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H/S Kestrel Evaluation footage

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Dragoon

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Found a very nice video of the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel being evaluated, and some nostalgia for TACATC too no doubt!

Nice to see a YouTube video that has good music too, normally they are ruined with shocking noise in the background.

http://youtu.be/3X52_2BtvP4
 
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A nice reminder about what it was all about.
And Funtimesteve provided us with several intersting films in ther past, as I recall.
 
I find it interesting that the Germans were part of the evaluation Sqn, but didn't take the Harrier, any reasons why?
 
I remember in the Evaluation of the Eurofighter back in the 90's that it seemed the UK, Germany, Spain & Italy were testing it, I distinctly remember building an Airfix kit of one that had the quarter roundel of each nation on there.

Turned out only us took Typhoon didn't we. Wonder why the other nations lost interest. (Prepared to sit corrected!)
 
Dragoon said:
I remember in the Evaluation of the Eurofighter back in the 90's that it seemed the UK, Germany, Spain & Italy were testing it, I distinctly remember building an Airfix kit of one that had the quarter roundel of each nation on there.

Turned out only us took Typhoon didn't we. Wonder why the other nations lost interest. (Prepared to sit corrected!)
Click to expand...

Is this a fishing trip? fishing for a bite

If not here's a quote...

Primary users
Royal Air Force
Luftwaffe
Italian Air Force
Spanish Air Force
See Operators below for others
Click to expand...

And here's a link...link

HTB
 
Dragoon said:
I remember in the Evaluation of the Eurofighter back in the 90's that it seemed the UK, Germany, Spain & Italy were testing it, I distinctly remember building an Airfix kit of one that had the quarter roundel of each nation on there.

Turned out only us took Typhoon didn't we. Wonder why the other nations lost interest. (Prepared to sit corrected!)
Click to expand...

Nope they all bought it and the four nation roundel was on the prototype EFA 2000's as it is built by the four nations, plus the Prototype Panavia 200 MRCAs (better known as the Tornado) also had three part roundels for the countries that were jointly delevoping the aircraft back in the 1970's (as shown below) on the fusalarge (carried markings of the country it was built in on the rest of the airframe)

Dave-exfairy said:
I find it interesting that the Germans were part of the evaluation Sqn, but didn't take the Harrier, any reasons why?
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They were working on a number of projects themselves, two were fast jets. One of them was the EWR VJ-101 which was based on the Starfighter, and had 4 Rolls Royce RB 145 Lift engines in two pods on the wing tips that rotated 90 degrees (much like the V-22 Osprey) and a further 2 RB 145s just for jet lift mounted vertically in the fuselage. It was supersonic in level flight. The other was the VFW VAK 191B which had a Rolls Royce RB 193 engine with vectored thrust like the Harrier, and 2 RB145 lift engines and was designed as a nuclear strike fighter. Both types would have replaced the Starfighter and Fiat G.91 had they ever solved all of the problems that beset both designs caused by the use of multiple engines (couldn't use the Pegasus as they wanted supersonic performance, plus RR didn't own Bristol Siddley engines when both projects stated and had the Germans in their pocket). The other one was a Medium sized transport called the Dornier Do 31, which had a Pegasus mounted on each wing and a large pod on the tip of each wing with 4 RB145 fixed lift engines in each. All got canned in the early 1970s. Only the US Marines took on the Harrier, though NASA did take the Kestrals that the US had paid for back to the states and did a lot of research with the aircraft under the desigation of XV-6.
 

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John Lloyd said:
Possibly some American snake oil salesman just happened to drop them a bag of cash to buy into a real mud mover
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Nope bought Phantoms to do the fighter bit, Built Tornados with us to do the night bomber bit, and used Alpha Jets built with the frogs to do the CAS work (The boxheads never used the Alpha Jet as a Trainer, as all of there pilots are trained in the US or Canada as regards Advanced Flying training).
 
morse1001 said:
In the RAF Historical Society 'The Harrier Story', the RAF, USAF and GAF formed an evaluation squadron to evaluate the VTOL concept. There is nothing about either the USA or Lufwaffe having an option to buy.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/documents/Journal 35A - Seminar - the RAF Harrier Story.pdf
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The project was funded on a three way spilt, and the 9 aircraft were to be shared out at the end of the evaluation. Germans gave their three airframes to the US who took them back to the States. In fact of the four US military air arms that existed, only three were involved in the evaluation (USAF, US Navy and US Army) and it was the service that didn't send a pilot to partake (US Marines) that actually brought the aircraft.
 
Dragoon said:
Found a very nice video of the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel being evaluated, and some nostalgia for TACATC too no doubt!

Nice to see a YouTube video that has good music too, normally they are ruined with shocking noise in the background.

http://youtu.be/3X52_2BtvP4
Click to expand...

Nostalgia for me as the station were the opening launch bit of the clip was filmed was my first operational stomping ground (though the Kit I worked on didn't go in until the back end of the Kestral evaluation).
 
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