THE 11th S.B.A.C. DISPLAY

THE 11th S.B.A.C. DISPLAY

With the arrival of September and the first autumnal hint of winter we associate. the world’s greatest flying display, the S.B.A.C. show at Farnborough’s historic airfield. Judging by the numbers of interesting cars one encounters in the car parks and the club badges they display, nuiny of our readers also make a point of not. missing this fixture—and we say again that. the S.M.M.T. would be welladvised to follow suit and stage a gardenparty at which new ears could be shown off to global buyers.

At t his year’s S.I3.A.C. Display twenty entirely new aircraft. flew, of which the Vickers-Armstrong ” Viscount 700 ” first took the air a week before from Brooklands, and the de Havilland ” Venom” Night Fighter only came off the Secret List the day before !

Of the ” Heavy Cirars ” which opened the Show, the Vickers-Armstrong “TayViscount ” was recognisable by its tailplane dihedrel, the same company’s ” Varsity ” seemed to hang its head in disgust when on its tricycle, and the Percival ” Survey-Prince” did a neat bit of braking and manoeuvring after landing.

After Flight Refuelling’s Lincoln had poured 250 gallons of fuel a minute into a Meteor during a rather rude but impressive act, the individual demonstrations came On. The Avon-Meteor, said to climb to 40,000 ft. in much less than three minutes, certainly looked like it, pulling straight Lip into the clouds, after which one Rolls-Royce turbojet was stopped,then re-lit.. Geoffrey l’ike demonstrated tlie smot db., quiet passage of the de Havilland “I fermi ” transport with its fixed tricycle undercart and the Blackburn Universal Freighter burnt more rubber than a whole field of racing cars when Ft./Lt. ” Tim ” Wood put its brakes on. Swill.Ldr. Franklin showed off the beautiful 345 m.p.h. A. W. ” Apollo,” feathering two of the four airscrews, the captain of the ” Viscount 700 ” went one better, feathering three, after taking off in a climbing turn as if following tiw curve of the Byficet banking, :mil

lIazelden lifteil tlie Handley Page ” Hennes V ‘ off quiekly and also went into a turn. James Orrell’s high-altitude Avro ” Ashton threw heat and a throaty roar at us from its four RM. ” Nenes ” and the 400 m.p.h. 1111. ” Comet ” airliner, ably displayed by Group-Captain John Cunningham, truide us proud to be British. Do you remember the man who years ago ran an old AstonMartin at Brooklands powered with his own six-cylinder engine ?—Major Milford, to-day responsible for the ” Cornet’s ” Ghost turbojet engines. The two most outstanding bits of flying were those of Wing-Comdr. Roland P. Beaumont in the Mk. II E.E.C. ” Canberra ” bomber and Sqdn.-Ldr. John Derry in the wicked-looking de I la v Hand ” Venom.” The first-named did his customary immense climbs and tight turns in an aircraft we admired last year and which now differs only in having an offset bomb-aimer’s panel. Derry delighted with his fantastic flick

rolls and inverted flying, after seemingly the fastest fly-piLst of the afternoon. The new de Havilland ” Venom ” Night Fighter was stupendously fast, level and el fol>iog. others ran these two close. The inverted climb of the A.’W. ” Meteor N.F. II, the inverted bunt of Gloster ” Meteor 8 ” during which it whimsically put its wheels down (up ?). the disappearance of the Hawker ” P 1081 to far places, from which Squdn.-Ldr. ” Wimpey ” Wade returned hi a fumy at 3,000 ft. and dived full-bore along the runway, and the -similar full-speed flypast of Michael Litligow’s futuristic Vickers ” Type 535,” right over our heads I his time, were not lost on us. The ” P 1081 ” first flew only last June. Staln.-Ldr. Jan Zurakowski showed off the stupendous climb of the A.S. ” Sapphire-Meteor,” after which the liftlike divorce from terra firma of the practical Prestwick ” Pioneer 2 ” and

Porteotis’ wliinisical onewheel landing and taxi-ing of the Auster ” Aiglet ” provided light relief. The Slam. concluded by a faultless take-off and landing of that very full taxpayer’s moneybox, the Bristol ” Brabazon I “called after the pioneer racing motorist ! –the public-address system relaying the instructions of ” Bill ” Pegg to his crew for the benefit of we earth-bound. This ended a grand display and, although we prefer the fumes of burnt castor oil to those of kerosene, we wouldn’t miss it at any price. If you did, make sure not to, next. year I—W. 13.