Hi Red.
Your correct.
Sea Venom one engine.
Vixen two.
Regards Bill.

Hi Red.
Yes it was a great day out.
I just love it there,as did my boys when they were young.So much so we take our Grandchildren there.
It’s a fantastic day out.
John is 💯 % correct the blue job is the Fairy Delta 2 and was used for the supersonic development for many things including Concord development.That’s why it is displayed in Concord Hall.
Regards Bill.

Thanks John - also just realised it must have been a Venom - surely the Vixen had two motors . Memory is so bad as I saw a lot of them at the Bournemouth Aviation Museum which had the De Havilland storage & repair facility attached.

Fairey Delta 2, 👍 the blue job, not a star fighter widow maker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Delta_2

john

The main RhodAF operational base was at Thornhill - a WW2 Empire Pilot Training airfield - SSQ was said to be haunted by a headless Canadian Spitfire Pilot trainee from that era - never experienced it myself fortunately as not a lot of time was spent there.

Several of the others were turned into schools and a larger one near Bulawayo became the army ("Brown Jobs") TF training centre Llewellyn Barracks.......... . We kept getting calls from them to collect the vintage bombs they had unearthed..............

There was high human cost to the early radar Tora - my godmother succumbed to cancer aged 27 after being an operator during the war as did many others. As usual with new developments it was not realised that the amount of radiation given off by the early sets was lethal. A schoolmate who now lives in the US rebuilt an early set when we were young and it had to be tested behind closed walls using remote devices because of that particular problem.............

Similarly there was a problem with the ejection seats being developed for the first supersonic jets - they simply enlarged the firing cartridge with the result the two first test pilots were turned into quadriplegics from crushed spines. Only after the second incident was it rethought and staggered firing used instead........... Now of course a lot are rocket powered.

Then there is also the fact that some plane manufacturers chose to exit the ejection seat downwards - unfortunately about 80% of ejections occur either at takeoff or low level...........

And a Nuclear Physicist I once worked for and whose mentor was at Los Alamos during WW2 described many near deadly moments there from ignorance of a new subject. One such was a near nuclear meltdown on a desk ! A lot of them also died young from radiation induced cancers etc.

Very sad there was no further development of the Harrier Nerys - sure they could have developed a much better aircraft in time - and avoid the cost of very large carriers ..........

Is that a Sea Venom Bill ? and the blue job a F104 widowmaker ? can identify most of the others - must have been an interesting day. Sorry I never got around to a visit when in the UK - no chance now - barred from flying altogether with COPD - sea travel too expensive..........

Interesting build of a Walrus by Ashley in one of the 2021 MB magazines - looks similar to the real thing but never gets airborne.............Believe the full size one never liked taking off either.

One of the main reasons we were sending pilots to the US for training was that they had the training facility capacity to help us out. Also the fact that we were buying aircraft from them it made sense for those pilots to be trained on those aircraft. The same thing is happening today, The Queen Elizabeth will eventually be equipped with American aircraft with British pilots trained in the US, though I believe I read somewhere recently that she has American Aircraft and pilots manning her at the moment. I don't know what is happening about the Prince of Wales because, evidently we do not have sufficient crew to man her as well as the QE so she will be kept in reserve until the QE needs a refit and then the PoW will be brought out to replace her.

Nerys

Ladies and Gents.
The Yeovilton thread is turning into a good information topic and I have learnt a few things.
Over and above all the valid and relevant information already given from which I have learnt quite a lot is the fact that British Pilots from both RAF and RN (FAA) were trained abroad in Canada and the USA under the lend lease act.
“The passage of the Lend Lease Act Act 1941” allowed British Pilots to be trained for free abroad in return for rights to free bases in the UK.A right which still holds today.
Some of the bases used in the US. for training were.....
Terrell Texas. Lancaster California.Mesa Arizona.Clewiston Florida.Ponca City Oklahoma. and Sweetwater Texas to name but a few.(The above I have found on the internet,I don’t claim to know all that by heart)
Also HMS Victorious one of our carriers (and my favourite) was lent in return for a while in 1943 to the US Navy Pacific fleet to help fill an aircraft carrier shortage.She was unofficially renamed USS Robin.
Good old Lend Lease.
We couldn’t have managed without it,or could we?
Regards Bill.

John,
Right you are. Actually the USN owes quite a debt to the FAA for showing that the Corsair could be made into a successful carrier aircraft. The USN did not like it and gave it to the Marines rather than fly it themselves, until the FAA showed them how to land it in one piece. The rest is history

Hi there

I think the possibility of one of the main reasons that pilots were trained in US Airplanes in America was that we were introducing escort carriers into the convoy system, these were a lot shorter i.e. basically they were a merchant ship which had no superstructure, just a landing platform deck. A lot of American planes could land and take off from a short deck - such as the Corsair - if we look at the British Aircraft Carrier such as HMS Ark Royal - she carried, not only, The Fairey Swordfish and the Blackburn Skuas - this was in 1939 - 1940 which did require a longer deck for takeoff and landing.

Just one possibility of why the pilots were trained in America to handle the American planes.

John

Hi Nerys,
You are absolutely right! I just amazed to find it happening in my backyard in rural Maine.
As an aside, here is another local brag. Bar Harbor is on Mount Desert Island which has a number of "mountains" on it, the highest being Cadillac at 1500 ft. it being the highest point on the East Coast of the United States. During the War, a radar station was established on the mountain and "local lore" was that it was to detect Nazi aircraft and submarines. ha ha. Not so! it was Project Cadillac which involved developing the system by which a radar signal could be beaming, by TV signal, to a remote receiver. The station replicated an airborne radar transmitter/receiver. Guessed it yet? Yup, it was here there that AWACS was developed. The Mountain system was manned and staffed by MIT researchers and successfully beamed the radar image to Hanscom Airbase in Massachusetts, 200- miles away.
All happening in one's backyard and not even knowing about it....

Hi Tora Dog,
The reason the Fleet Air Arm had British pilots trained to fly Corsairs, Avengers etc in the US was because in the early part of the war, the only carrier borne aircraft we had were old Swordfish biplanes and Spitfires although converted to become Seafires, were not well balanced for carrier work and not in any way decrying those, we were lacking good modern carrier borne aircraft but could buy them from the US, and what better place to train the pilots but in the country of their manufacture.
Actually this is still going on, we need suitable modern aircraft to fly from our new Aircraft Carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth and are buying them from the US and no doubt the pilots will receive training in the US.

Cheers, Nerys

It is so wonderful that the UK built a museum for the Federal Aviation Administration... but I don't understand the aircraft carriers. Well, being from this side of the Pond may explain it...
Speaking of this side of the Pond, I stumbled upon some interesting FAA related material while working on a research project. It seems that the Brunswick, Maine Naval Air Station was established during the War, not for the US Navy, but rather to train FAA pilots to fly US navy aircraft, Wildcats, Corsairs and Avengers. Brunswick had five surrounding fields in the State which served as auxiliary fields, at which pilots practiced carrier deck landings. The fields had runways with deck outlines paint upon them and had LSO's (landing signal officers) to guide the pilots in. One such field was the Bar Harbor Airport. I lived in Bar Harbor for a number of years so this information was a surprise to me. If you enlarge the overhead photo of the Bar Harbor airfield and look closely, you can make out the outline of the carrier deck and arresting wires, painted on the runway.Anyhow, for your enjoyment I attach several photographs that depict a line up of Corsairs at Bar Harbor, note the K ship blimp in the background. There were a number of accidents. K ships used Bar Harbor as an advanced base from which they operated on anti U-boat patrols. As well, I include a few photos of FAA Corsairs operating in Maine. They exact location I have not determined, but like southern Maine to the Mid Coast region.
Brunswick went on to become an Navy anti submarine patrol base after the war. Until about 15 years ago when it was shut down. I remember P2V Neptunes ( two turning, two burning) island hopping the bays of the coast. Very exciting to watch. They were replaced by P3V Orions until the base closed. Ah the glory days...

Glad you had a good time looking to when we in Canada can get out coming soon. Great outing well done with the pictures.
Rick

Super pictures Bill. I really enjoy visiting Yeovilton. It always makes a great day out.
Peter.😊

I am glad you had a great day out Bill.
I bet it felt a little strange walking around as there is a distinct lack of people.

Martin555.