2016 03 (515) AEROPLANE.pdf

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BIGGER
ISSUE
More than a Century of History in the Air
C OL D WA R S P E C I A L E DI T ION
®
www.aeroplanemonthly.com
Insights and secrets from
g
the East-West stand-off
•
RAF WASHINGTONS • NUCLEAR ‘THUDS’
• CLANDESTINE INTEL-GATHERING
-
• THE Tu-104 AND THE KGB CHIEF
• FROM ‘V-FOR CE’ TO CND
R
• BERLIN DEFENDERS
NEW BOSS
AT THE BBMF
WA R B I R D S
DATABASE
FOKKER G.I
MARCH 2016 £4.40
03
9 770143 724101
Contents
32
86
96
NEWS AND
COMMENT
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6
FROM THE EDITOR
NEWS
• Ex-MacArthur C-121 back in the air
• Lottery grant for DH Museum
• Zero airborne in Japan
• Tracey Curtis-Taylor reaches ‘Oz’
• Combat veteran P-40 flies again
• Testbeds to get Cosford airing
• Ex-FAA Reliant arrives in Wiltshire
… and the month’s other top aircraft
preservation news
HANGAR TALK
Steve Slater’s monthly comment
column on the historic aircraft world
Vol 44, no 3 • Issue no 515
March 2016
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FEATURES
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NEW BOSS AT THE BBMF
An interview with Sqn Ldr Andy
Millikin as he prepares for his first
season as commanding officer of the
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight
Seventy years on from Churchill’s
‘Iron Curtain’ speech, we recall
some fascinating aspects of the
years of East-West confrontation
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HYTHE GUN CAMERA
An innovative approach to First
World War armament training — and
a story laced with personal tragedy
‘HIGH FLIGHT’ SPITFIRE
Identifying a 1950s film ‘extra’
AEROPLANE
MEETS…
WALTER EICHHORN
The extrovert German warbird pilot,
still displaying at nearly 80
90
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38
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REGULARS
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20
SKYWRITERS
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62
70
RAF WASHINGTONS
A tour on Bomber Command’s
pre-jet stopgap
Tu-104s IN LONDON
Newly-declassified material helps
tell the story of the first Soviet jet
visits to Britain
US ‘PERIPHERAL’
ELINT AND SIGINT
The innocuous-looking ‘transports’
that gathered vital intelligence around
the boundaries of the Iron Curtain
NUCLEAR F-105s
The ‘Thud’s’ nuclear strike role in
the European theatre
FROM ‘V-FORCE’ TO CND
The fascinating career of Air Cdre
Alastair Mackie CBE DFC and Bar
RAF RADIO PROVING FLIGHTS
A deliberately euphemistic name for
some very secret missions. We look
back to No 51 Squadron’s operational
work in 1967
BERLIN CORRIDOR DEFENDERS
Training to protect Allied rights of
access to the divided city
107
DATABASE:
FOKKER G.I
Joop Wenstedt tells
the story of the
Dutch manufacturer’s
last fighter
IN-DEPTH
PAGES
13
124
JUNKERS W33
BREMEN
Two Germans and an Irishman made
the world’s first east-west aerial
crossing of the Atlantic
COVER IMAGE:
A Vulcan B1, probably of No 230
Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Waddington,
and its crew.
© IWM (RAF-T 1206)
Q&A
Your questions asked and answered
104
AIRCREW
The Mosquito crews of Canadian
survey operator Spartan Aerial
Services worked in a tough operating
environment
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BOOKS
130
NEXT MONTH
78
See page 22 for a great subscription offer
Aeroplane
traces its lineage back
to the weekly
The Aeroplane,
founded by C. G. Grey in 1911
and published until 1968. It was
re-launched as a monthly in 1973
by Richard T. Riding, editor for 25
years until 1998.
ESTABLISHED 1911
AEROPLANE MARCH 2016
www.aeroplanemonthly.com
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he influence of the Cold War still
looms large. Whenever modern
Russia flexes its muscles in the
West’s face, the comparison is
obvious. There remain many physical reminders,
too. Airfields, and parts of the landscape, were
transformed. Reminders of the potential for
confrontation between East and West were
everywhere, not that anyone around during
the period’s most uncertain days could ever
have forgotten. At this distance, it can be
difficult — especially for those of us whose
Cold War recollections span only the dying
days of Europe’s Communist regimes — fully to
appreciate the tension generated by events such
as the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world
seemed but a few steps from an all-out nuclear
exchange.
It is something a bit different for
Aeroplane,
but in this issue we mark the 70th anniversary of
the speech in which Winston Churchill
famously referred to the threat of an ‘iron
curtain’ with a special section of Cold War
features. In each, we hope to provide some
T
E D I TO R
insights you may not previously have read
or considered. Take the Security Service’s
recently-released files on the 1956 visit to Britain
of KGB chief Ivan Serov aboard the first Tupolev
Tu-104, or declassified papers to be found in
Germany’s Bundesarchiv on arrangements for
defending transport aircraft in the strategically
vital Berlin air corridors. Slowly but surely,
more of the Cold War’s secrets continue to be
unearthed.
There are many still to come, of course, and
not least in our pages. Some — understandably
— bemoan the focus often placed in print on
the Second World War. The main reason for
that is obvious: World War Two history remains
extremely popular. There are many less-explored
avenues there too, of course. But we should
never give anything other than due regard to the
Cold War, and its role in shaping today’s world.
Hopefully, in reading this issue, you’ll feel we
have made more of a start in
Aeroplane
on doing
just that.
Ben Dunnell
From the
CONTRIBUTORS
THIS MONTH
Doug
GORDON
Bruce
H A L E S - D U T TO N
Jo o p
W E N ST E D T
D r Ke v i n
WRIGHT
One of the first F-105s Doug ever
saw was at a USAF open day in the
early 1960s. What an impressive
aircraft it was — like all Republic jets
of the era, big, heavy and built to
last. Several years previously Doug
had spent a great deal of his
boyhood watching the comings and
goings at Bentwaters and
Woodbridge where the ‘Thud’s’
predecessor, the F-84 Thunderstreak,
had been based. So was engendered
a passion for aircraft and Cold War
jets in particular.
“There’s much about the story of the first
Tu-104 and its flight to London in 1956
that reminds me of an Ian Fleming novel”,
says Bruce. “The Soviet leaders were
advised against travelling to the UK in
what was then the world’s only operational
jet airliner because of its marginal range,
but arriving by warship instead launched
probably the biggest mystery of all.
Frogman ‘Buster’ Crabb vanished and a
body, minus head and hands, found a year
later was believed to have been his. Had
Crabb been snooping around the ship?
The British government denied it.”
Our Database author this month, Joop
has been interested in flying for as long
as he can remember. He started gliding
at 16 and soon went solo. Since then he
has remained an avid glider pilot as well
as flying various, mainly lighter, historic
aircraft. After getting a bachelor’s degree
in engineering he became a scientific
journalist for many international
magazines, and worked as such for
Volvo and Philips. Since 2001 Joop has
been involved with remotely-piloted
aircraft systems, as well as maintaining
his interest in aviation history.
Kevin was a lecturer in
international security studies and
Cold War history for more than 15
years. In recent times a passion for
air-to-air photography has been
added to his lifelong interests in
aviation, taking him across Europe
and to the United States. Current
research and publications have
focused on Cold War aerial
intelligence-gathering, including
books and articles on the Berlin air
corridors and global US Air Force
collection programmes.
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www.aeroplanemonthly.com
AEROPLANE MARCH 2016
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AEROPLANE MARCH 2016
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