One more old banger Alitalia DC-8-43 then some DC-9s…….Caravelles next?
I-DIWO 1972 LHR

I-DIKF 1972 LHR

I-DIKI 1979 LHR

I-DIZA 1970 LHR

I-DIZF 1975 Schiphol

It’s the RR Conway thrust reverser and the multi-lobe bit is the’silencer’ 🙂

And here’s a couple more of the hard-working I-DIWG (LHR 1968 and 1974)….was it one of the -43 which were eventually converted to freighters and fitted with P&W JT-3Ds in the US?

I-DIWG 1968 LHR

I-DIWG 1974 LHR

Re the great shot of the ANA 737 with ship passing behind….is the field below sea level?

Not everybody was well behaved back then ,it seems…..Air Pictorial Feb64

The Britain from Above site is currently featuring air-to-air shots by Aerofilms of the Cobham Circus flying down the Thames Valley over Cookham, Burnham etc…example
http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw037503

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/asearch?search=G-ABUL

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/asearch?search=G-ABSI

Registering gives you zoom/commenting/pin functions

Letter from Sqdn Ldr GLG Richmond to Aeroplane

Courtesy of PWD…relates to the brief flight of the Napier Heston ‘Racer’

[letter to the Aeroplane, from the test pilot]
Control of the Heston Racer
Now that the story of the Napier-Heston Racer has been
released in The Aeroplane, I would like to put on record
an interesting and important detail of the brief seven minutes’
flight which will otherwise be lost, and which may be of value
to those interested in aeronautical research, and which will
vertainly be of value to the pilot of the second Racer, if it is
ever completed for flight.
The elevator control, which had been satisfactory during
taxi-ing trials, was again adequately effective up to the point
when the aircraft became airborne but, from this point on,
the elevators ceased to be powerful enough to overcome the
fore-and-aft control which appeared to be exercised by the
varying airflow caused by engine revolutions. In other words,
irrespective of the position of the control column, a decrease
of r.p.m. caused the nose to fall, and an increase lifted the
nose to the horizon.
This was discovered just after take-off, when the aeroplane
had been thrown into the air a trifle prematurely by some
irregularity of the ground with the nose rather higher in the
air than desired by the pilot. It was immediately found that
the use of elevator would not lower the nose on the horizon.
This was so marked that the undercarriage was not retracted,
as it was felt that the drag of the wheels below the wing was
probably preventing the angle of climb from being steeper.
It was then that one discovered (about 30 seconds after
take-off) that the engine coolant had reached its maximum
permissible temperature and was still rising. This prevented an
interesting flight from being protracted, the next valuable few
minutes being almost entirely taken up in manoeuvring for
position to approach to land, and the unfortunate finale spoiled
the chances of obtaining more data.
There is thus a special reason for hope that the second
aeroplane may be completed and flown so that the cause of this
peculiarity may be definitely attributed to either the incorrect
positioning of the tailplane or to the disturbance caused by
the relation of the open cooling duct vent to the elevators.
G.L.G. Richmond

Couple more views of the Racer. The nose shot was evidently taken on an earlier murky occasion before the u/c fairings were fitted and registration applied….the photo is taken from outside the ‘Jersey’ hangar which Heston Aircraft occupied (which stood just north of the current M4) and the dome shaped hangar under the port wingtip is the Jackaman concrete hangar (still there)

I recently scanned every Italian civil aircraft I had photographed for the newish http://www.gavs.it civil database…here’s a few Alitalia 727s at Heathrow1976/1977

I-DIRB

I-DIRI

I-DIRJ

I-DIRO