Still not very nice stuff when burnt, vapourised or rendered into fine dust. Unfortunately just what happens to munitions when they hit their targets.

There is a lot of suspicion falling on DU as a major culprit in what we know as Gulf War Syndrome. Not good for the lungs…

DU is also used as ballast on cargo aircraft so I’ve been told, I do recall a story of 800 lbs of the stuff being on that 747 that crashed just after take off from Stansted in December 1999. I do recall a lake having to be drained in the attempts to find the stuff. (I was told the tale by an ex brother in law who worked at the airport).

berylium is another strange and exotic material used in some bearings on aircraft (wing sweep on Tornado, and under carriage on c-130 spring to mind).

Yet another nasty substance when burnt, vaporised or rendered into fine dust. Its also used in Avoinics systems.

Most of 6 Sqn’s Hurricanes were U/S during 1947 (THey were also operating Spitfire LF IXe’s as well during the period to make up the numbers), they could not get the Tempest VI fast enough.

BIG GREEN BRISTOL DOG

— Again a very OFF Topic post —

did anyone build the old Airfix kit complete with Landrover and launch platform that contained ‘moving parts’.

The Airfix kit is being re released this year. The kit is a of Mark 1 and was based on photos taken at a press day at North Coates in late 1958 (even down to the pose of the RAF Policemen and the Dog that came with the kit). the Newsreel of the day can be found on the British Pathe News web site.

The Bloodhound in the kit was never painted green in operational service as the Mark 1 was phased out of RAF service in 1964 to be replaced by the Bloodhound Mark 2 which was in fact a completely different missile in every way (the only things common that the two marks of missile had were the basic shape and the Name!). I cannot think of any major part of the missile or the systems that went with it that were common to both systems.

The original Mk 2’s were painted white when they entered service in 1963 until they were based in west Germany in the mid 1970’s, when they started to be painted green.

Does anyone know how many Bloodhounds exist, it would be fantastic to put one on the gate at Bawdsey, it would have quite a bit of pulling power I suspect.

Bawdsey had a Mark 1 as a Gate Guard in the 1980, it was located near the Manor house. It may be the one now at Fixton, going there via West Raynham.

However, the Fixton missile could be the one from West Raynham that was kept behind the Missile Servicing Flight there in the 1980’s. Here is how I found out how different the two marks of missile actually were.

One day a Chief Tech new to the system told a couple of J/Ts (also new to the system) to rob it for spares. The boys that had worked on the system for some time told the Chief that this was a complete waste of time as nothing was common) . Chief tech thought different. Complete electronics package from front of Mark 1 missile removed. Electronics packs from Mark 1 found to be fitted with printed circuit cards mounted along the missile’s longitudinal axis much like the spooks of a wheel and found to contain lots of valves . Electronics packs from Mark 2 missile totally transistorised and cards mounted at 90 degrees to the missile’s longitudinal axis.

Items from the Mark 1 ended up being put in a box marked ‘ Ye old English Steam Driven Missile Spares’ – Not be to be fitted to Bloodhound Mk 2!!!!!

Missiles that still remain in existence (that I know of)

Mark 1

Sandtoft Flying Club – Painted green and on a Launcher.

NEAM – Sunderland – White one on the its side. They also had one outside that was saved from the Bristol Collection at Kemble in 2002 and was got for its rocket boost motors.

Norfolk and Suffolk – Fixton – White one and on a Launcher.

IWM Duxford – White Cut-away one in the Battle of Britain / Fighter hanger (not an operational round).

Misson (near Doncaster) – White Missile on the remains of a Launcher on an actual Bloodhound 1 Launch pad (Old 94 Sqn site which now belongs to a surplus army vehicle supplier). The site is called the Rocket site, funny old thing.

North Luffuham did have a Mk 1 as a Gate Guardian. I do not known if its still there. There was a number of Mark 1’s dotted around the airfield as well, back in 2002.

Wells Archaeological Savage (between Wells and Glastonbury). White Mark 1 – most likely the most complete Mark 1 in the UK, only bit missing from weapon is the steel point off the nose radome. Missile also has complete stenciling.

There is one at the LV3 museum in Sweden, two in museums in Australia (RAAF Point Cook on a Mark 2 launcher and Classic Jets) and two as Gate Guards at RAAF Darwin.

Mark 1 Hybrids – Mark 1 airframes modified to look like Mark 2’s for loading training

Sandtoft Flying Club – Painted green and on a Type 202 (Mk 2) Launcher. I think this round was the gate gaurd outside SHQ at West Raynham in the 1980’s.

Point Cook RAAF Museum. Restored and in excellent condition.

Mark 2 Prototype (XTV) / Pre-Production Missile Evaluation Trials (MET) Round.

Kemble – Bristol Aero collection – White round on a Mark 1 Type 200 launcher. Kemble thinks this round is a Mark 1A. It is more likely to be a mix of XTV17 and Bloodhound 2 MET Round. This round was the Bloodhound that was in the Missile Museum at Newton in the mid 1980’s and then at Cosford. Round serial number is off a Bloodhound 2 MET round that was the last Bloodhound to be fired at Woomera in 1964/65. (that actual round broke up in flight 6 seconds before interception of the target. However it had been 15 Joint Service Trials Unit’s ‘Hanger Queen’ and had been rebuilt twice for different trial firings that were done in the end by other rounds). The Ramjets on the missile are early Bristol BT3s that are a halfway house between the Thor 101 series engines on the Mark 1 and the 200 series engines on the Mark 2. The BT3 only ever flew on the Experimental Test Vehicles (XTV) that ended up with the XTV 18, which was almost a production Mark 2 in Build standard.

Bloodhound Mark 2 Production Rounds.

RAFM Hendon – on the gate. This round, serial No 1002, was used as a handing training round for most of its life and a lot of modifications that were done to the operational Bloodhound Mark 2 rounds were not done on this missile

RAFM Cosford – There was a complete Mk 2 Type 86 radar equipped missile section with one launcher and missile. The missile on the Launcher was round serial No 1001. This round was used as a handing training round for most of its life and a lot of modifications that were done to the operational Bloodhound Mark 2 rounds were not done on this missile. It is also the round that the 1-32 Scale Flightpath Kit was based on. There was another ex operational round at Cosford in the early 2000’s on a Ready Use Shelter (RUS) Stand. I think that one will be going into the new cold war building).

Kemble – Bristol Aero collection – Operational Mark 2 on Launcher. This is the most complete Bloodhound 2 in the UK

IWM Duxford – There was a complete Mk 2 Type 86 radar equipped missile section with one launcher and missile. There is also a Missile sans boost motors on a RUS stand aboard a Sideloader, which was used to move and load the missiles on to the launcher.

RAF Air Defence Radar Museum – Neatishead . Operational Missile on launcher was a gate guardian, along with Phantom XV420. The Phantom got the chop last year, but the missile now belongs to the museum and the fence has been moved so it is now in the museum grounds. (Near an empty Bunker)

Woodhall Spa – Thorpe Camp Visitors Centre. Most of a Production Mark 2 on a RUS stand. This site was the home of 2 Bloodhound Squadrons. 222 Squadron with the Mark 1, and the mighty SHARK’S, 112 Squadron with the Mark 2 (who after moving to Cyprus in 1967, painted the teeth on the Squadron’s Mk1 Hybird handling trainer. 😎 It looked really cool. 😎 )

The Muckleburgh collection at Weybourne has an operational Mark 2 on a RUS stand outside the main entrance.

A privately owned one was on E-bay a few months ago, I’ve seen the thing back in the summer of 2004, it had been saved from the FAST museum (who were on the point of scraping it) and it was in a very poor condition. The owner had the idea of restoring it and scratch building the boost motors, wings and a launcher with a budget of £2000 (When he told me this, my first thought was :rolleyes: ‘In your dreams mate!’ :rolleyes: ). He was also looking into the chances of trying to ground run one of the missile’s Thor engines. (A note of caution here, 😮 DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!! 😮 The Thor 200 series Ramjet will not light at below Mach 1.6 intake airspeed (this airspeed is also required on the two auxiliary air intake between the engines and the missile mainbody. The air from the two smaller intakes is used to pressurise the fuel tanks and drive the turbines that power the fuel pump and the hydraulics pump that powered a number of mechanical systems including part of the missile’s fuel control system). Also, there has to be cooling air though the air holes at the back of the engine for the convergent / divergent nozzle. If there is not, the nozzle will melt in about 6 to 10 seconds.) Needless to say, the fact that the missile was later on E-bay says it all. 😉

There may be more in the UK I’ve not seen (a couple were used on SPACE CADETS, got from an aircraft savage yard, after laying in a skip).

Overseas. There are a number in museums in Sweden and on the gates of airbases (about 6 to 8). The Bloodhound Museum at Gubel has 4 complete rounds on launchers, a cutaway green round and a pristine white one. The Swiss AF Museum Air defence hall has one hanging from the roof (Cosford should do the same in the new Cold War hall 😉 ). Singapore AF Museum has a green one cut away on a servicing stand and a white one on launcher in the entrance hall.

I remember them sitting pointing eastwards at the base, the maintenance of them as they were subjected to sea air must have been horrendous,

As for the maintenance of the missile, the major load bearing structures of the airframe of both marks of missile were made of magnesium alloy. Anybody who knows anything about airframe structures will know this fact. Magnesium alloy and Salt water/Air do not mix (for those who don’t know, the result is like putting an aspirin tablet into water). The Swedes and the Swiss got around the problem by keeping the missiles in air-conditioned shelters when not on the launcher. The Swedes sold about 90 back to the RAF in the late 1970’s and everybody I know who worked on them, remarked on what good condition they were in. The only thing the RAF did was connect an air conditioning unit to the rear of the missile to keep the electronics dry. The missile airframes corroded very badly and a major part of the missile servicing was corrosion control.

would they have really worked!!!

The Single Shot Kill Probability of the Mark 2 was about 45%

(SSPK for the Mark 1 was less than 25% 😮 , had they ever been used that would have been launched in salvos of 4 😎 . Saying that, in a letter I got from Sqn Ldr Peter Shaw, the first CO of 112 Squadron when they set up as a Bloodhound Mark 1 Squadron at Breighton. He mentioned that the first thing he expected to land in his In-Tray on the outbreak of world war 3 was a Soviet IRBM, aimed at the Thor IRBM site he was defending. Hence the Mark 1 was more for show and training purposes than designed to be used as an effective weapon system. 🙁 )

The Mark 2 had most of the Mark 1’s design limitations designed out and in a lot of ways it was streets ahead of any other anti-air missile system (air or ground launched) at the time of its entry into service 😎 . However further development was stopped, and other systems (both air and ground launched) overtook it :rolleyes: .

To put it into perspective, it was only the advent of the Skyflash AAM (for the Swedes and the RAF) and the AMRAAM armed Hornet with the Swiss, which gave the three airforces a weapon with the capability to replace the Bloodhound 2 in all altitude regimes. That is why the Swiss kept the system in operation until 1999, 50 years to the day after development started at Filton. The RAF canned the system in 1991 as a cost cutting measure 😡 (the Swedes doing the same in the mid 1970’s). Singapore canned their system in the mid 1990’s (which were left by the RAF when we pulled out of the Far East in the early 1970’s) .

There’s another pic of what may be the same display earlier in the thread – you may fancy a serach for it, unless you posted it of course!

ADrian

Any idea where? I cannot find it!!!

“some nutter”

Very vaild comments, Slap on the wrist taken and comment removed.

Surely the BBMF’s Spitfire Mk.IIa (P7350) must be the worlds oldest serving combat aircraft, it entered service in August 1940, and is technically on charge with the RAF.

I don’t think she is used as an operational front or Second line combat aircraft today, however, which I think is the point of this thread.

— Off Topic —

But ours didn’t have a concrete wall round the base! (At Aberporth – I wonder how much taxpayers’ money we fired into Cardigan Bay!)

There is a blast roof on there as well, It’s more of a shelter than a wall. The only parts of the radar that are exposed are the head, part of the Dalek, and the Launcher Illuminator Aerials which are mounted on the side of the shelter wall. There may still be one in Singapore (as they used the T87s left by 65 Squadron who had 3). The only T87 structures that survive in the UK (that I known of) are the receiver room / base hexagon and legs at Bawdsey (two) and West Raynham (one) which were modified as Type 86 Plinths. (I’ve no idea if the three at North Coates are still there (which were also used as mounts for Type 86’s). There is also an ex-Swiss Type 87 Head Assembly and Dalek at the Muckleburgh collection at Weybourne on the North Norfolk coast.

The tower assembly on the Type 87 radar was known as the Dalek, because , funny old thing, it looked like one.

The total number of production Bloodhound Mk 2’s fired at Aberporth was in the region of just over a 100 (17 of them being Swiss rounds). I was told in 1986 that a Bloodhound 2 firing cost in the region of £1,000,000 a shot at that time. Last rounds were fired in 1986, 3 RAF and 2 Swiss Army rounds.

And what was thew results of the “mass human wave assaults”? Did they take the Iraqi position? I don’t remember.

They didn’t in most cases. The Iraqi’s Gassed them! In the times that the Iranians did break though, the conditions at the time did not favour the use of Gas.

This shot was taken from an old airfield close to my heart (Did first Solo there in 1983) and not that far from my Home Town for 17 years. A Belgium Air Force major in an F-84 at an Air show at Wethersfield in 1964. The only thing that PhotoShop was used for on this shot is to reduce the size of the scan from the modelling magazine I found it in. From the blur, I’d say he was moving pretty fast to boot. No idea of who’s photo it is.