Bluelight,

It’s either WT511 or WT518

YA

scorpion63. Nice photos. Thanks for sharing. Always amazes me how many UK companies were knocking up pressure clothing in the late 50s and early 60s. BWT, ML, GQ, Frankenstein, possibly others. The variety of different designs for pressure suits and helmets (partial and full) is also surprising. I’ve never seen much written about the subject – seems like a lost bit of British aviation history.

YA

I think the Venom Night/All Weather Fighter is being treated a little harshly here.
It came in a period when British procurement had seemed to have forgotten about the value of night fighters that it led the development of only a few years earlier.
The Americans seemed to have recognised the value of continuing night fighter development straight into the jet era, with the specifically designed twin engined and twin seat F-89 Scorpion and F3D Skyknight, the latter a very sound design that spanned the late 1940s, Korea, and Vietman, though not without its own problems.

Suddenly for the RAF late 1940s there was a night fighter capability void with no obvious type to fill it, both of the types that were drawn into that gap were converted single seat fighters, the twin jet Meteor was arguably the better and safer layout, but the Vampire/Venom did at least make up the numbers and provide very useful training and experience at a time when nothing else was around. Previous experience with the Vampire and Mosquito eased the conversion from single seat to two seat radar equiped type.
The Venom (in single and twin seat form) wasn’t intended to be around for very long anyway, but there was a serious capability gap that had to be filled for a short period before the Javelin (and even day fighter Hunter) became succesful and reliable front-line aircraft.
Let’s not forget the Venom provided very good FAA service aboard the carriers for a longer period before the Sea Vixen became fully capable.
The first British dedicated jet night/all weather fighters, the DH110 and GA.5 were dogged with political indescision and development problems which had delayed their service entry dates by 5-8 years, the Venom FAW was there in numbers if not in capability, before the Vixen and Javelin were reliable service aircraft.

I’m glad that Newarks’ Venom NF.3 is indeed recognised as a ‘benchmark’ type.

Lindoug, I’m always fascinated by your requests as the subjects seem to be something I’m quite interested in, do they become books or publications anywhere?

Regarding the Venom NF being treated “harshly”. It’s certainly true that the MoS/Air Ministry dropped the ball on post-war night fighter development and procurement. However the Venom NF had been rejected in favour of the Meteor NF11 as far back as 1948. It would never had entered service if it had not been for the huge rearmament programme of 1950, and subsequent “panic” buying of fighters. The Venom NF procurement programme was recognised as being a mistake – there are several references to it in MoS/Air Ministry/Treasury files of the period – all of the “let’s avoid another Venom NF fiasco” flavour.

As to the aircraft’s faults, here’s a couple of extracts from an appreciation of the Venom NF put together by ACAS(OR)’s staff, dated February 1953.

“Far more serious than the above installation difficulties, however, was the discovery that the aircraft had bad mach characteristics at high altitude. It could reach its limiting mach number without adequate warning in a comparatively shallow dive when the pilot was likely to lose control, and up to 25,000 ft of height might be lost before control was regained. The firm promised to do everything possible to overcome this defect, but, after much investigation, it was found that there was no positive cure and that the best solution would be to fit a mechanical “stick shaker” actuated by a contacting machmeter to warn the pilot of the approaching compressibility”.

“To sum up: The escape facilities and installations (equipment, electrical supply etc) of all night fighter Venoms, including the NF3, are below standard and incapable of substantial improvement. In addition, the aircraft has serious flying faults at high speed. These faults are extremely difficult to cure as, since the Venom is an extreme development of the Vampire design, it has no aerodynamic margin anywhere. Small changes introduced to cure one trouble can produce other characteristics of a worse nature. As the design is marginal production aircraft have to be made to very narrow tolerances to be in any way acceptable. Even so every aircraft has individual handling characteristics, and many have unexplained and unacceptable faults”.

The procurement of the Venom Night Fighter appears to have been a tremendous c*ck-up, and was even recognised as such at the time. The aircraft was rejected when first proposed by DH, but was later ordered in late 1950 during the rush to rearm following the outbreak of the Korean War. Order was in advance of trials at the A&AEE. Trials of the prototype found all sorts of problems, including poor escape facilities and handling difficulties. Trials of the production aircraft showed they had even worse problems. Work by the company to rectify the problems was only partially successful. By then the Air Ministry was stuck with a lemon: it would be expensive to cancel and there was nothing in timescale to replace it with.

WT486 T.4

30 Jun 55 Awaiting collection
7 Jul 55 33 MU
7 Jun 56 2 TAF
22 Jun 56 SF Wildenrath
4 Sep 58 Flying Accident, Cat 3R. Overran end of runway landing at Odiham and considerable damage caused. No injuries.
9 Sep 58 71 MU. ROS EEC.
5 Feb 59 Completed
1 Mar 59 SF Wildenrath
26 Sep 59 Cat 3R
17 Dec 59 SF Wildenrath
25 Mar 61 EEC. Modifications.
12 Jul 61 Completed
14 Jul 61 17 Sqn
13 May 63 EEC. Modifications.
16 Sep 63 Completed
26 Sep 63 14 Sqn
Oct 65 60 MU. TI of SRIM 3191
Nov 65 TI deferred. Restore to pre-SRIM 3191.
Dec 65 14 Sqn.
2 Jun 66 60 MU. Retrofit SRIM 3191 and embody Mod 4092.
15 Jul 66 14 Sqn
Jun 68 60 MU. SRIM 3380
Jul 68 14 Sqn
19 Sep 69 Cat 3R. ROS 431 MU
16 Oct 69 SF Wildenrath
21 Apr 70 SF Laarbruch
20 Aug 70 23 MU. Non-effective. 8102M. GI at 23 MU Apprentice School.

Exactly what was that supposed to be that hit the Meteor drone; early CGI? 😀

I think the large object tracking up the screen just before impact is actually the target – the missile is the small blob. Strange camera angle.

All I have is:

Two aircraft in formation in fog. Lead aircraft turned to follow slope of hill. Second aircraft delayed turn and crashed into hills at Sinopoli, Calabria, Italy. Three killed.

You could probably get a (possibly short) summary of the accident from the “Quarterly Review of Aircraft Accidents” at the PRO. Based on the date (March 1968) you might try AIR 8/2536-2537. (Note that the dates in the catalogue are a bit off).

Don’t know about RAFM or AHB

YA

I’ve also been digitising negatives, various sizes. I use an Epson 4990 for the bigger stuff and a Plustek OpticFilm 7200i for 35mm. The Plustek was fairly cheap but does give better results than the Epson.

I used to use the Epson software for scanning – however I had a few problem B&W negs that I just couldn’t get decent results with (light colours looked dirty and grainy). Discovered VueScan, which really did do a better job – so use that now. Can be a fiddle occasionally but results are worth it.

As others have pointed out, scanning can give a “soft” image. I usually clean up the original scan in Photoshop and keep that archived. For printing I make a copy and sharpen, colour and contrast correct ,and generally muck around with that.