An image of the Comet racer appears on the side of one of his display support vehicles during his 1936 tour, see his Wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._W._A._Scott

John
The same picture appears in the book Farnborough and the Fleet Air Arm by Geoffrey Cooper, there it also states the aircraft was N3635. In that book it explains that a pair of rocket carriers were to be fitted between each inboard and outboard engine, each carrier was to contain twelve 3in UP’s(unrotaing projectiles) and were wired to fire serially in pairs at a time. Early tests were carried out without problem and the result was impressive.
The master selector switch could be set to ‘pairs’ or ‘all’ the latter to be used just for circuit testing, pre-flight.
On 18/8/41 a special demonstration was arrange in front of VIP’s but the mechanic failed to return the switch to pairs. The aircraft was taxied to the runway where the throttles were opened to 3/4 by the pilot Sqn/Ldr B.O. Huxtable who then selected ignition. The result was the two carriers with all rockets blazing shot forwards taking the propellers with them. Once the smoke had cleared the aircraft could be seen with one undercarriage collapsed.
The force applied to the rocket cradles was something like 12 tons, 600% the design load. The aircraft was written off.

Richard

A couple of years ago, someone VERY senior on the engineering side of VTTS told me- while we stood under the thing in her hangar- ‘It looks like a Vulcan but it ain’t’.

I cannot believe that very much was changed, if anything. The cost and bureaucratic process of raising modifications to cover alterations would have been impossible and why change something that worked for years in RAF service.
We in the UK do not have the experimental category that the Americans have, they can make major alterations without difficulty, Reno race aircraft being good examples where engines from a different manufacturer are often fitted.

Richard

Just an uneducated comment but I think the crank like item would not have been like a car starter dog but was actually bolted to a shaft, it has broken off through the bolt hole. I also suspect it was a lever of some sort that actuated something else attached where the bolt head is.

Richard

From the Harleyford Lancaster book the individual aircraft records show the following.
Those annotated with an M appear to be aircraft lost outside of the UK with the reasons recorded as missing/lost or abandoned and the location being the target of raid it was on.
Those shown with an E are down as crashed or salvaged which may mean they were lost due to none combat reasons before leaving our shores.
That theory works apart from 554 which is down as E but recorded as lost!

Richard

I don’t know if I was just unlucky but my copy last month had something wrong with the pictures, they looked a bit like 3D images as seen without the 3D glasses.

Richard