As usual, an interesting and thought-provoking article.The colony has caught the same disease by building a Jabiru twin.This was a totally unnecessary and disgusting comment: “Prior to this, ensure one example crashes and kills its first Commanding Officer, infront of the press”Hi Robert, I’m sorry if this caused offence. !uFill in your details below or click an icon to log in:A mere year separates the service entry of the Beverley (1955) and the US’ C-130 Hercules (1956), yet sixty years later one of these is still the best tactical transport – serving with many air forces around the world- and the other only exists in the form of a single lonely museum piece standing in the cold in a village near Hull. surely not…but…but…oh yeah, the slightly dodgy handling coupled with the thirst of a alcoholic who’s been ‘banged up for a stretch’… (as opposed to being banged out with compressed vertebrae).But despite all that, It is a truly awesome beast in its post modern awesomeness-ness.As a non aviation savvy friend pointed out, it looks like it was designed at the behest of George Lucas. The bad safety record wasn’t limited to these types either. Web. As it did go ahead, why not a two-seat version for the RAF to use as in the attack role (an early Bucc); its naval airframe would have withstood the low level buffeting and I would guess (I might be wrong) that its payload-radius would have exceeded the Hunter’s.My father enjoyed this article and I thought you’d appreciate the reminiscence it produced:“Ah, if you had ever seen them, who could have forgotten the distinctive form of the Beverleys, as they trundled across what was left of the Empire slightly faster than the prevailing winds, loaded in un-airconditioned discomfort with awkward sized loads, e.g. On the Tornado ADV, I disagree that it was severely hampered by the lack of engine power. Eurofighter has emerged, years late & probably highly effective, not that it has much threat by Cold War threat levels.

How good would a best-selling tactical transport have been for British industry? The Tornado airframe/engine combo was definitely a bad choice for a fighter, even an interceptor. Then adding reheat before the A/B was properly developed meant it was no use as a high altitude fighter, so that was another development area not really solved by using the Hunter. Bill Gunston commented in ‘Back to the Drawing Board’ on the number of Blackburn efforts he chose for that book (five candidates) but also pointed out that the company often attempted to meet rather demanding specifications. They turn a bomber into an interceptor but keep the same engine when you need more of a low BPR turbofan for the fighter role (almost a turbojet) and they are rubbished for thatHi Duker, The powerplant of the Tornado ADV is worthy of criticism and note. 30 Nov. 2012. As if design flaws, conceptual mistakes, being extremely dangerous, being unpleasant to fly, or obsolete at the point of service entry (and the type must have entered service). A supersonic version could have been a superb naval striker- though using it as a fighter seems a bit optimistic! But I suppose that “industrial policy” was paramount and that protecting jobs in the British aerospace industry meant that we had to have a home-grown solution no matter how slow and expensive the development process turned out to be.The Brits cant win. The Centaurus also powered the abysmal Firebrand, pitiful Buckingham and the technically brilliant (but conceptually wrong-headed) Brabazon- and, for the sake of fairness, the Sea Fury.