BIGVERN1966Hi folks,
These are the two on display at the RAAF Museum, Point Cook, as BigVern’s said. The one inside was restored a few years ago by the Friends, and after giving it a quick dust and polish, I can say they did a great job. Looks good up the tailpipe too (is this thing loaded?).
Sadly the example on exterior display looks tired, and this is one of the problems with the site – it’s only about 1km from the bay, which is salt water.
The details supplied in this thread will be most useful for when I get a question on the things – up to now I’ve stuck to the minima on missiles. Many thanks chaps.
Vern, let me have an e-mail and I’ll happily send you full size photos.
Cheers
They did a damm slight more than just a dust and polish job on the thing. The job took about three years, if memory serves and involved a complete strip down of the round to its basic components, complete stripping of all of the paint work to the bare metal and major anti-corrosion treatment as well. The missile is a hybird that should be on the launcher outside. (The launcher is a Type 202 off Bloodhound Mk 2). The problem is the only boosts they have are on the Mark 1 (which is the type operated by 30 Squadron RAAF at RAAF Williamtown , along with the Squadron’s ‘A’ Detachment that was at RAAF Darwin until 1968).
No need for Photos, I was sent a disk full of photos of the restoration, by my mate Jim who was on the team who restored it.
(He works for CRAY as a day job)
The link below might also be of interest, it was a really good reference source for Bloodhound material but it seems to be undergoing a rebuild and also encountering a few copyright issues with the MoD. They are also seeking additional information and former Squadron contacts.
It will be a great site when I get round to finishing it, as its 😀 MINE!!! 😀 , As for the copyright problem, its only that the MoD copyright bod’s will only give me the OK when the site is completed which will not be for some while yet as most of the system AP’s and later Squadron ORB are still classified in the UK. (Web sites are classed as a broadcast and the copyright licence is issued as such with a time limit). The Mod Copyright people on the whole are a very helpful bunch and I’ve had no problems dealing with them on other issues, They have their rules and they stick to them (which I have no problems with at all).
I believe that Newark Air Museum have some interesting variants of the Bloodhound Radar Wagons [not sure of their designations] but sadly no missile itself.
Mike Smith has three Indigo Corkscrews (The codename the radar was developed under by Ferranti Radar in Edinburgh) at Newark. The completed one on the main site is an AD-10 radar off the BAC Thunderbird Mk 2 SAM system and was built for export to Libya, the export name being Firelight (The sale was cancelled by a certain colonel). The radar was then very heavily modified and was used by the Royal Radar and Signals Establishment as trial equipment operating at 32Ghz (The normal AD-10 worked at 8Ghz). The second of the radars is again an AD-10, which was modified to work at 16GHz and was again used for trials work by RRSE. The third is a Type 86 off Bloodhound Mk2 and its last use before going to RRSE was for Technician training at the Bloodhound Maintenance School, RAF North Coates. I do not know the history of that radar before then, as the RAF operated Type 86 radar procured at new builds in the 1960’s, ex British Army AD-10’s (that had been used on the Thunderbird Mk 2’s of 36 (Heavy) Regiment RA) and Firelights that were brought back off the Royal Swedish Air Force in the 1970’s/80’s and it could be one of any of those systems.
and of course, just to keep on topic, the Type 86 was the last radar to be used at RAF Bawdsey.
BIGVERN1966Aberporth
Here’s a photo of a place that Papa Lima will know very well.
BIGVERN1966Project Cancelled by Derek Wood has a chapter that covers the Vickers VG work in some depth.
BIGVERN1966Maybe a squirt of WD-40? I reckon you’d get no further trouble from your keyboard after that. 😀
No LesB,
😀 I think a Keyboard costing more than £5 is the better answer 😀 and while about it why is the Tornado F2/F3 called the Flicker (Don’t answer this LesB) lets see knows (does anybody know the other nickname the F2/F3 has, which it shares with another swinger?)
BIGVERN1966BTW, don’t understand ‘B * * ldy’. Is it a nickname or summat? 😀 😀
.
Duff Keyboard (that has keys that stick)
BIGVERN1966Can’t believe you blokes don’t know the origin of the term Blue Circle for a non-existant radar! 🙁 Thought the tale had gone down in aviation history, obviously not. But then, it’s not relating to Spitangs or a Musfires so I guess it was of no interest.
At the time in question the Tornados did carry a lump of concrete in the nose to make up for the weight of their as-yet undelivered radar unit. Also at the time there was a fairly well known cement manufacturer called . . . Blue Circle Cement! They had yellow cement mixer trucks emblazoned with a blue circle.
So there you go, it was just a bit of service banter. 😎
Now waiting to see who’s the first to reply “I knew that!”..
Of course I B :p :p dly knew that :rolleyes: AFM did not exactly not tell the world back in the late 1980’s. I thought everybody knew the term was a Pi** take. (The story about the term ‘BLUE CIRCLE’ as a radio code between the Fighter Controllers at Neatishead, Boulmer and Buchan and the Flickers out of Coningsby is totally true however).
BIGVERN1966Stainless Steel – Bristol 188
BIGVERN1966And of course the station was home to the first military Jet VTOL unit in the World, the UK/USA/FRG Tripartite Evaluation Squadron operating 9 Hawker Kestrel FGA 1, the forerunner to the Harrier.
BIGVERN1966Hope none of you are breaching the Official Secrets Act – revealing that the Tornado has lumps of highly classified concrete in it 😀
Roger Smith.
😀 This information is not Classified – Its attached to a F2 radome in a Musuem, near a empty bunker with a big green Bristol Dog. Honest Guv! 😀
BIGVERN1966my recollection was that concrete lumps were used in tornadoes awaiting the FOXHUNTER RADAR system…
TT
Very correct, The equipment was also known as AI Mk 24 and it was a Frequency Modulated (Interrupted) Continuous Wave Air Intercept radar and SARH AAM Illuminator, developed by GEC Marconi.
BIGVERN1966Black Bodge Tape (I saw a Tornado F2 covered in the stuff at a Mildenhall back in the very late 1980’s). One could add Silver Speed Tape and Double Bond putty, Two great materials from the Battle Damage Repair arsenal.
BIGVERN1966that uranium was actually the rudder balance weights, they are spread up the leading edge of the rudder.
Thanks for the correction, as I said, I was told by somebody else. I actually heard that aircraft crash and I was three miles away.
BIGVERN1966IIRC, at a time when in-use radar systems in the RAF and RN had the prefix ‘Blue’ i.e. Buccaneer – Blue Parrot, Sea Harrier – Blue Vixen, the Tornado’s ballast was appropriatly referred to as the ‘Blue Circle’.
— A Bit off Topic Here —
Not quite true. The Rainbow (or Colour) Codename system was designed to not give away anything about the system with the colour in the name. Hence Blue Parrot – Bucc Radar. Blue Steel – Standoff ASM. Blue Boar – TV Guided Bomb. Blue Streak – IRBM. Blue Danube – First British A-Bomb. Blue Sky – Fireflash AAM. Blue Jay – Firestreak AAM. Red Steer – Tail Warning Radar. Red Beard – A-bomb. Red Duster – Bloodhound SAM. Red Top – IR AAM. Yellow River – Ground Radar For SAM. Yellow Sun – First British H-bomb.
Blue Fox and Blue Vixen were names given to the Radars by Ferranti (The codenames for British Projects changed to a two letter three number code system in the early 1960’s, some of the names from this system stuck like WE177 – Tac H-bomb. BL755 – CBU. JP233 – Airfield attack weapon.
Check out Chris Gibson’s website which has all the codenames http://www.skomer.u-net.com/
BIGVERN1966The concrete was used as ballast in the Tornado F.2’s whilst they were awaiting their radar to be completed.
The ballast in the F2’s also had a codename/Nickname (based on some of the British radar codenames from the past, Blue Parrot (Bucc), Red Steer (Vulcan Tail Radar), Blue Fox and Blue Vixen (Sea Harrier)). The codeword was used by the fighter controllers at the Sector Operations Centers to find out if the Tornado had a full avionics fit, in this case the controller would ask the pilot if the aircraft was fitted with BLUE CIRCLE, If the reply was yes, the Tornado was fitted with ballast. Hence the ballast picked up the name of a Blue Circle Radar.
Posted edited – Other guys had the same idea at the same time. Great Minds do think alike.
BIGVERN1966It’s much less of a problem with modern rocket powered seats compared with the old ballistic seats.
Craig Penrice damaged his back very badly when he banged out of XF516 a few years back because he used the seat pan handle rather than the face-screen and so his posture was all wrong. His day job meant that he was used to modern rocket seats which often only have seat pan handles though so it’s understandable I suppose.
Modern Martin Baker Seats are also fitted with a harness retraction system that pulls you right back into the seat before the gun fires. One of the reasons the MB put the face blind and handle on the top of the early seats was to given the correct posture for ejection. The design feature was on the very first seat live fired with Benny Lynch on board out of a Meteor in 1946(?).
Sign In
