XJ695

I see from my logbook that I was the very last person to fly XJ695. On 16th November 1978 on my second LL recce sortie of the day in XJ695 out of Brawdy I hit a seagull over the Forest of Dean (an arboreal seagull?) and diverted to BZN. The damage to the aircraft was significant. The impact was on the port intake resulting in a major dent. The bird then went into the engine, tearing the port intake skin and removing the letterbox on its way, where it impacted on the starter housing and succeeded in shifting the engine on its mountings but the ever-reliable Avon held true throughout the recovery to BZN. I went to lunch in the Officers Mess (much tut-tutting about my green grow-bag from the shiny fleet) and phoned home. They phoned me back 20′ later to say that the aircraft was deemed beyond economical repair. I was picked up some 30′ later by my boss in our JP4 and XJ695 was abandoned at Brize never to fly again (nor did the seagull).

I too am an owner of this book, indeed I contributed to it so am possibly a little biased. No, I do not get a share of the royalties!
It is a comprehensive account of the Hunter’s life in all its guises with some good photos and some personal stories so I would not dismiss it too quickly. As above, do contact me if you would like to know more.

Cabbage,

My abject apologies. I completely misread the original question and was working on the fairing where the tailfin meets the fuselage not the tailplane. Nevertheless I hope that my photos have been of some use.

Lothar

Is this any help?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]235050[/ATTACH]

My other Gnat photos all show the same paint treatment of the fin base. This was taken in 1968.

Air Defence:
Lightning: 5, 11, 23, 29, 111, 145(R)
Phantom FG1: 43

Ground Attack:
Harrier: 1
Phantom: 6, 54

Reserve:
Hunter: 63, 234, 79

‘Not so sure that 2 missiles were sufficient’. Don’t forget the 2 guns that were fitted to the F1, F1A, F2 and F6. I don’t think that anyone really considered 2 missiles to be ‘sufficient’; there just wasn’t anywhere to hang any more. Yes, we did discuss the ram option but it was never official doctrine. Rather than be a modern kamikaze the feeling was that ,if one did need to resort to ramming, we wanted to survive the collision and be home for tea and biscuits so a sideways lurch into the tailfin was the favoured option.

Relighting

DD,

Sorry if I may have confused you so here I go again: you could relight a ‘dead’ engine regardless of the RPM on the live engine. Is that clearer?

Although the no 1 engine (bottom) was indeed further forward than the top (No 2) engine, I am not personally aware that there was any difference in airflow to the two engines apart from the example that I gave but I am happy to be corrected. The ‘throat’ to the upper engine was narrower than that to the lower engine because of where the main spar bisected the duct. If you accelerated the engines with parallel throttles, they spooled up at the same rapid rate.