. You then park the aircraft towards the back where it is not easy to see, and watch the fun.

Best wind up though? – mask out or alter the serial number!

The Vennet was similar to the white aircraft shown but had a pointed nose was painted red and has the “serial” 12HS painted on the nose – perhaps the same airframe in a different year.

Mock jets

Reminds me of the Scott Furlong Predator which was a delta winged product featured in the drama series of The Planemakers shown on tV ages ago and never repeated as far as I know. The mock up could be taxied ,powered by a motor cycle engine. I wonder what they used for flying footage?

Flightpath Article few years ago.
Cheers,

Olivier

Good pics! Not seen these shots before – they are the “Sea Snipe” I was referring to.

Excellent story from the days when the RAF was allowed to do daft things could you imagine them doing something like this now? Bex

ROYAL NAVY!!! NOT RAF!

Flightpast Article few years ago.
Cheers,

Olivier

Seems some people just had to much time on their hands 😉

Excellent story from the days when the RAF was allowed to do daft things could you imagine them doing something like this now? Bex

This is RNAS Abbotsinch (HMS Sanderling) Air Day (off the top of my head can’t recall which year, but early 1960s) and I think this was the “Vennet” – a mixture of two Sea Venoms and a Gannet tailplane as the fin. Abbotsinch was the Aircraft Holding Unit at the time and there were huge numbers in open storage on the airfield all slowly rotting away 😡

They did several spoofs like this specifically for Air Day, more often than not involving Venoms and Gannet parts. One of them was the “Sea Snipe”, and involved the cockpit of a Venom with one of the aux fins from a Gannet. It looked very much like a prototype of the 1950s (BP111 etc) and was actually fast taxied up and down the runway for the amusement of the public by the then-Maintenance Test Pilot, Lt Paul Stevenson. Photographs of it can be found in Flight and Aeroplane of the day.

Hope that helps.