At the start of the Cold War, in 1947, the British Empire was disintegrating and much of its cities were in ruins. On January 8, the High Explosive Research project was approved, to develop an atomic bomb. Though battered and exhausted from World War II, the nation still had a huge extremely powerful military. The Royal Air Force was a vast armada equipped with the most advanced combat aircraft in the world. Throughout the Cold War, in the period 1947-1991, the RAF would operate some of the most awe-inspiring military aircraft ever built.

Assembling a Top 10 of Britain’s remarkable Cold War aircraft seemed like an easy task, celebrating some well-known, beloved and extremely exciting aeroplanes. But as we dug deeper into the subject, a surprising, and often extremely dark, story emerged.

Across the two decades from 1947, British subject nations sought and fought for independence. Though nominally a posture against Soviet expansion, almost all of the actual wars of this time had a colonial dimension. Often brutal and ineffective, the aerial warfare responses to these insurgent wars, were often far removed from the large-scale conventional warfare that made up the bulk of the RAF’s World War II experience.

We have the choice of defining Cold War operations in one of three ways: those that relate directly to Soviet deterrence; those that centre on opposition to Communist expansion; or all military actions within the years 1947-1991. In reality, the events are far too complex too separate – with even the situation in Northern Ireland having occasional Soviet involvement. With this in mind, we have opted to consider all RAF actions across the Cold War. Whether deterrence worked or not is impossible to definitively prove either way. Another point for contemplation, considering the vast undeniable might of the US military, and the NATO nations’ tight bonds, is whether the UK’s Cold War forces add anything to the overall deterrence effect?

10. Supermarine Spitfire ‘Last RAF fighter to kill’

Spitfires didn’t evaporate at the end of World War II. At the dawn of the Cold War, Royal Air Force Spitfires were everywhere. Though pushed from the sharpest edge of domestic defence by Meteors and Vampires, they served in vast numbers in auxiliary units and remained the most numerous aircraft of the RAF. Across the British Empire and territories, the Spitfire was still king. As peoples around the world fought for independence from Britain, they would learn that a dying empire could still administer pain – often their first experience of imperial airpower was in the form of a strafing Spitfire. Before we discuss this, certain events that took place in 1948, perfectly illustrate how important the Spitfire was in the early Cold War Years. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, five Egyptian Spitfire LF 9s mistakenly attacked the RAF base at Ramat David, Palestine, home to aircraft of 32 and 208 Squadrons believing it to be an Israeli base. The British units had been covering the withdrawal of British forces from the port of Haifa. The raid caught the pilots hungover from a Dining-In Night (culminating in the drunken destruction of the Officers Mess to prevent it falling into the hands of the Israelis). The Egyptian raiders destroyed two RAF Spitfire Mk XVIIIs on the ground. The surviving Spitfires took off for a combat air patrol and shot down four Egyptian aircraft. A later attack by five Egyptian Spitfires resulted in all five being destroyed, three by ground fire, two by British Spitfires (the last of which remains the most recent victory in air combat by an RAF pilot in an RAF aircraft). One of the pilots involved in the first incident was Geoff Cooper (from 208 Sqn) who later that year was shot down by the American pilot Chalmers Goodlin, flying an Israeli Spitfire Mk IX. Cooper was found by Bedouin tribesmen and returned to his base. Like the Spitfire, he would later fight in Malaya.

The Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) was a communist guerrilla army trying to achieve Malayan independence. It was resisted by British and commonwealth forces in a conflict with all too many parallels with the Vietnam War. The MRLA had its origins in the wartime Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army and drew the majority of its support from landless Chinese ‘squatters’ living in the outskirts of the jungle. The British campaign was shameful and involved over 400,000 ethnic Chinese civilians (and some aboriginal people) forcefully moved into brutal internment camps (known as ‘New Villages’, torture, and the odd minor genocide.

When the Malayan insurrection began the RAF’s main local strike element were the Spitfire FR.XVIIIs of 28 and 60 Squadrons, based at Kuala Lumpur. Photo-reconnaissance Spitfire PR.XIXs of 81 Squadron were based at Seletar, Singapore. The conflict was known as the “Anti-British National Liberation War” by the Communist MNLA, but by the rather less grand term “Emergency” by the British (the reason for the odd title being London-based insurers would not have paid out to the rubber planters in instances of civil wars). The Spitfire was heavily involved in the counter-insurgency war.

Armed with guns and the notoriously inaccurate 60-Ib unguided rocket, the Spitfire proved effective. Sixteen Spitfires from the two squadrons based in Singapore flew some 1,800 missions against Communist positions. The last offensive sortie made by RAF Spitfires were flown by four 60 Squadron Mk XVIIIs over Malaya on 1 January 1951; the last operational sortie was flown by Sqn Ldr W.P. Swaby on 1 April 1954.

9. Hawker Hunter

Much like Keanu Reeves, the Hawker Hunter’s ravishing good looks and impeccable manners have effectively masked a lack of certain essential talents. For example, when the Hunter F.Mk 1 fired its guns at high altitude its engines tended to surge (clearly a big issue but not big enough to stop Hawker making 139 of them). It was also late, short-ranged and rather slow. It entered service in 1954 with a top speed of around Mach .93, a few months later the US F-100 made this look absurdly slow when it rocked into town with a top speed of Mach 1.4. More importantly the Soviet Tu-16 bomber entered service in the same year, and it was only marginally slower than the Hunter. The MiG-19 fighter would make things even more uncomfortable when it began operations with the Soviet air force the next year, as it was almost as fast as the F-100. The MiG-19 was the stuff of nightmares for RAF Hunter pilots.

But in defence of the Hunter, it was a ‘near idiot-proof’ aeroplane, an extremely important quality in an age when peacetime traing was far more dangerous than wartime operations are today. It also didn’t have to dogfight Soviet fighters in RAF service it was set to work attacking insurgents and the odd napalm attack on leaking oil tankers off the coast of Cornwall.

The Hunter went to war in the Suez Crisis of 1956 (also known as the Tripartite Aggression), when Anglo-French-Israeli forces tried to thwart Egyptian attempts to decide the use of Egyptian waterways. Hunter F.5s of No. 1 and No. 34 Squadrons based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus flew escort missions in support of Canberra bombers attacking Egypt. The Hunters lack of range made them ill-suited for the mission and they were accordingly reassigned to local air defence.

The 1962 Brunei revolt was an insurrection in the British protectorate of Brunei against the Sultan and the proposed inclusion of Brunei in the Federation of Malaysia. The insurgents were members of the TNKU (North Kalimantan National Army) who wished Brunei to gain independence from the United Kingdom. The TNKU made co-ordinated attacks on Royal Dutch Shell oil installations, police stations, and government facilities. The Royal Air Force deployed Hunters (as well as the much maligned Gloster Javelin) over Brunei to provide support for British ground forces. Hunters made strafing cannon runs against insurgents, and supported the Royal Marines from 42 Commando in the successful hostage rescue in the battle of Limbang.

The resistence to Borneo’s inclusion in a new Federation of Malaysia led to the Borneo Confrontation. It was an archetypal Cold War sitution, with Malaysia having military support from Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand whereas Indonesia had indirect support from the USSR and China. The Hunter was again involved, being deployed in Borneo and Malaya.

In Aden in May 1964, Hunters were used extensively during the Radfan campaign against insurgents attempting to overthrow the Federation of South Arabia. The SAS would would call in close air support strikes, and the Hunters would respond armed with 3-inch high explosive rockets and 30-mm ADEN cannon. Hunters operations continued until the British withdrawal in 1967.

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8. V-bombers

Avro Vulcan

Here’s a conversation I had today with a friend:

“The thing about nuclear deterrence is you don’t know if it works, I could say my cowboy hat deters dragon attacks. And yes, since I’ve had my cowboy hat I have not once been attacked by dragons.”

“Yes, but if you have tens of thousands of people over forty years involved in manufacturing cowboy hats, wearing cowboy and training to deter dragons with cowboy hats then whether they work becomes irrelevant, they have become important due to the effort involved.” With this in mind, we should mention the RAF’s V-bombers, the unambitious Valiant, the rather weird Vulcan and the extremely potent Victor.

The good looks of the Vulcan distract attention away from the weirdness of a subsonic delta design. This was a hangover from the early 1950s, and meant the Vulcan had to carry a lot of wing with it, its wing area of 330.2 m² was not far off the 370 m² of the larger B-52, an aircraft with far superior payload/range performance (twice as good in some parameters).

LGM Podcast: The Cold War RAF

However, the benefits of the Vulcan’s large wing included remarkable agility at very high altitude. The wing was also needed to enable the Vulcan to cruise marginally faster than conventional swept-wing types. The Vulcan did a lot in the deterrent category mentioned above which may or may not have been meaningful depending on your point of view. The Vulcan carried Britain’s air launched nuclear missile, which was the lamentable (or if you’re part of CND, perhaps wonderful) Blue Steel which had not the range (150 miles) to keep the launch aircraft safe from Soviet SAMs, the reliability (it was estimated that half wouldn’t launch and would have to be dropped in freefall mode) or the quickness of operation (taking 7 hours to prepare for use) to be an effective deterrent. Hope of replacement with a superior US missile was thwarted by the cancellation of the AGM-48 Skybolt (a weapon of ten times the range of Blue Steel) in 1962. After only seven years Blue Steel was retired. The term ‘Blue Steel’ would later be repurposed as a modelling pose in the 2001 film Zoolander.

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I asked the aircraft designer Stephen McParlin his thoughts, “Skybolt was intended to be carried by V-bombers as a follow-on to Blue Steel, with the launch aircraft having no need to penetrate Soviet airspace… and the U.K. might not have developed an SSBN fleet instead. Polaris was offered to the U.K. as an ad-hoc face-saving measure by JFK… among the consequences being France demanding the same, and on being refused, leaving NATO’s military structures, to develop their own equivalent to Polaris. So the V-bomber fleet gets a longer life as a nuclear deterrent force… The Royal Navy probably gets to keep large deck carriers… CVA-01 gets built… and there are a whole load of hard policy decisions that have different results… Skybolt had been central to U.K. defence thinking, and it’s cancellation by the US, with zero consultation or prior warning, was a huge embarrassment to the government of the day, leaving Harold McMillan very exposed indeed, a mere five years after Suez. Imagine if the US had cancelled the F-35B without telling the U.K. in advance, just as the carriers were fitting out…”

Though extremely ingenious, the Vulcan’s only actual combat missions, in the 1982 Falklands War, relied on labyrinthine, resource-heavy tanker support that if anything, demonstrated that the UK would have been better served by an aircraft more akin to the B-52. Despite this is would be perverse to not include the charismatic 130+ Vulcans that served for three quarters of the Cold War in this list.

Vickers Valiant (service entry 1951)

Often written off as the least advanced of the v-bombers was arguably the most significant. On 11 October 1956, a Valiant B.1 (WZ366) of No 49 Squadron test dropped an atomic bomb on Maralinga, South Australia, this was the first time the British had air-dropped an atomic device (it followed ground detonation tests). In the same month the Valiant was the first of the V-bombers to see combat, during the Suez campaign. During Operation Musketeer, Valiants operating from Malta bombed military airfields, and communication and transport hubs in Egypt. On the first night, six Valiants were sent to attack Cairo West Air Base, which was the home of Egyptian Air Force Ilyushin Il-28 ‘Beagles’ which had been bombing targets in Israel. But the Valiant mission was aborted in flight due to the potential risk to local US personnel. Six Valiants did attack Almaza Air Base, and another five bombed Kibrit Air Base and the Huckstep Barracks. US and Soviet condemnation of the agression led to a swift end to the campaign, and is widely seen as symbolic of the end of Britain’s place as major world power. The campaign damaged British relationships with the US and drove Egypt and several Middle Eastern nations to closer relationships with the Soviet Union.

Valiant B2

When Gary Powers’ U-2 was shot down in 1960, it was clear that flying high offered Britain’s V-bombers no protection. Instead, the RAF began training to go in under the radar.  The strain of flying in thick low-level air soon caused fatigue cracks that saw the immediate retirement of the RAF’s Vickers Valiant B1.

‘And paint the fucker black …’

The irony is that Vickers had actually built an aircraft that was perfectly suited to the new tactics.  Alongside the standard Valiant, a one-off variation on a theme had been ordered.  Based on experience from WWII, the Air Staff wanted a machine that could fly ahead of the main bomber force to accurately mark targets.  The result was the Valiant B.2. Beefed up to fly fast and low, the ‘Pathfinder’ was tested at speeds of up to 640mph.  That’s comparable to the low-level performance of the USAF’s swing wing B-1B Lancer, a machine that first flew nearly thirty years later and remains in service today.
 

Lowdown at 600mph, condensation wrapped the bomber in its own flaring cloud.  It only added menace to an imposing presence that test pilot Brian Trubshaw had been instrumental in creating.  When he saw the bomber’s muscular shape in the Vickers design office, he signalled his approval, then added ‘And paint the fucker black …

(B2 section by Rowland White from this article)

Handley Page Victor

If the V-bombers were Destiny’s Child, then the Victor would be Beyoncé…actually on refection, that might be the Vulcan. Regardless, the Victor was the best bomber and technologically the most advanced.

I return you to my conversation with Stephen McParlin, “At the time of their conceptual design, both Vulcan and Victor were pursuing altitude and Mach targets in excess of any subsequent subsonic aircraft, civil or military. While the Vulcan needed a little additional design effort to make the altitude performance, both achieved their targets on the back of relatively early turbojet designs, and the Mk 2 Victor might well have been the first turbofan-powered military aircraft. In 1963, both were capable of penetrating hostile airspace at speeds and altitudes that were challenging to the best available manned supersonic interceptors, while having the EW capability to tackle the early high-altitude SAMs being deployed by both the US and USSR.“

Rather notably, for a man who contributed so much to British bomber development, the aeronautical engineer Gustav Lachmann was born in Dresden, Germany. As well as co-inventing the slotted flap with Handley Page, he designed the Hampden bomber and proposed the crescent wing configuration for what became the Victor. The crescent wing planform was invented by the German aerodynamicists Rüdiger Kosin and Walther Lehmann, while working for Arado during the Second World War. A wing was constructed in 1945, with the intention of fitting it to the Arado Ar 234 V16. However, the British Army overran the site and the wing was destroyed. Design staff from Handley Page – including Lachmann – were sent to Germany to harvest Arado’s know-how. They incorporated Arado’s crescent wing concept into the nascent Victor.

“Low altitude operations killed the Victor as a useful bomber. It didn’t have the structural strength to operate below Soviet surveillance radars. The Vulcan soldiered on, with the improvements in Soviet defences making them progressively less survivable with time. The technological legacy of Victor was probably greater, as the wing design philosophy for high subsonic Mach wings, and the design methods, developed by Kuechemann and Weber at RAE were subsequently matured right through until the early 1970s. Airbus wing design essentially inherited the knowledge base, and took it further into nonlinear analysis and design techniques, as these emerged from RAE in the 1970s.“

The Victor was never used in anger, its real-world use was limited to air refuelling and reconnaissance. It was good at as a tanker (making the rather bonkers Vulcan Black Buck raid possible among other achievements) and absolutely superb as a strategic reconnaissance aircraft. Though the Victor SR2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft did not serve for long, it is worthy of mention for its spectacular effectiveness. For altitude, speed and sensor variety it was unmatched. It was faster, higher and longer ranged than any other RAF asset, and had the ability to do maritime radar mapping and photorecconnaisance at the same time, essentially a Canberra PR9 and Vulcan MR2 rolled into one. Mapping every vessel in the entire Mediterranean ocean in one morning was possible.

(Thanks to Ron & Jim Smith for guidance on Victor SR2 section.)

Why the crescent wing died

“Structural complexity is part of it. Having two cranks meant local stress concentrations, and Victor also had a honeycomb skin, much more radical than anything in civil aviation… so the Victor wing always had cost of ownership issues. Monitoring the structural life of the wing was an ongoing issue. There was also the required performance. No airliner has ever been required to cruise anywhere near as fast and high without going supersonic. Even the most advanced subsonic business jets of recent years aren’t going there quite yet, and I’d regard doing a wing for a comparable cruise speed as a serious challenge.”

The Victor far outlived the other V-bombers, and even outlived the Cold War. It was retired in 1993. Of 86 built, 12 were lost in accidents. “When considered against the longevity of the B-52, it’s worth considering that the latter made a successful transition to low altitude operations, despite the structure being originally intended for operations at ~40k ft (note that the Mk 2 Vulcan was aiming for 60k+ ft, and the Mk 2 Victor, even higher)… Vulcan never had the range of either at altitude. Would a Mk 2 Victor have made a good cruise missile carrier, like the B-52H? Absolutely… but there was never going to be that kind of investment… and the airframes survived for decades as tankers, serving in hot wars right through to Operation Granby.“

7. De Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk

For all-out chutzpah and cost effectiveness, the daring Chipmunk missions over Berlin deserves a place in our list. This humble piston-engined exploited legal loopholes to reconnoitre the Soviet zone. Under the cover story of providing continuation training for aircrew stationed in the British Zone, two de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk T.10s, joined the Top Secret Operation Schooner (later renamed Op Nylon) to gather intelligence. Three times a week the Cabinet Office in London authorised a covert flight to snoop on Soviet military installations within the Berlin Control Zone using only a hand-held camera, with two lenses (55mm for panoramic views and a 500mm lens for detailed work). Though unrestricted access and Diplomatic Immunity was technically afforded the aircraft by the Potsdam agreement, the soviets were at times aware of the game, and hostile fighters sometimes buzzed the Chipmunks which were also shot by groundfire at least once.

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6. Gloster Meteor

Much like Britain’s railway system, the Meteor suffered from being the first: the first and only allied jet to see combat in World War II, and the first RAF jet fighter, it came so early that wasn’t able to harvest the wealth of aerodynamical research seized from the defeated Germans, notably the benefit of the swept wing. In 1947, the F-86 arrived on the scene, and the Meteor was utterly outclassed. Illustrating just how quickly the rate of aircraft development was in this time, it should be noted that in both the preceding the Meteor had absolute world speed records. Though I say the Meteor was outclassed, in a 1951 trial at “climbing, turning and zooming below 25,000ft” the Gloster Meteor F8 was found to be superior to the F-86 Sabre (and it was estimated, the MiG-15). The F8 was far more potent than earlier Meteors, a powerful and refined machine with two uprated Derwent 8s, with 3,600 lbf (16 kN) of thrust apiece, structural strengthening, more fuel, better visibility for the pilot and a Martin Baker ejection seat. Between 1950 and 1955, at some of the most dangerous times of the Cold War, the Meteor F8 provided the backbone of Britain’s air defence capability. RAF Meteors served in every war that Britain took part in during its service (apart from Korea) and saw a great deal of action in the 1950s.

Two RAF squadrons used the Meteor in support of the Tripartite Aggression of ’56 but neither of them operated their aircraft directly over Egypt. No.39 Squadron, based on Cyprus, flew NF Mk.13s for night patrols over Cyprus to prevent any Egyptian raids, while Malta-based No.208 Squadron, used its FR Mk.9s to fly armed reconnaissance patrols over the sea towards Egypt looking for Egyptian shipping or aircraft.  

In 1955-1958 (some sources say 1960), No.81 Squadron flew reconnaissance missions with their Meteor PR Mk 10s, in support of British operations in Malaya. The war also saw the only time RAF F.Mk 8s went to war, when two aircraft were sent as a detachment in 1955.  

Two Meteor PR Mk.10s were used during the Mau Mau Uprising to provide photographic reconnaissance of areas about to be raided by the army. The aircraft were deploying to Kenya in 1954, and remained there until late 1955. They were also deployed to Cyprus and Aden.

The aircraft, of which 3,947 were built, served in huge numbers. It was also a most important aircraft testbed, researching everything from prone pilots to ejection seats, vectored thrust and new engines.

With the Korea War there was a surge in British air power, with the demand for trained military pilots leaping from 300 to 3000 per annum, this was an unrealistic effort that led to the deaths of many inexperienced aircrew. There were other reasons for the high loss rate, despite jet performance the Meteor had instruments and navigational aids more appropriate for the 1930s, and its widely spaced engines caused alarmingly asymmetric power issues if one engine shut down in flight and it also suffered from heavy controls.

The Meteor was a low-risk airframe with a high-risk new concept in propulsion, and it took the Royal Air Force into the jet age.

Weirdly many parts of the Meteor ended up as prop parts in the Star Wars films.

5. North American/Canadair F-86 Sabre

The most successful fighter type flown by RAF pilots in the Cold War was not a Royal Air Force type. Judged on air-to-air kills, it was the F-86 Sabres of USAF. Seventeen RAF pilots completed exchange tours with USAF F-86 units during the Korean War (1950-1953). Five of these accounted for six MiGs, two of them by one pilot, Squadron Leader Graham Hulse, who was (along with one other RAF pilot) was killed in action.

Facing delays with both the Hunter and the Swift, and impressed by its performance in Korea, the RAF wanted F-86s of its own. The RAF desperately needed an aircraft that wouldn’t be eaten alive by the MiG-15, the simplest solution was to procure Canadian-built F-86s from America to act as a stop-gap. The F-86s arrived unpainted in the UK, and were quickly painted in wraparound camouflage and dispatched to West Germany. Most were based in Germany as part of the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force and proved extremely popular with pilots (most saw their replacement by Swifts and Hunters as a retrograde step). They were the first swept-wing aircraft of the RAF and were far superior in performance to the Vampires they replaced. The huge force of 430 RAF Sabres were extremely capable and served from 1953 until 1956, a critical period in the Cold War.

4. Avro Lincoln/Shackleton ‘Imperial Death Star’

A lot can be learnt about the story of British air power from the story of the Shackleton, a saga that begins in the type’s 1930s pre-history and spans the entire Cold War. It starts with a 1936 bomber requirement that led to the Avro Manchester, a lack-lustre aircraft perfected as the superb Lancaster, this lily was gilded as the Lincoln and finally sent to fight submarines as the Shackleton. It was then, rather absurdly, jerry-rigged as an airborne early warning aircraft in the 1970s.

The Lancaster IV was a powerful beefed-up Lancaster, that emerged so different from the baseline Lanc it merited a new name. It first flew in 1944 and entered service in 1945, missing the Second World War. Nearly 600 Lincolns were built to equip a total of 29 RAF squadrons, most of which were based in the UK. During the 1950s, RAF Lincolns participated in active combat missions in Kenya against Mau-Mau insurgents, where the British met demands for greater freedom with crushing violence, including torture and mass executions.

In 1952 the bomber had the advantage over the interceptor. The alarming reality of this was made clear in the massive training exercise Operation Ardent in the UK. In the exercise Avro Lincolns (as well as Boeing Washington) bombers simulated Soviet Tupolev Tu-4 bombers. Facing them, defence forces consisted of the Gloster Meteor and de Havilland Vampire day and night fighters, RCAF Canadair Sabres and USAF F-86s. The bombers did very well, all too often proving immune from interception.

However, they were not always safe in reality. On 12 March 1953, an RAF Lincoln was shot down 20 miles (32 km) North East of Lüneburg, Germany by several Soviet MiG-15s. The Lincoln was flying to Berlin on a radar reconnaissance flight. All seven crew members were killed.

If the British actions in Malaya can be seen as akin to US actions in Vietnam on a smaller scale then the Lincoln was very much the ‘B-52’ of Malaya. ‘Operation Firedog’ began in July 1948 with the formation of an RAF Task Force at Kuala Lumpur. Muscle came in the form of Lincolns, initially from 57 Squadron. On 15 March 1950, at a time when the British position was looking perilous, eight Lincolns arrived at Tengah. Communist forces in the jungle were small and mobile, and the RAF responded with the brute force of area bombing often in support of special forces. Lincolns were responsible for the bulk of RAF offensive operations in Malaya.

During the Mau Mau Uprising, the Avro Lincoln bomber was used to savagely brutal effect as part of Operation Mushroom dropping nearly 6 million bombs (part of a total of 50,000 tons of British bombs dropped) from 18 November 1953 to 28 July 1955.

In November 1955, four Lincolns sent to the Middle East. In Bahrain, they carried out border patrols of the the Trucial States. It was later sent to Aden.

Shackleton

A long loiter time, bags of internal room and a very strong structure made the Lincoln an ideal choice for the anti-submarine warfare role, in yet another case of a variant earning a new name, the anti-submarine Lincoln ASR.3 became the ‘Shackleton’. On 30 March 1951, the first Shackleton was delivered to No. 120 Squadron RAF, by December 1952 seven squadrons were operating the type. The first operational deployment was in 1955 as a British Army troop transport to Cyprus;. Soon after, the type’s first combat deployment took place as part of the Operation Musketeer.

In 1957, British RAF Shackletons participated heavily during the Jebel Akhdar War in Oman. Again, we see a British military action that is hard to view in a positive light, it was essentially a grubby little oil war. Britain had long cultivated an unelected Sultanate in the region amicable to the British Empire. In 1932, Said Bin Taimur became Sultan, his wish to unify Oman was driven by British interests in the oil rich interior region not under his control. Petroleum Concessions Ltd, the Sultan and British-backed expeditionary conspired to push into the oil rich interior run by the Imam Muhammad al-Khalili. When he died in 1954, his successor, Ghalib al-Hinai, began asserting the imamate’s sovereignty. He issued passports to the region’s citizens and applied for membership to the Arab League. This lead to a rebellion against the sultan by those who supported the elected head of the Imamate of Oman. The British responded with force. ‘The Green Mountain War’ took place in a ‘hot and high’ area inaccessible to helicopters and with forces too scattered for the effective use of air power.

With the arrival of the Nimrod in 1969, it was intended to begin the retirement of the Shackleton fleet. However, when the Royal Navy’s large aircraft carriers and their Gannet aircraft the UK had no airborne early warning radar coverage. As an interim measure, pending the hoped arrival of an advanced Nimrod or Andover based system, 12 Shackletons were fitted with the archaic AN/APS-20 radar sets. Salvaged from the Gannets, this was essentially a 1945 vintage radar designed for use with the Avenger. The resultant machine, the Shackleton AEW was absurdly outdated, vulnerable and vulnerable, but did keep the ‘Shack’ alive until 1991 meaning the Lincoln series spanned the entire Cold War.

3. De Havilland Venom ‘The Colonial Enforcer’

The de Havilland Vampire was an excellent first generation jet fighter, with sparkling agility, heavy firepower and astonishing high altitude performance. But its potential was held back by a thick wing that limited its speed to mach .78. The Rolls-Royce Nene which offered 5,000Ib of thrust, almost twice the thrust of Vampire available to a F.Mk 1, was fitted to Australian FB Mk 30s but despite far more power the increase in speed was incremental. The FB Mk 30s reached 570mph, only 22mph than the far weedier Ghost 3 FB Mk 9s of the RAF. If the greater power availble could be unleashed, the Vampire’s fangs could be further sharpened. What the Vampire needed was a new thin wing. The new aircraft, allocated the designation ‘FB Mk 8’, was to have the 4,850Ib Ghost 103, which though not quite as powerful as the Nene, benefited from being an in-house design better suited to the Vampire and did not require the complicated auxillary intakes of the Nene Vampires (as well the RAAF, the French adopted the Nene Vampire as the ‘Mistral’).

A new thinner wing was made, the new engine installed, and a swept leading edge added (and the forward swept trailing edge of the Vampire) along with other minor refinements. The swept leading edge was necessary to compensate for the heavier engine moving the centre of gravity rearwards. Attractive long-range fuel tanks were added to the wingtips; The new ‘tip-tanks’ added extra endurance at the cost of little drag as well as freeing up underwing space for additional weapons or fuel tanks. It also became 50% heavier. The new machine was now so radically different a new name was in order, the Vampire FB Mk 8 became the Venom. The Venom first flew on 2 September 1949 from Hatfield (close to London) and quickly proved itself a worthy successor to the Vampire. The top speed was a world-class 640mph, the climb rate was more than double that of the Vampire F Mk 1 at a brisk 9,000 feet a minute. It entered service in 1951 by 1955 it was the mainstay of the RAF’s Ground Attack force. Whereas the Vampire was somewhat cute and baby-like appearance, the new Venom had a sleek sinister appearance. This proved appropriate as the new ground attack aircraft soon become a post-colonial thug, employed with great effectiveness in a series of deeply questionable military actions. It took part in the Malayan Emergency from the mid 1950s, where it conducted more than 300 strikes.

It also bombed Egypt as part of Operation Muskeeter during the Suez Crisis of 1956, in which one Venom was lost to groundfire. Again in 1956, RAF Venoms were deployed during the Aden Emergency, where they were used in support of counterinsurgency operations. In Oman, the first offensive action came with unguided rocket attacks by RAF Venoms. In 1957, British RAF Venoms participated heavily in the Jebel Akhdar War supporting British aims to gain access to oil wells in the interior parts of Oman, attacking mountain top villages, water channels and crops among other targets. Following the advancement of ground forces the RAF flew eight sorties, inflicting many casualties in Firq. The decisive factor was an attack by British Special Air Service (SAS), 1st Battalion of the Cameronians, a troop of the 15/19 Hussars, and a squadron of Ferret armoured cars, supported by RAF Venoms.

2. English Electric Canberra ‘Petter’s Go-getter’

Despite world-leading Brilliance in jet engines, Britain’s early jets were not all they might be. As mentioned, the Meteor didn’t have the swept-back wings fighters needed*, the Attacker was a flop, the Hunter was too late and the Swift was an utter basketcase. But there was an exception, and it came from an unlikely manufacturer. English Electric, a company that had not produced its own aircraft designs since its quant flying boats of 1920s, suddenly came from nowhere to create the best bomber in the world, the remarkable Canberra.

Designer ‘Teddy’ Petter had proposed a fast jet-powered fighter bomber to Westland in 1944, but in a move comparable to refusing to sign The Beatles, they rejected the idea – preferring to devote their efforts to the lamentable Wyvern. Petter found a more welcome reception at English Electric, who after a war of creating other companies’ aircraft realised that smaller post-war production levels would require an in-house design. The English Electric Canberra first flew in 1949 and one can only imagine the Board of Westland’s feelings as they watched as the new aeroplane’s incredible talents became apparent. In 1951 it became the first jet aircraft to make a non-stop Atlantic flight, then for most of the fifties was the highest-flying aeroplane in the world rendering it invulnerable to interception. It snatched 24 point-to-point world records (including New York to London in 6 Hours 17 Mins) and three altitude records including, with a little help from a rocket motor, a climb to 70,310 ft! Everyone was impressed. Even the Americans used them, NASA still does today, which is not bad for an aircraft that had its origins in a replacement for the wartime de Havilland Mosquito!

The RAF loved them and bought a huge amount (782) and it equipped over 55 British squadrons and was in service for 55 years! Fighter-like performance (it was orginally intended as a fighter-bomber), long-range and versatility were the hallmarks of the Canberra. It had a simple strong design, its low-wing loading (around 48 lb/sq ft far lower than the B-47) and surfeit of power allowing it to operate higher than almost any other type.

In the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), Communist pro-independence fighters faced the armed forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Under Operation Firedog the Canberra went to war in Malaya, where its impressive bombload, often six 1,000 Ib bombs, proved devastating (despite British military actions, Malaya achieved independence on 31 August 1957). This was followed shortly afterwards by the shameful British involvement in Suez as part of Operation Musketeer. Never partisan, in several wars, the Canberra fought on both sides, notably the 1982 Falklands War where it was deployed by both the UK and Argentina.

On 4 October 1950, the RAF’s leading recce expert practitioners gathered at RAF Benson for a Strategic Photographic Reconnaissance Conference. The Soviet Union, the greatest military threat to Britain, was developing surface-to-air missiles that could shoot down aircraft at up to 46,000 feet and the formidable MiG-15 was entering service in great numbers. The RAF’s reconnaissance fleet of Second World War Spitfire Mk 19s and Mosquito Mks 34/35 (and the few Meteor PR10s entering service) were utterly inadequate. Likewise, the US believed that none of the USAF’s converted bombers – RB-45s, and RB-47s could fly high enough and that the RB-36, as well as not having a sufficient ceiling, was also all too conspicuous to hostile radars. The new Canberra on the other hand, with a few refinements (increased wing area, power and recce equipment) was seen as a plausible solution. The resultant series of Canberra reconnaissance aircraft remained utterly brilliant until their retirement in 2006.

*RAAF Meteor pilots in Korea who had to face the potent swept-wing MiG-15 sung a song with the opening line ‘All I want for Christmas is my wings swept back’

1. Comet/Nimrod

Neither with the Royal Air Force type nor even a military type, as Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s transport to the United States, G-APDI, was nevertheless symbolic of Britain’s greatest victory of the Cold War, avoiding involvement in the Vietnam War. We could have picked one of several types Wilson used for his trips to America but the Comet 4 was the first and the most beautiful. It seemed natural that Britain, as the US’ greatest ally, would send troops in support of the American-led war in Vietnam. As well as taking part in the Korean War, Britain had also been actively involved in several post-colonial conflicts. But Wilson refused, citing Britain’s commitment to the fighting in Borneo as one reason. He also explained that as Britain had been chairs in the Geneva conference of 1954 that had legally divided Vietnam, British involvement would be illegal. Johnson was unimpressed with these reasons and bitterly disappointed by a British leader he considered ‘tricky’ and by a Britain, he believed took more than it gave from ‘the Special Relationship’. Wilson could not support the war. His party was weak and divided, and much of the British public was fiercely against the war, and particularly opposed to the aerial bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder. Wilson headed to Washinton. The subject of British involvement had been discussed for a long time, notably in the 1964 trip, but in ’65 he made it clear he withheld support. Unlike Australia and New Zealand, Britain would not be taking part. Despite this, Secretary of State for Defence Dennis Healey and his close friend US United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara remained on good terms.

Britain was spared the prolonged human pain and enormous finacial cost that involvenment in Vietnam would have inevitably involved. Despite many bemoaning Wilson’s Government’s cancellation of the TSR.2 bomber and P.1154 fighter, it is worth considering how many aircraft – and more importantly, men – would have been lost had Britain been mired in the bloody jungle hell of Vietnam.

The transport aircraft that took Healey and Wilson to the United States saved likely more British lives than any other aircraft type on this list. Though symbolic, this is why the Comet 4 must count as our top British Cold War aircraft. It is also here as it formed the basis of the magnificent Nimrod.

Nimrod

“Whilst the boys in Germany were doing their things on dispersed airfields and roads the Nimrod was flying real sorties against real targets day-in day-out. It was one of the only platforms that could do multiple defence tasks at the same time. Defence of the deterrent, maritime rescue, overland recce to name but a few.” – Dave Cawthorn, Nimrod Fleet Planning Manager

“It was the best Maritime Patrol Aircraft around. We were on operations almost constantly around the world for the whole of its time in service, tracking our adversaries above and below the surface. We performed long range ASW/ASuW sorties (including the use of AAR from Op CORPORATE): we could go anywhere in the world from the Artic to the Antarctic. On exercises we routinely excelled in competition with our allies. We saved countless lives provide SAR cover to both civilian and military pers – from our position of Standby in the UK – to support to long range fast jet ex deployments.” – Stuart Roxburgh, former RAF Nimrod pilot

Ireland is the only nation with which the United Kingdom shares a land border, other than that it is surrounded by water; To the south by the English Channel, to the east by the North Sea, to the west by the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. With tasks including the defence of Royal Navy submarines, saving drowning sailors, recconnaissance, tracking and deterring potentially hostile submarines and surface vessels, and protecting gas and fish resources, there is a lot of work for a British maritime patrol aircraft.

On 2 February 1965, Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced the selection of Hawker Siddeley’s maritime patrol version of the Comet, the HS.801 as a replacement for the Shackleton Mk 2. The Nimrod entered served in 1969 as the interim MR.1 equipped with much the same archaic equipment as the Shackleton.  During the Icelandic Cod Wars of 1972-1976, the Nimrod fleet worked with the Royal Navy to protect British fishing ships. It also saved countless lives in the search and rescue mission, and proved an uncannily excellent hunter of even the smallest capsized vessels. The Nimrods enforced Operation Tapestry, protecting fishing rights and monitoring oil and gas extraction. Following the establishment of a 200 nautical miles (370 km) Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in 1977 the Nimrod fleet was given the daunting task of patrolling the vast 270,000 square miles (700,000 km²) area. Nimrods escorted the British Task Force as it sailed towards the Falklands, provided search and rescue as well as acting as communications relay in support of the Operation Black Buck Vulcan raids. Nimrod MR2s stood guard against attacks from Argentinian subs. Equipped with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles they also become perhaps the largest heaviest ‘fighter’ ever built, the weapons intended not primarily for defence, but for attacking Argentinian recce aircraft. Nimrods carried out extremely long reconnaissance missions, including a mammoth 19-hour patrol which passed within 60 miles (97 km) of the Argentine coast to check that Argentine ships were not at sea. On the night of 20/21 May, one mission took a Nimrod 8,453 miles (13,609 km), the longest distance flight carried out during the Falklands War. In all, Nimrods flew 111 missions from Ascension in support of British operations during the Falklands War.

The Comet was also vitally important for its shadowy work for No 51 Squadron (as both the Comet and the Nimrod). According to one source we spoke to “I’d consider the Comet and Nimrod aircraft of 51 Sqn to be the most important RAF Cold War reconnaissance asset, and I’m not at liberty to discuss why.”

Honourable mentions

Harvards, Brigands, B-29s and Tempest 2s all narrowly missed the cut.

The Wessex, Sycamore, Chinook and Whirlwind were also considered.

The Hercules was too. The Gnat for its PR work as part of the Red Arrows.

The most surprising omission is that British poster-boy for the Cold War, the extremely high performance English Electric Lightning interceptor. If this list was informed only by frequency of appearance in RAF promotional material of the time then the much Lightning would be easily have a place in the top 3. But on closer inspection it was hard to justify its inclusion. It was never used in combat, was ineffective for most of its career and was only used by the RAF in small numbers. The total produced was only 337, and that’s including the aircraft exported to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. To put that figure into perspective, almost twice as many of the rather more obscure Saab Draken were made. Its final production is utterly dwarfed when compared to other peers, the Mirage III, Su-15, Phantom, F-104 and MiG-21. It entered service in 1960. It was soon apparent that its pitiful endurance and small weapon-load made it unsuitable for its intended role of countering Soviet bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. With the arrival of RAF F-4 Phantom, which had had four times as many missiles, three times the endurance and twice the radar range it was utterly outclassed. According former to RAF Lightning pilot Ian Black, it was unnecessary beyond 1974 and was probably only kept on to maintain the numbers. With all these damning points, sadly we cannot accept the thunderous Lightning in our top 10. Similarly, the Harrier, which much loved did little in reality in the Cold War, other than killing many of the most skilled pilots in the RAF. It should be added that the GR.3 did serve in the Falklands War, though was overshadowed in significance by the Sea Harrier. The F-4 Phantom II was an extremely effective interceptor from 1969 until the end of the Cold War, though did not see actual combat, though scored the RAF’s last ‘kill’, when one accidentally shot down an RAF Jaguar. The introduction of the jet came before the Cold War, meaning the greatest technological leap forward came with the arrival of the Tornado, according to McParlin, “Probably the biggest technological step forward was Tornado… it was the biggest jump from previous aircraft types in terms of the range of new technologies employed. It was immensely more sophisticated than anything that the RAF had operated previously… and more affordably and achievably than TSR2 could have done with valve-based avionics. Lots of earlier projects contributed to what Tornado became, not least AFVG, but Tornado became a real aircraft after a decade of chopping and changing due to politics… and it’s worth considering an alternative universe in which Skybolt was *not* arbitrarily cancelled, and following through the logic of that.”

Woof! Who doesn’t love a good dog? Folks in aviation certainly do, for man’s best friend has inspired the moniker of many a flying machine over the nearly twelve decades of powered flight. We’re going to look at a few of them today. We’ll stick to aircraft named for domestic doggies, those inspired by wild canids would need a whole ‘nother piece to do them justice. Like Fido, these aircraft are (mostly) dependable and great to have around. Although you probably wouldn’t want to keep them as house pets, as they might leak oil on your new carpet…

Honorable Mention: Douglas AD Skyraider – the ‘Able Dog‘

Yes, this one’s a bit of a cheat, since the aircraft itself wasn’t actually named after a dog. But, due to its trustworthiness, ruggedness, and tendency to leave oil stains on its pilot’s leg, US Naval aviators decided that its pre-1962 AD designator stood for ‘Able Dog’ (It really stood for “Attack aircraft built by Douglas,” but that just doesn’t have the same bark to it.)

The Skyraider was a beast of an aircraft, with a bombload exceeding that of a B-17 and performance that would’ve made any competitor drool with envy. It’s not the prettiest warplane, though it’s far from ugly, and oozes charisma and blue-collar grit. It’s the epitome of a roughneck workhorse. Or perhaps I should say a working dog.

10. Beagle Aircraft, Ltd.

We’ll start off the actual list not with a specific aircraft named after a dog but an entire manufacturer. The existence British Executive & General Aviation Limited—or, as it came to be known, Beagle Aircraft—was ephemeral, lasting only nine years, but it was nothing to stick your snout up at. The firm was formed through the merger of UK light aviation legends Auster and Miles. And, because just giving your company a canine name just isn’t good enough, their aircraft were all given names fit for the family puppy, too.

You could choose a single-engine, high-wing design like the Husky, Terrier, and Airedale—all adaptations of existing Auster designs—or opt for the sporty yet awkwardly proportioned twin-engine B.206, known as the Basset in RAF service. And, if you didn’t want something boring and everyday like a Cessna 172 or Piper Cherokee, you could get yourself a nice B.121 Pup. The latter would be modified for military usage as the Bulldog, but that one has enough tricks to earn itself a mention of its own further up the list.

9. Foxcon Terrier 200

Like its furry namesake, you can take this light sport aircraft from Australia just about anywhere. It comes either on wheels or floats and, according to the manufacturer’s straight-out-of-1998 website, even comes in a dedicated camper version for those weekend trips deep into the Outback. Powered by a 100hp Subaru or Rotax engine, it’s got room for two—a pilot and his pooch, ideally—but a four-seat Terrier 400 appears to be in development.

8. Bristol Bulldog

This pugnacious fighter of the interwar years gets its name honestly, both for its brawling nature and its rugged good looks. It may be best known as the aircraft in which RAF legend Sir Douglas Bader lost his legs while performing aerobatics, but its eight-year service life saw considerable accomplishments. It never saw combat in British hands, though it did soldier on as a trainer well after being replaced in frontline service. It did, however, see action with the Finnish Air Force during the Winter War. With a two-to-one kill ratio, it didn’t quite reach the same level as the Fiat G.50 or Brewster Buffalo, but, considering those two victories were over a Tupolev SB and a Polikarpov I-16, both vastly more modern and (ostensibly) superior types? This little puppy packed one mean bite!

7. Sopwith ‘Pup‘

Let me start this one with the disclaimer that I have no evidence that this aircraft was actually named after a young dog. In fact, it was officially the Sopwith Scout; ‘Pup’ was a nickname that happened to catch on because it was the smallest of the Sopwith litter. This name could’ve been inspired by a canine pup, yes. But there’s also the distinct possibility that it was inspired by an otter pup. Or a seal pup. Or a shark pup. Or a ring-tailed lemur pup. But, let’s be honest. What’s the first pup that comes to mind? Yeah, that’s right. A cute little baby dog.

This particular Pup was certainly a pilot’s best friend. Extremely docile and highly maneuverable, it racked up quite the litany of accomplishments over its brief career. In 1917, a Pup became the first aircraft to land on a moving ship, and the type was used extensively used in shipborne operations thereafter. It was used to shoot down Zeppelins and Gotha bombers, and even after it was found to be outclassed by newer German fighters, it served well as an advanced trainer. That deserves a treat, methinks.

6. Mil Mi-4 ‘Hound‘

The Soviets mustn’t like dogs very much, because it fell to NATO to bestow upon this workhorse its canine code name. The Soviet S-55/Whirlwind (which is actually considerably larger than either the Sikorsky product or the Westland version, but don’t tell any jingoistic Americans/Brits that lest they get a bad case of rotor envy) proved itself worthy of its reporting name, particularly in Indian Air Force service.

Over 4,000 Mi-4s and Chinese license-built Z-5s were produced; Albania is thought to have been the last operator, operating ‘Hound’s as recently as 2005, but North Korea may or may not still have a few panting around somewhere.

5. Scottish Aviation Bulldog

The last product of Beagle Aircraft Limited that we met earlier, the Bulldog didn’t begin production until that company had ceased operations. It would’ve been the most successful of the Beagles, with over three hundred produced, serving as the standard basic trainer for the RAF and Royal Navy for over twenty-five years as well as equipping the air arms of ten other nations, including the Swedish Air Force, the type’s launch customer, and the Lebanese Air Force, who still have a few hanging around with their Air Force School.

But, while the Grob Tutor has replaced the Bulldog in British military service, it remains quite popular on the secondhand market. (They even turn up at air shows in the States every so often.) That means that, for the right price, you can go fetch one for yourself!

4. Kaman HH-43 Huskie

Certainly an oddity with its synchronized intermeshing rotors (a wartime German invention that came to the United States under the now-infamous Operation Paperclip), the Huskie wasn’t nearly as rancid as its unfortunate nickname—the Flying Shithouse—would have you believe.

Like the noble sled dog that runs at the back of the pack and is the last one to get a treat, but never complains and works just as hard as the others, the Huskie was an unsung hero, being used primarily as a firefighting and station search and rescue platform before becoming the primary short-range rescue helicopter in the Vietnam War.

Just a shame that it was designed by a former pal of Heinrich Himmler…

3. Aviat A-1 Husky

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/AviatA-1BHuskyC-GTHY01.jpg

Sticking with the theme of huskies, but spelled a little differently this time, this taildragger is the epitome of a blue-collar workhorse. It might look like a Super Cub, but it’s an animal all its own. Its 180hp (200hp in the A-1C-200 variant) Lycoming engine gives it an excellent power-to-weight ratio for its size, it’s got excellent short-field performance, and it’s built like a tank. And it comes from Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone National Park. If you’re going to have an aircraft manufacturer headquartered in Wyoming, then its aircraft had darned well be rugged as junkyard dogs.

This one certainly is. It’s used for everything from glider towing to fishery patrol to anti-poaching in Kenya. It takes to water like a golden retriever jumping into a lake to chase down a tennis ball and embraces the snow with the same tongue-out vigor as its namesake.

2. Grumman C-2 Greyhound

The aircraft named for the fastest animal on this list might not look particularly fast—and, in comparison to the next entry, it’s practically flying backwards—but, with a top speed of just under 400 mph at altitude, it’s no slouch, either. The US Navy’s COD—that’s carrier onboard delivery, not to be confused with the fish—can carry twenty-six passengers in utilitarian comfort (but still probably better than Spirit/Allegiant/Ryanair/insert your least favorite budget airline) or 10,000lb of cargo from ship to shore or vice versa.

Alas, it won’t be racing around much longer, as the USN has elected to replace it with the CMV-22B Osprey by 2024.

1. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-31 ‘Foxhound‘

This behemoth of a long-range interceptor was an easy choice for the top dog, not only because it’s a monumentally impressive piece of machinery, but its NATO reporting name contains not one but two canine elements!

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Topping out at Mach 2.83, you won’t find many/any aircraft that can outrun the MiG-31. And it’s got as much bite as it has bark, with a PESA radar and the ability to carry air-to-air, anti-radiation, air-launched ballistic, and anti-satellite missiles in addition to its 23-mm rotary cannon. It prefers to hunt from bases in Russia and Kazakhstan.

By Sean Kelly

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Among the most dangerous flying roles in US 21st Century combat operations was piloting the OH-58D Kiowa armed reconnaissance helicopter. We spoke to former US Army OH-58D pilot Dan Berriochoa to find out more.

When I first joined the Army back in 2000, the OH-58D had two different roles.  The first was that of armed reconnaissance, the traditional cavalry role.  The second role was light attack.  I was never in a light attack unit, although we did practice certain attack tactics with hellfire missiles.

The cavalry mission was by far my favourite, and it consisted of the usual reconnaissance and security tasks.  My first unit was a division cavalry unit, 1-10 Cavalry, 4th Infantry Division.  We had three troops of M-1 Abrams and Bradley Fighting Vehicles and two troops of the OH-58D, totalling 16 aircraft.  There were also a few support troops in there as well.  We would work a lot with the ground side, operating over the shoulder for the tanks and Bradleys.  Typicall,y we would scout out routes, look for river fording sites, recon bridges, landing zones/pick up zones for air assaults and conduct the doctrinal screen, guard, and cover missions (although a Cavalry squadron couldn’t conduct the doctrinal cover mission). 

Now I would say this all changed post-invasion of Iraq.  As the battlefield transitioned from linear to asymmetric doctrinal roles for the OH-58D changed.  We transitioned to more of a security role, providing convoy security and on-call fire support for the troops on the ground.  We still did our reconnaissance, but it was no longer focused on probing enemy front lines. 

Afghanistan was primarily security-focused.  We flew in support of the ground force commander and operated over the top of the infantry or whoever was on the ground.  It was still doctrinal in the sense that we were there to provide reaction time and manoeuvre space to the ground forces and allow them the freedom to manoeuvre, but it was no longer at the brigade or division level; it was at the platoon/company level.  We were there for on-call close combat attacks.  It became a knife fight.

The 58D had agility and manoeuvrability.  If you thought it, the aircraft was doing it. THIS EXCITING STORY CONTINUES ON OUR NEW SITE HERE.

Faster, better-armed and longer-ranged than the contemporary Spitfire, the Gloster F9/37 was a superb machine that failed to enter production. We take a look at this seldom-discussed heavy fighter aircraft.

The Hawker Demon biplane fighter first flew in 1933. The same year the British Air Ministry released a requirement (F.5/33) for its replacement. They wanted a two-seat monoplane fighter equipped with a gun turret, the thinking being that aiming a turret is easier than aiming the whole aeroplane and allows a far greater field of fire. The Gloster Aircraft Company, masters of the biplane, responded with a twin-engined monoplane design powered by the Bristol Aquila radial engine (an abortive project but one which would lead to the Hercules,  Taurus, and  Centaurus). The Air Staff, rightly, were suspecting that the concept of F.5/33 was flawed, and so issued F.34/35 demanding an additional fixed forward-firing armament. Gloster adjusted their design accordingly, adding fixed guns, but Boulton Paul’s turret-equipped Defiant won an order, leaving the Gloster F.34/35 entrant out in the cold.

A year later, a new requirement was issued, F.9/37. This called for a single-seat, twin-engine, long-ranged fighter with fixed guns. At last, it seemed that Gloster’s luck was changing. The work they had done for F.34/35 put them in an excellent position, and the deletion of the heavy draggy turret created a fighter design potentially capable of spectacular performance. Gloster identified two possible engines, the water-cooled inline Rolls-Royce Peregrine and the extremely light powerful radial Bristol Taurus. Prototypes powered by each were to be built and tested.

When the first prototype (L7999), equipped with Taurus engines, flew in 3 April 1939 it was the fastest British fighter ever flown*, reaching an impressive 360 mph at 15,000 feet. Each of the Taurus T-S(a) engines generated an impressive 1,050 horsepower. The F9/37 (also known as the Gloster G.39) immediately earned the confidence of its pilot. It was blessed with fine handling, light controls and a dazzling performance.

 It was extremely manoeuvrable, a delight to take-off and land, and virtually vice-free. Its pilot enjoyed an excellent field of view and the aircraft was planned to pack a heavy punch in the form of two cannon and four machine-guns. 

It was also far faster than contemporary heavy fighters then in operational service such as the Potez 630 (264mph) – and marginally swifter than the Bf 110 (336 mph) which had an identical amount of installed power (the British aircraft was around 2500Ibs lighter at maximum weight).

*it is believed that the Whirlwind was yet to achieve this figure, though later would.

The prototype crashed through no fault of the design and as it was repaired work on the Peregrine-engined variant was progressing. When the Peregrine prototype flew it proved mediocre, the top speed dropping to a still respectable but not earth-shattering 330mph. The repaired and re-engined first prototype flew again in 1940 with the lower-powered 900 hp Taurus T-S(a)-Ills also proved disappointing.

A development of the F.9/37 as a night fighter, for a new Air Ministry Specifications F.29/40 – known unofficially as the Gloster ‘Reaper’ – was dropped despite being superior to the Beaufighter and (even the Mosquito in some respects).

W.G. Carter’s proposed a single-seat heavy fighter based on the design but with Merlin engines for spec F18/40. Whereas the radar-equipped version was to be armed with four 20-mm cannon, the day version would also have an additional eight light machine-guns in place of the radar. This would not have been available until 1942.

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Why bother?

The Reaper was lower powered than either the Mosquito or Bf 110 of the time, with either the Taurus or the Peregrine (which would soon be unavailable anyway). A Merlin-engined version would have worked but at this time everyone wanted Merlins. Ultimately why bother with a lumbering great heavy fighter when you’ve got the Mosquito busy being shit-hot at everything and the fastest production aircraft in the world? Or if you want something slower how about the Beaufighter? Gloster had their hands full building Hurricanes, and then Typhoons, as well as working on the development on Britain’s first jet aircraft. Arsing around with a complicated and expensive twin to no great purpose probably didn’t look like a great idea when you had two perfectly good heavy fighter designs and single engine types were proving perfectly fine at being cannon armed. As with the Whirlwind, when the question was asked, ‘what is more useful one heavy fighter or two Spitfires?’ the answer usually favoured the latter, unless the aircraft in question was the superlative (and already active) Mosquito.

Not every fighter flown in World War II looked like a Spitfire*. Some radical new shapes were tried, but reinventing the fighting aeroplane while your nation was fighting in the most destructive war in history was a risky expensive move, but one with potentialy huge rewards. More than sixty years before the Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen made the tail-first ‘canard’ warplane commonplace, two enemy nations looked to master this unordodox configuration. Jim Smith asks why and finds out which was the better machine.

(*or a Spitfire that had swallowed a barrel in the case of the radial-engined aircraft)

Curtiss XP-55 Ascender and Kyushu J7W Shinden

Two fighter designs, the Ascender from the USA, and the Shinden from Japan, featuring swept wings, a canard foreplane and a pusher engine installation. Before looking at the aircraft more closely, it is worth discussing why this layout might have appeared attractive.

Pusher-Canard Design Objectives

There are several possible advantages of using a canard foreplane and a pusher engine installation. A conventional design with a rear-mounted tailplane is normally trimmed and stabilised with a download on the tailplane, which reduces overall lift. A stable canard will have lift on both the canard and the wing, and the pitching moment to rotate for take-off will also be generated by increasing the lift on the foreplane.

If the aircraft is designed with a swept wing, as is both the Ascender and the Shinden, fuselage size, drag and weight can be reduced compared to a conventional design. The swept wing will allow fins and rudders to be positioned aft of the centre of gravity with sufficient moment arm for them to be effective, with the foreplane being used either as an elevator (Ascender), or to carry elevators (Shinden). Reducing the fuselage size will reduce wetted area and drag, and reduce pitch inertia, potentially increasing responsiveness to the controls.

In general, canard designs have benign stalling characteristics, since the foreplane will normally be designed to stall at a lower incidence than the wing, resulting in a pitch down at the stall. At high lift, downwash from the foreplane will reduce the incidence on the inboard wing, helping to ensure this desirable behaviour.

Selection of a pusher engine installation makes sense for a canard and swept wing configuration because the engine can be used to balance out the weight of the pilot and the armament, which can conveniently be located in the nose of the aircraft. Reduction in drag may also be claimed as the fuselage and wings will be free from propeller wash, offering the prospect of cleaner flow over the wings and fuselage. However, a rear-mounted engine may be more difficult to cool, and the efficiency of the propeller may be reduced as it will be operating in the wake of the aircraft. Rudder authority will also be reduced in the absence of the slipstream from the propeller, so directional stability and control may be an issue for some aircraft.

An outstanding example of a relatively current design with this configuration is the Rutan Vari-Eze, which can achieve a max cruising speed of 170kt on only 100hp.

Curtiss XP-55 Ascender

Designed to meet a 1939 specification for a well-armed high-performance fighter, the XP-55 Ascender was one of three unorthodox designs selected for development. The other two were the Vultee XP-54 Swoose Goose, and the Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet. All three aircraft were of pusher configuration; the Ascender having swept wings and a canard; the Swoose Goose having a straight wing and twin tail booms; and the Black Bullet being a tail-less flying wing.

All three aircraft were originally intended to be powered by the 2200 hp Pratt & Whitney X-1800 engine, which was cancelled, leaving an alternative engine to be selected. Curtiss fitted a 1275 hp Allison V1710-95 engine as a substitute in the Ascender, which would have ensured that the aircraft could in no way match the originally estimated maximum speed of 507 mph. Incidentally, the Northrop design had severe stability problems, and was eventually assessed as not airworthy, while the Vultee design substituted the X-1800 engine first with the Lycoming XH-2470 engine, and then proposed to use the Wright R-2160 Tornado, but both of these alternative powerplants were also cancelled.

The Ascender configuration design had been supported by the use of a full-scale, but light weight, demonstrator powered by a 275 hp Menasco engine, the CW-24B, which made no less than 169 test flights, and this helped to overcome initial AF doubts about the configuration. The XP-55 made its first flight on July 19, 1943, but was lost in an accident in November 1943. The aircraft became inverted following a stall, and could not be recovered by the pilot, who bailed out successfully.

The second and third prototypes continued the flight test program, flying in January and April 1944 with a range of modifications to improve directional stability and the effectiveness of the elevators. The third aircraft also featured additional wing and control modifications in response to the accident to the first aircraft. Even with these modifications, handling was poor at low speeds, the engine tended to over-heat, and the maximum speed of 390 mph was well below expectations.

By this time, it was apparent that the performance of in-service aircraft like the P-38 Lightning, P-47 Thunderbolt, and P-51 Mustang far exceeded anything that could be credibly expected from the Ascender. It was also clear to the Air Force that the future lay with jet propulsion, and the XP-55 Ascender joined the XP-54 Swoose Goose and XP-56 Black Bullet in being cancelled.

Kyushu J7W Shinden

The Kyushu J7W Shinden was a small and very neatly-packaged canard fighter concept that was originated by Captain Masaoki Tsurono of the Technical Staff of the Japanese Navy. Although the aircraft was fitted with a 2130 hp Mitsubishi MK9D radial engine, Captain Tsurono had always envisaged that this would be replaceable in the future by a jet engine.

The basic configuration was validated using an unpowered demonstrator, the Yokosuka MXY6, supplemented by some additional flights with a low powered 22 hp engine. With the assurance that the configuration was practical, the Navy instructed Kyushu to proceed with the design and construction of the J7W Shinden, with some technical assistance being provided by a Navy team led by Captain Tsurono.

The design which emerged was centred on a small, moderately swept wing of 36 ft span, carrying the engine on the wing centre section, with a shaft driven 6-blade propeller at the rear of the fuselage.  Cooling intakes were fitted to the fuselage ahead of the wing, with the cockpit, armament and forward canard making up the forward fuselage. With its compact packaging, powerful engine, and relatively high power-to-weight ratio, the Shinden might have been expected to offer high speed and good manoeuvrability.

However, timing was against the Shinden. Despite being ordered into production even before its first flight, only two aircraft could be built before the end of WW II, and only 3 flights of the prototype aircraft were made.

What can we learn from those flights? The reported information was that they revealed a strong swing to starboard during take-off, and significant vibration in the propeller and its drive shaft.

The first of these would have been due to the torque of the powerful engine, but would also have been exacerbated by the short moment arm between the wing-mounted fins and the aircraft centre of gravity. A production aircraft might have required a central fin to supplement those on the wings, and perhaps also larger rudder controls.

The vibration in the propeller and its drive shaft has been stated to be due to propeller flutter, and a redesign of the propeller to increase its stiffness would perhaps have resolved this problem. Unexplored issues which would need to be examined in flight test would include handling at low speeds and at the stall, engine cooling, and detailed evaluation of aircraft performance and armament effectiveness.

Despite these concerns, which might well have been resolved in flight and operational testing, the Shinden was a well-executed, forward-looking design, particularly as consideration had been given to a future jet-powered variant, the J7W2.

Curtiss XP-55 Ascender and Kyushu J7W Shinden – Air Combat Comparison

Although design of the XP-55 started from a 1939 requirement, the aircraft did not fly until 1943, with the third and final aircraft not flying until April 1944. The J7W Shinden made its first flight in August 1945. The Shinden only made 3 flights; two of the three XP-55 aircraft were lost in accidents which reflected poorly on the controllability of the aircraft.

Unsurprisingly, there is limited information on which to judge their air combat performance, other than basic dimensional, power and weight data. What information there is suggests that the Shinden would have had substantial advantages over the XP-55 Ascender.

The Shinden had more power, and a greater power to weight ratio, and had a slightly lower wing loading than the Ascender. While the Ascender had a slightly higher aspect ratio, the advantage due to this in sustained turn rate could well have been negated by the higher power to weight ratio of the Shinden. The reported maximum speed data suggests a 70 mph speed advantage for the Shinden, but I would treat this estimate with some caution, as so little flight test of that aircraft was possible.

On sortie rate, there is little to go on. The air-cooled radial engine of the Shinden might have required less maintenance than the liquid-cooled engine of the Ascender, and there is some indication that there were cooling issues for that aircraft. Directional control and propeller flutter issues remained to be resolved for the Shinden.

Curtiss XP-55 Ascender and Kyushu J7W Shinden Assessment

The Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, like the XP-54 and XP-56 with which it competed, turned out to be disappointing, largely because the engine for which it had been designed turned out not to be available. But it also had difficult handling qualities, especially at low speed. Possibly not as dangerous as the XP-56, and perhaps with greater, if still inadequate, performance potential than the XP-54, the XP-55 Ascender could not be considered a success.

The J7W Shinden seems to be a particularly well executed pusher-canard fighter, but with a total of 45 minutes flying, cannot be said to be a proven entity. The limited test flying revealed two early issues, yaw control on take-off and vibration of the propeller and prop-shaft. It is likely that the Shinden could have been developed into a successful fighter, particularly if the planned jet engine installation had gone ahead. But this will never be known with certainty, because the War in the Pacific ended before any meaningful testing or production had been undertaken.

Which aircraft was better? The choice could be as simple as observing that the Curtiss design was a dud, whereas the Kyushu Shinden had not been tested sufficiently to establish whether or not it was also a dud. This approach would, I think, be a cop out, so I am prepared to rate the Kyushu Shinden as the ‘better loser’ on two grounds – its development potential as a jet-powered aircraft, and its aesthetic appearance.

I was a very happy 11-year old boy when I was bought a copy of Stealth Warplanes, by Doug Richardson. I had negotiated hard to make my mum buy me the book. I left WH Smith’s in the murky depths of Wood Green Shopping Centre thrilled by my new book.

The Lockheed F-117 ‘Stealth Fighter’ had only just been revealed to the public; In November 1988, an airbrushed photo was held aloft to an ecstatic press by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, J. Daniel Howard. The F-117, until then top secret, was a new weird shape. Slightly preceding this (in April 1988) the DoD had released an artist’s impression of the Northrop B-2, which had also emerged from the Black world of secret defence projects. The B-2 was a charcoal grey flying-wing, clearly designed by the same person who designed the Batmobile.

Stealth was big news, until then, aeroplanes had been tubes with wings. Overnight the aircraft that had previously looked sleek and high-tech, now appeared drab and prosaic. The F/A-18 Hornet, with its sophisticated curves, the F-15 Eagle with its invincible muscularity, were both now relegated to the position of has-beens.

I believed that this book, with its immensely exciting cover, was my secret pass to the cladestine world of Stealth.

I bought another copy today, and it was fascinating to see how well this book had stood the test of 32 years.

Sweet EFA

Back then the Eurofighter typhoon was known as the European Fighter Aircraft (EFA). EFA is included as an example of a “reduced RCS (radar cross-section) design”. The large artwork, of an RAF machine, is surprisingly accurate.

Sadly, the dummy canopy (Canadian CF-18 stylee), an example of deception camouflage, visible on the artwork, has not been applied to real operational aircraft.

The strakes (a 1989 design amendment) and the PIRATE IRST are not featured, but the text acknowledges, these design changes took place after the artwork was made.

Eurofighter price. What is staggering is the cost estimate, put at wonderfully dainty £10-12 million (1989 prices), a far cry from today’s figure of around £68 million. Even taking into account inflation, this is quite a jump.

“You should not be at all surprised if someday you see me fly from New York to Colorado Springs in a contrivance which will resemble a gas stove and weigh almost as much.” said charismatic but unlucky Serbian-born Nikola Tesla in 1913. The inventor of Alternating Current and precursive David Bowie impersonator is not such an an obscure figure these days in the world of science in general but his admittedly minor contribution to the field of aeronautics remains little-known.

In 1928 Tesla filed a patent (coincidentally his last) describing a vertical take-off machine with a tilt wing/rotor that was at once both astonishingly prescient and maddeningly naive. This V-22 Osprey precursor was to be powered by a turbine engine, which was well beyond the state of the art in the 1920s (Frank Whittle patented the gas turbine engine in 1930). However, although the aeroplane aspects of its design are fairly reasonable, the rotary wing aspects are less impressive. Torque is helpfully cancelled out by having the lift rotors/propellors rotate in opposite directions but it is unclear how the aircraft would be controlled in vertical flight and the rotors are clearly far too small to support the machine in the vertical plane. Nonetheless this is the first known iteration of the tilt-rotor concept to be patented and as such is the precursor of all those bizarre ‘fifties VTOL prototypes that never quite worked properly but looked amazing before they crashed somewhere.

‘Bizarre’ is also a word that could be reasonably applied to some of Tesla’s obsessions and habits. Clearly (to a modern audience) suffering from some form of OCD, Tesla’s eccentricities were not as horrific as Howard Hughes’s – no unsnipped fingernails or jars of urine for Nikola – but were sufficiently unusual to garner the attention of society at a time when mental illnesses were poorly understood at best. Passed off as eccentricities by his friends, these traits were used to ridicule poor Tesla by his enemies who insinuated he was totally insane. And there was a history of mental illness in his family – Tesla’s father was afflicted with multiple personality disorder and was known to engage in heated arguments with different versions of himself. His brother meanwhile suffered from violent hallucinations.

Like many who suffer from obsessive compulsive behaviours, Tesla was devoted to cleanliness. He would not consume anything that had not been sterilised or boiled. For this, at least, he had an explanation: after seeing bacteria in his drinking water through a microscope he said, “if you would only watch for a few minutes the horrible creatures, you would never again drink a drop of unboiled or unsterilized water.” In similar vein he would regularly refuse to shake hands and often wore gloves to avoid physical contact.

So far so obsessive compulsive, Tesla’s relationship with the number three is somewhat stranger. It is not known how or why he developed this strange obsession but he would often engage in rituals that involved the number three, including his practice of walking three times around a building before entering it. When dining he would fold 18 napkins before he started eating because 18 was divisible by three. When he stayed at a hotel, he would request that his room number was a multiple of three and specified that 18 fresh towels were to his room be delivered every morning. In addition to boiling all of his food, he would also determine the volume of the food on his plate, and then calculate the number of jaw movements required to consume it. Apparently he had a profound phobia of round objects, and refused to remain in the company of a woman who was wearing earrings. Curiously there is a widespread suggestion that Tesla designed a flying saucer aircraft, however given his problem with round items this would, one assumes, be the last shape he would consider unless through absolute necessity.

Unlike insanely wealthy OCD sufferer Howard Hughes, Tesla died penniless but not, at least, a filthy, morphine addicted recluse surrounded by jars of his own piss. At least Tesla is now being rediscovered as a scientific and cultural figure, not least through the efforts of Elon Musk. It is presumably not a coincidence that the modern Tesla car company’s only vehicle with a numeric model designation is, of course, the Model 3.

About Hush Kit . . . 

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A sequel to the Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes. Plucking the best from over 1,000 articles from the highly respected Hush-Kit blog, Volume 2 takes an even deeper dive into the thrilling world of military aviation. A lavishly illustrated coffee-table book crammed with well-informed and utterly readable histories, listicles, interviews, and much more. Beautifully designed, with world-class photography, we reveal the bizarre true story of live bats converted to firebombs, the test pilot that disguised himself as a cigar-smoking chimpanzee, and an exclusive interview with the aircrew of the deadliest aircraft in history. Here is an utterly entertaining, and at times subversive, celebration of military flying!The spectacular photograph of the F-4 Phantom we have used on the cover was taken by Rich Cooper from the Centre of Aviation Photography. Pre-order your copy today and make this happen: https://unbound.com/books/hushkit2/