The British national airlines during the 50s and 60s were as much of a hindrance to British civil aircraft as Sandys was to military designs.
The most glaring example is the Trident. DH perceived a market for an airliner to be powered by 3 RR Medway engines. BEA said the design was too large and insisted it was made smaller. The Medway was never built and almost immediately the Trident was found to be too small. Boeing built a couple of thousand 727s at the original size and DH sold 140-ish(?) Tridents.

One of the greats.

Yesterday, the Beeb website said he lost the end of his finger in a machine at school but it’s not there now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4340115.stm

I’m prepared to blame Sandys for almost everything but this may not have been his fault, or America as the US Army were interested in 200 of them.

It seems to have been partly Westland not being very interested, partly no government support and partly BEA not wanting to be the launch customer.

My reference said it went to Coleys, not Cranfield, in 1964 with some parts surviving.
I built the Airfix kit more years ago than I care to remember, too.

Who’s here for medals?

That’s the nearest I can find too.
According to Hawker Hurricane by Francis K Mason, all Allied shipborne fighters were painted with US markings to avoid confusion by American gunners and pilots who weren’t familiar with British and French designs.
There’s a pic of a MkX and a MkXII.

We went to one at Wroughton around 1990, give or take a year or so. I have no idea now what aircraft were there but there was a wonderful atmosphere, a 1950’s garden party feel to the place.

Phantom flyby, St Athan!

BR,

Laurie.

That picture’s on Ray Hanna’s office wall. There was a thread here about it a while back.