Book of the month review by Denis Calvert
English Electric Lightning
by Tim McLelland
published by Classic Publications/Ian Allan Publishing
To say he got it wrong is to put it mildly. Defence Minister Duncan Sandys announced in the House on 4 April 1957 that the development of manned fighter aircraft for the RAF was to cease forthwith in favour of surface-to-air missiles. At a stroke, a generation of promising British supersonic fighter projects was axed. Only English Electric’s P1 (it had yet to be christened Lightning) survived, probably because a development batch of 20 aircraft was already on order. In retrospect, Sandys’ decision seems short-sighted and even crass yet, at the time, few commentators were prepared to stand up and tell him that he was talking out of his afterburner. The Lightning did indeed survive — and survive for a long time, finally being retired from the RAF in 1988 — but, because of a continuing belief that it was only a stop-gap type, the necessary funding was never provided properly to develop its capabilities. Author McLelland takes an objective look at ‘Britain’s First and Last Supersonic Interceptor’ (the volume’s sub-title), reviewing its somewhat protracted development, its long service with the RAF and the Royal Saudi Air Force and its short time on the front line with the Kuwait Air Force. To his credit, he discusses the type’s shortcomings (inadequate fuel tankage, limited armament) as well as its attributes, and provides a generally balanced account of this most iconic aircraft. If there’s little wholly new in this account, it is certainly well ordered and logically presented and has the benefit of numerous appendices — but no index. The photo selection is wide and comprehensive. Along with some well-known shots (including the amazing one of XG332, pointing nose down and no more than 200ft from impacting the ground at the end of the Hatfield runway, the pilot’s ’chute still in the process of deploying) there is a truly outstanding — and never before published — series of Saudi images from Hedley Molland. Reproduction, though, is varied. The black-and-white images are generally good, but too many of the colour shots exhibit a strange colour balance or overall colour cast.
Price £35.00
Rating ***
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Miles Aircraft – The Early YearsClose Read More
Miles Aircraft – The Early Years
by Peter Amos
published by Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd
With two titles already having appeared on the subject of the late, lamented Miles Aircraft (D. A. Russell’s ‘The Book of Miles Aircraft’ published by Harborough in 1946 and Don L. Brown’s ‘Miles Aircraft Since 1925’ published by Putnam in 1970), the question might be raised as to whether the world of aviation literature needs a third volume covering essentially the same ground. Pick up this tome and the answer must be a definitive ‘yes’. Peter Amos, whose one stated regret is never having worked for Miles, has produced a wonderfully detailed account of the golden years of the company from 1925 to 1939, taking the story from the early days at Shoreham to the ‘new’ location at Woodley, Reading, and to the Second World War. This is also a personal story; Miles Aircraft was the brainchild of two Miles brothers, George and F. G. (actually Frederick Gaston, but almost always referred to by his initials). The remit of this title goes much further into the people of the company, the state of the light aircraft market in the late 1920s and the 1930s, the development and production of various types in the Miles product range and recollections of their flying characteristics than either previously published work. A nice story concerns the joy-riding side of the business which was trading in 1927 as the Gnat Aero Co. To increase profits, the company hit upon the idea of getting the pilot to sign postcards to sell to the passengers for 2d a piece. Should Ryanair announce a similar money-making scheme later this year, with the purchase of at least one card becoming a condition of carriage, remember you read it here first. Everything about this title oozes quality. The text is as definitive as it is possible to get, the photo selection is unparalleled and excellently reproduced and there are numerous drawings, contemporary illustrations, advertisements and even cartoons to round out the story. You will not be disappointed.
Price £52.50
Rating *****
Sabre Slayers: The Gnat in India 1958-1991Close Read More
Sabre Slayers: The Gnat in India 1958-1991
Pushpindar Singh
Society of Aerospace Studies, £34.99
The Folland Gnat will not go down in history as a great success; rarely has an aircraft design offering 'a return to simplicity, affordability and small size' triumphed in a military evaluation against a competitor offering all the latest features — but at a price. The outcome was thus inevitable when, in 1958, the RAF considered the Gnat against the Hunter as a Venom replacement for use overseas. But the Gnat's future as a light fighter was assured when, in 1956, Indian interest crystallised into an agreement to manufacture both the aircraft and its Bristol Orpheus powerplant at Bangalore. The Gnat proved a great success in Indian AF service. Produced in large numbers, it earned its reputation as a 'Sabre slayer' in the 1965 war with Pakistan, the Gnat even mixing it — albeit less conclusively — on occasions with Pakistani Starfighters. Its success led to the development of a MkII variant as the Ajeet, an aircraft with much improved air-to-ground capability, and a two-seat trainer version. This Indian-produced volume relates the development of the Gnat/Ajeet in India and its front-line service in peace and war, with its flying characteristics described — with much affection and enthusiasm — by its pilots. It is told in great detail and with the benefit of numerous behind-the-scenes accounts, and supported by many documents, drawings, tables and appendices. To its great credit, it does not view the Indian Gnat programme through rose-tinted spectacles and recalls, for instance, the high loss rate suffered. The photo coverage is excellent and contains an extremely high proportion of 'not seen before' images, including some wildly-painted (camouflaged, striped) examples. Photo reproduction is good if not spectacular. Only the inclusion of a small number of misspellings lets down this volume, with the airfield at Chilbolton frequently (but not always) referred to as 'Chilbolten'. In short, an exceptionally good read from an unexpected quarter.
Phoenix Squadron
Rowland White
Bantam Press, £18.99
In a surprisingly little-known — and characteristically low-key — operation, HMS Ark Royal launched a pair of Buccaneers in the western Atlantic to 'fly the flag' overhead the capital city of British Honduras (now Belize) in 1978 in a show of force to deter Guatemalan troops massing on that country's border. Author White retells the story of the planning and execution of that mission, in which the 'strike pair' of 809 NAS Buccaneers took off, refuelled from Buccaneer buddy tankers, cut a corner across Cuban airspace and successfully navigated the 1,300 miles to make a low-level appearance over Belize City. This title succeeds on several levels. It is a good (also stirring, gritty, punchy and compelling) but still down-to-earth account of an extraordinary mission flown with customary professionalism by the Fleet Air Arm. It also provides the reader with a fair impression of everyday life aboard a Royal Navy aircraft carrier in the 1970s. And, for those who choose to read behind the storyline to the implications, it serves as a stark reminder of the capability that defence chiefs signed away when they pensioned off Ark Royal as the last fleet carrier in 1978. If the reader expects to find similarities here with the film 'Top Gun' — once described as 'Star Wars on earth' — he/she will be pleased to know that the temptation to exaggerate is kept in check and that essential Britishness shines through the text. Aircrew nicknames such as 'Boots' are used and descriptive passages sometimes go near to, but never quite over, the top as in 'The 809 hangar smelt of sweat, hydraulic fluid and Avcat', but these are balanced by the recalling of more mundane events such as 809 boss Carl Davis' ire at having dropped his boiled sweet into the depths of the cockpit just before they started the descent into Belize City. The cover features Richard Cooke's excellent images of Buccaneers and Phantoms overflying Ark Royal in 1978. Highly recommended to all.
US Aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia Close Read More
US Aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia
Yefim Gordon and Sergey Komissarov
Midland Publishing, £40.00
In 336 pages, the authors cover the history of imported American aircraft, aero engines and equipment in pre-revolutionary Russia, the Soviet Union and the present-day Russia. Some types were imported commercially in small quantities, such as the Curtiss Model D and E floatplanes ordered for the Navy in 1912. Others, such as the Bell P-39 Airacobra, were imported in great numbers (close on 5,000) under Lend-Lease to meet the urgent wartime need for fighters; it would be uncharitable to say they were shipped because the aircraft had not distinguished itself in combat in Western Europe. Then there were types such as the C-47 which were legally manufactured under licence in the Soviet Union, and others such as the B-29 Superfortress which were ingeniously reverse-engineered from captured examples and then produced locally as bootleg copies. Post-war, there have been some surprising imports such as the Sikorsky S-58 helicopter and a single F-5E Tiger II from South Vietnam for evaluation, as well as the familiar products of Boeing which increasingly equip today's Russian airlines. This work is clearly the result of much searching through the archives. The result is as comprehensive a volume as one could reasonably hope for, and illustrated with a wide selection of photos, all well reproduced. Your reviewer particularly liked the shots of a Vertol V-44 helicopter named 'the Monino Banana' with a Union flag on the tail (but why?) and of a B-25 Mitchell with a large afterburning RD-10F turbojet mounted atop the fuselage. Undoubtedly one of the year's truly 'off-beat' aviation titles, this one comes highly recommended.
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From the Cockpit 10: Swordfish Close Read More
From the Cockpit 10: Swordfish
Donald Payne
Ad Hoc Publications, £19.95
Put on the spot and asked to name just one aircraft to represent 100 years of British naval aviation, your reviewer would protest, then sit and scratch his head for an unconscionably long time comparing the relative merits of numerous types before finally coming up with his choice of the Fairey Swordfish. A fabric-covered biplane with fixed undercarriage and a top speed of only 120kt, the Swordfish was introduced to service in 1936 and was outmoded by the outbreak of war. Yet it was the Swordfish which inflicted such damage on the Italian fleet at Taranto in 1940 and which was still in front-line service at the close of hostilities. Most of all, it gained the respect of those who flew it. This close relationship between man and machine is everywhere evident in this new 208-page offering, in which some 30 aircrew give their recollections of the Swordfish on operations. Most are squadron aircrew while there's also a chapter 'In the Air' by the inimitable Capt Eric Brown — who has just celebrated his 90th birthday — who served as a deck landing instructor on HMS Argus in 1942. He describes the Swordfish as 'an absurdly simple aircraft to fly' with 'such perfect manners that one could hardly go wrong'. This is not a technical volume on the Swordfish and the text does not follow the type's development or service history, yet from the contributions by those who knew it and flew it, the reader gets a broader and arguably more complete insight into the aircraft than he/she would from any volume of pure history. The photo selection is wide and excellently reproduced (albeit with many spread across two pages with the inevitable loss of image down the centre) while there are 14 pages of colour profiles and a double-page spread featuring a four-view of NR864 of 835 NAS 'As Flown By the Author' — a nice hallmark of the 'In The Cockpit' series. At £19.95 — or, indeed, at any price — this volume is a delight and comes most highly recommended.
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