Thank You. Another Brilliant informative video. They have a Sea Vixen at NAS Nowra the Austrakian Navy's air museun From memory tgere maybe another at the air museum at Parafield airport North of Adelaide South Australia. Cheers Ian
The 1952 crash wasn't during a supersonic manoeuvre. Derry did start with going supersonic in a shallow dive but that was at high altitude. He then did a low pass in front of the crown and circled round into a climbing turn. He has doing about 450kts when the aircraft broke up. The second prototype had already been built at the time of the accident and in fact was the designated display aircraft, having flown several times at Farnborough earlier in the week. They were flying 236 only because 240 had that morning gone U/S. However 240 was then withdrawn from flight pending the finding of the investigation and then modified. This was completed in 1954. The radar was typical of the time with no look-down/MTI features, although it was pretty good at picking out ship targets as the clutter over the sea is much less generally than over land. But it was primarily designed to spot those big Soviet bombers and eventually illuminate them for a semi-active RF missile, or at least to slave a Red Top IR seeker in the right direction. The bit of aileron forward of the hinge is a mass and aerodynamic balance. The outer pylon stations weren't used for bombs. If you think about it, the aircraft was armed up in the hanger if possible with the wings folded and that would put an awful lot of strain on the pylons as well as being an armourer's nightmare! If bombs were carried they would be a pair of 1000 pounders on the inner stations or 4 x 500 lb bombs on the inner and central wing stations. The outer stations were reserved for the drop tanks or refuelling pods. Earlier IR AAMs didn't see the hot exhaust, otherwise they could have locked on from any aspect. What they need to see was the turbine and the inside of the tailpipe. The 2" rocket packs were carried on the wing pylons, not in the fuselage. You will see them in your own picture at 20:44. I'd personally have liked a bit of a mention of the aircraft's fairly high loss rate in service. This wasn't because the Sea Vixen was inherently more dangerous to operate from a carrier than many other similar aircraft but rather that it was often asked to train for missions where the avionics hadn't really caught up with the requirement. For example, attacking a (simulated) Soviet Surface Action Group with iron bombs with a level loft/toss delivery from low level, at night, over the sea in bad weather was always going to end in tears on occasion.
Really interesting aircraft, always love the twin boom designs. I always found it weird that during the late 50s to early 70s the Royal Air-force and -Navy had two seemingly very similar designs in service. The Sea Vixen and the Gloster Javelin, both two-seater, transsonic and nearly identical in size, just a coincidence or some inter service rivalry?
A symptom of the unrealistic British government policy of supporting as many manufacturers as possible. The Javelin was a deeply unsatisfactory aircraft for most of it's career and took about nine marks to reach a satisfactory stage of development, by which time it's successor, the Lightning, was entering service. The Sea Vixen was less troublesome in development but only two marks were produced, possibly a sign that the navy was allocated less money to upgrade it's aircraft than the RAF?
Neither. de Havilland's Sea Vixen (originally DH 110) and Gloster's Javelin were both designed and built to an RAF specification to have an all-weather fighter-interceptor. The DH 110 had a troubled testing period where one of the prototype aircraft crashed at the Farnborough airshow. Long story short, RAF went with the Javelin and the DH 110 was held in limbo until the Navy needed a replacement for the Sea Venom. The remaining DH 110 prototypes were navalised (and I think new ones were built?) and after some redesigning, out came the Sea Vixen FAW Mk 1 and the rest is history.
And if you think that is complicated, I can name three (there were probably more) British jet engine manufacturers that were all competing for the same market: Rolls-Royce, Bristol and Armstrong-Siddley.
My father was an independent engineering contractor that supplied parts to most of the aviation industry at the time, one of the main ones being DeHavilland. When I was a small boy I was allowed to visit with him to the works in N Wales and was able to sit in the cockpit of a vampire, a sea vixen and the comet 4b, it was and extraordinary adventure particularly with our connection with the RNAS. This video has brought so many wonderful memories back including meeting some of the great pioneers of aviation design; thank you. Regards JohnH
Thank you, I've always loved the look of the Sea Vixen and the odd crew accommodation always fascinated as well. I feel very lucky to have a look inside by proxy.
Great look at the observers station. These early jet cockpits look like they were tar mopped rather than painted. Outstanding access and always love naval aviation subject matter. Keep up the quality work.
All those switches remind me of the movie "Apollo 13", where extensive testing has to be done to tell the crew of the crippled craft the exact sequence they need to do to power off/power on their craft (I forget which - haven't watched the movie in over 20 years). But perhaps this is a common feature of these old, all-analog systems where there isn't an advanced UI or even a computer to cut down on the amount of stuff that the human user has to deal with.
Such a pleasure to hear English, my mother tongue, spoken so beautifully and grammatically correctly. Love your informative videos, the Vixen is an aircraft from my childhood. I still love those classic British Jets. Thanks! 🙂
My relation George Holt Thomas who owned Airco as a WW1 manufacturer employed DeHaviland as a designer. At the end of the war Airco was sold to BSA and John DeHaviland was funded by Holt Thomas to form the DeHaviland aircraft company. The rest is history. Great video Chris
Actually, always amazed you have so much information seemingly at your fingertips. Great research, but also you’re quite sharp. I think you could jump in and fly it. Sorry for three posts. Cannot edit on my iPad.
The last time I saw one of these was in 1973- flying out of HMS Daedalus- they did have a Sea Venom and the Sea Vixen seems to have replaced it for whatever reason- the Sea Venom had red in its paint scheme- so I assume it was a trainer. My father was at Farnborough watching when John Derry died showing the DH 110 and was very lucky not to have been a casualty.
When I was based at Yeovilton I’m pretty sure that aircraft was stuck outside the museum with a Phantom F4 for a long time. I remember climbing on it and looking in the Observers hell hole
Honestly, after seeing your feature on F-5 cockpit, it feels like going from a well-tended garden into a jungle. Regardless, a unique aircraft with oh-so-British assymetrical cokpit.
Mistake, second missile was Red Top. That missile was only forward aspect if the Target was doing Mach 1.5. The aircraft could also carry the Bullpup AGM.
Love your description of the observer's seat as "a bit forlorn". I think that is a very accurate impression from what I know about the crew who sat there!
Great video. Always had a soft spot for this aircraft. You mentioned the two missile variants as Firestreak and then Firestreak again (but you did mention the red top shortly after) so just for anyone that was unaware of the missile types he meant to say that the Red top replaced the Firestreak
It was great that the technicians were able to demonstrate the wing folding mechanism as well as to see the flaps operating. Nice video and very informative. When I was an RAF engineering apprentice we used a Sea Vixen for some elements of our training and I'm pretty sure it was the first time we were introduced to Ram Air Turbines for emergency electrical power. Loved the design of the Vixen, very futuristic shape.
The Sea Vixen reminds me of the Vought F7U Cutlass and the Scimitar reminds me of the McDonnell F3H Demon. Nothing scientific, just the visual impression, and being more or less contemporaries on opposite sides of the “pond”. Nice video.
Nice to see you got into RNAS Yeovilton. I was in that very hanger back in 2015 doing work experience with the Babcock Engineer’s on 727 NAS’ tutor aircraft. The Sea Vixen at the time was undergoing quite a bit of work. Did you manage to see the pair of Harriers and Swordfish if they were still in there?
great on the history tour and inside of the only airworthy sea vixen it looks good as new since the 2017 landing incident hope it stay flying for the next 50 years till the last flight retirement.
@@bdh985 oh dear so that the end of the era for both the sea vixen and two seater sea fury only left is the seafire swordfish and singer seat sea fury I’m wonder they going to buy a seafire mk.iii that is up for sale.
RE the improvised tube to the oxygen cutoff switch: As late as the 1980s, UK Automobile Association road atlases suggested carrying a roll of soft iron wire a roll of PVC insulating tape, and a tube of superglue in your repair kit. They noted that "This is an aspect of car repair that Baden-Powell would have loved, for the techniques and materials used are little removed from the native wit and cunning methods of the great Scout leader."
Just to help. Your English is fluent and very good. The English term for fluid control systems is Hydraulic. plural Hydraulics. "There are three Hydraulic systems, but this aircraft always had problems with its hydraulics ", for example. Brilliant show. Please keep them coming. I learn so much. Thanks
Nice video! One of my favourite aircraft. Currently building a model of one and remember seeing these when HMS Hermes visited Cyprus in about 1970 (?). The Sea Vixens visited RAF Akrotiri where my dad was based and they made a lasting impression on this then schoolboy!
Thanks so much for this! The Sea Vixen is one of my favourite aircraft, but there's so little about it here on TH-cam. There's a few videos under 10 minutes, but nothing substantial. I look often to see if any new videos have been uploaded and was thrilled to see this.
As always a great video the access that they give you to the aircraft is phenomenal technically run the hydraulic systems and such for you to demonstrate is amazing the the lack of an internal gun reminds me of an early F4 Phantom in like the fat Americans found early missiles just weren't that reliable
Navy F-4 Phantoms never carried guns for A2A missions yet mainted better performance then USAF Phantoms It was a combination of bad tactics, early missiles, and poor maintenance
- Very impressive...that you were able to show us the folding-up wings *in motion* and the flaps too ! Really great ! Also, the Sea Vixen is such a great looking plane, (although not having a spectacular service history, as far as I know). Anyhoo, best regards from Iceland, -K.
The huge problem with these 'restored to flying condition' Cold War fighters is the fact that they need to have modern nav equipment installed which displaces all the weapon controls, so we never get to see what 50s and 60s fighter pilots had to contend with.
I can almost smell the aircraft grease, hydraulic fluid, and other 'hanger smell's. After all these years, one would think the services would pick an airframe to be the future museum bird. Thanks to the maintainers for demonstrating wing fold's several times. Very cool. As the other comments said, yes, there are quite a bit of switches and knobs. Nice detail Chris.
Britain in the 50's: Let's make a trio of V-bombers. Also Britain in the 50's: Let's make a trio of V-fighters. Brilliant idea ol' chap! Glad we have such a clever plan!
Great video for all us Av geeks. Always was intrigued by this AC, but we need to be honest - one of the worst carrier borne planes ever in Fleet Air Arm service, with something like a 40% loss rate.
You don't buy British for excellent ergonomics :D Much as I love a Spitfire, the layout of essential controls is really lacking. Whoever decided to put the flap lever in the upper left corner of the instrument panel instead of near the throttle quadrant clearly hadn't had enough tea that day.
At 6:00 integral rocket pods are talked about, but I can't find any reference to them anywhere else aside from a forum post saying they were on the FAW1 only? Has anybody got any more information on these please?
Greetings, Chris. In future videos, could you please spend a few seconds talking about the wing folding mechanism and its locking system, in aircraft which do have it? If possible, a video solely dedicated to this topic would, of course, be even better! Many thanks for your great work!
Working hangar? Chris is in his happy place. It's wonderful to get to do what you love like this, but he's also actually good at it, and also the primary research.
Hi, my father was an observer in the Sea Vixen from 1963 to 1968. I think it was known as the widow maker,particularly for the observers. The ejection sequence for the observer was quite slow and not always reliable. Interesting videos, thank you. Mark
„Initially there was the Firestreak missile….“ …. „Then there was the Firestreak missile which greatly improved capabilities“. Glaub da hast Dich einmal versprochen. 😉 cheers, trotzdem wie immer top. See you in the skies!
Holy Jeebus that effing cockpit. If you sneeze the plane will fall out of the sky because your snot hits half a dozen switches no matter which way you turn your face.
Chris & Drach! What a pair... of historians, that is. I have been fascinated by both military aviation history and military naval history ever since I was child. Growing up in eastern N.C., I had B-52s and later F-15s flying overhead from Seymour Johnson A.F.B., going to our place at the beach we passed by Cherry Point M.C.A.S. and watched the A/V-8Bs taking off (out on our boat we would watch them flying over the ocean; heading inland to the gunnery range), sometimes we would drive from there down to Wilmington, N.C., which took us through Camp Lejeune M.C.B. and past New River N.A.S. with various U.S. naval assets flying overhead, then finally arriving in Wilmington to go aboard the U.S.S. North Carolina battleship. Of course since we spent a lot of time at the beach we often visited the U.S. Coast Guard Stations and Cutters that were docked and their air assets were usually seen as well.
I think the lower part of my arm is probably my best cameo so far. 😅
The NATO Maverick and Goose... 🤣
@@WALTERBROADDUS Now we know why Drach has a rubber duck!
Good to see you, Drach! Or parts of you!
Oscar-worthy performance from your arm I say
I was going to say, I'm sure I heard a Drach asking if "you were there yet"
So thrilled you started doing "Inside The Cockpit" again. Missed seeing all of these awesome warbirds. Thanks Biz.
Thank You.
Another Brilliant informative video.
They have a Sea Vixen at NAS Nowra the Austrakian Navy's air museun
From memory tgere maybe another at the air museum at Parafield airport North of Adelaide South Australia.
Cheers Ian
The 1952 crash wasn't during a supersonic manoeuvre. Derry did start with going supersonic in a shallow dive but that was at high altitude. He then did a low pass in front of the crown and circled round into a climbing turn. He has doing about 450kts when the aircraft broke up. The second prototype had already been built at the time of the accident and in fact was the designated display aircraft, having flown several times at Farnborough earlier in the week. They were flying 236 only because 240 had that morning gone U/S. However 240 was then withdrawn from flight pending the finding of the investigation and then modified. This was completed in 1954.
The radar was typical of the time with no look-down/MTI features, although it was pretty good at picking out ship targets as the clutter over the sea is much less generally than over land. But it was primarily designed to spot those big Soviet bombers and eventually illuminate them for a semi-active RF missile, or at least to slave a Red Top IR seeker in the right direction.
The bit of aileron forward of the hinge is a mass and aerodynamic balance.
The outer pylon stations weren't used for bombs. If you think about it, the aircraft was armed up in the hanger if possible with the wings folded and that would put an awful lot of strain on the pylons as well as being an armourer's nightmare! If bombs were carried they would be a pair of 1000 pounders on the inner stations or 4 x 500 lb bombs on the inner and central wing stations. The outer stations were reserved for the drop tanks or refuelling pods.
Earlier IR AAMs didn't see the hot exhaust, otherwise they could have locked on from any aspect. What they need to see was the turbine and the inside of the tailpipe.
The 2" rocket packs were carried on the wing pylons, not in the fuselage. You will see them in your own picture at 20:44.
I'd personally have liked a bit of a mention of the aircraft's fairly high loss rate in service. This wasn't because the Sea Vixen was inherently more dangerous to operate from a carrier than many other similar aircraft but rather that it was often asked to train for missions where the avionics hadn't really caught up with the requirement. For example, attacking a (simulated) Soviet Surface Action Group with iron bombs with a level loft/toss delivery from low level, at night, over the sea in bad weather was always going to end in tears on occasion.
He did mention that one third of this design was lost, which made me wonder why. You explained that. Thanks.
The aircraft was designed to have the rocket packs in the fuselage and they were initially fitted, but IIRC their use was discontinued as some point.
Really interesting aircraft, always love the twin boom designs.
I always found it weird that during the late 50s to early 70s the Royal Air-force and -Navy had two seemingly very similar designs in service.
The Sea Vixen and the Gloster Javelin, both two-seater, transsonic and nearly identical in size, just a coincidence or some inter service rivalry?
There's always that :P More prosaic is that the Sea Vixen is a natural follow-on for the already in FAA service DH Sea Venom.
A symptom of the unrealistic British government policy of supporting as many manufacturers as possible. The Javelin was a deeply unsatisfactory aircraft for most of it's career and took about nine marks to reach a satisfactory stage of development, by which time it's successor, the Lightning, was entering service. The Sea Vixen was less troublesome in development but only two marks were produced, possibly a sign that the navy was allocated less money to upgrade it's aircraft than the RAF?
Neither.
de Havilland's Sea Vixen (originally DH 110) and Gloster's Javelin were both designed and built to an RAF specification to have an all-weather fighter-interceptor. The DH 110 had a troubled testing period where one of the prototype aircraft crashed at the Farnborough airshow. Long story short, RAF went with the Javelin and the DH 110 was held in limbo until the Navy needed a replacement for the Sea Venom. The remaining DH 110 prototypes were navalised (and I think new ones were built?) and after some redesigning, out came the Sea Vixen FAW Mk 1 and the rest is history.
And if you think that is complicated, I can name three (there were probably more) British jet engine manufacturers that were all competing for the same market: Rolls-Royce, Bristol and Armstrong-Siddley.
@@altair1983 Not to mention DeHavilland themselves as well!
My father was an independent engineering contractor that supplied parts to most of the aviation industry at the time, one of the main ones being DeHavilland. When I was a small boy I was allowed to visit with him to the works in N Wales and was able to sit in the cockpit of a vampire, a sea vixen and the comet 4b, it was and extraordinary adventure particularly with our connection with the RNAS. This video has brought so many wonderful memories back including meeting some of the great pioneers of aviation design; thank you. Regards JohnH
Thank you, I've always loved the look of the Sea Vixen and the odd crew accommodation always fascinated as well. I feel very lucky to have a look inside by proxy.
Hello there :)
Great look at the observers station. These early jet cockpits look like they were tar mopped rather than painted. Outstanding access and always love naval aviation subject matter. Keep up the quality work.
TH-cam's English captions call this aircraft the Sea Vaccine. 🤣
Lifting the wing WITH drop tanks... Impressive!
Fantastic to see that someone keeps this exotic engine in such a good shape!
All those switches remind me of the movie "Apollo 13", where extensive testing has to be done to tell the crew of the crippled craft the exact sequence they need to do to power off/power on their craft (I forget which - haven't watched the movie in over 20 years). But perhaps this is a common feature of these old, all-analog systems where there isn't an advanced UI or even a computer to cut down on the amount of stuff that the human user has to deal with.
This guy commented 2 months before the video went out...Tell us more of the future
I was thinking that bit in the movie Airplane! where the camera panning over the instruments just keeps going, and going, and going, and going, ....
@@the_bigdaddy420 -- Patreon supporters get to see the videos early. Sometimes very early.
@@WhiskyCanuck :D
I'd forgotten that pan, thanks very much for reminding me!
We got a main bus b undervolt 😀
This is my favorite TH-cam series
Your audio is good, even with the background noise. Bravo, and very interesting episode!
19:26 i know it was just a slip of the tounge, but when you said firestreak again, it was actually the red top missile that replaced it
Such a pleasure to hear English, my mother tongue, spoken so beautifully and grammatically correctly.
Love your informative videos, the Vixen is an aircraft from my childhood. I still love those classic British Jets.
Thanks! 🙂
Superb! Really enjoyed it.
My relation George Holt Thomas who owned Airco as a WW1 manufacturer employed DeHaviland as a designer. At the end of the war Airco was sold to BSA and John DeHaviland was funded by Holt Thomas to form the DeHaviland aircraft company. The rest is history. Great video Chris
I love twin boom planes so much, and the Sea Vixen is one of my favs!
Actually, always amazed you have so much information seemingly at your fingertips. Great research, but also you’re quite sharp. I think you could jump in and fly it. Sorry for three posts. Cannot edit on my iPad.
Thank you :)
I've seen this very aircraft fly at Couldrose airday, an amazing thing and much more agile than expected. So glad she will take to the air again.
The last time I saw one of these was in 1973- flying out of HMS Daedalus- they did have a Sea Venom and the Sea Vixen seems to have replaced it for whatever reason- the Sea Venom had red in its paint scheme- so I assume it was a trainer. My father was at Farnborough watching when John Derry died showing the DH 110 and was very lucky not to have been a casualty.
When I was based at Yeovilton I’m pretty sure that aircraft was stuck outside the museum with a Phantom F4 for a long time. I remember climbing on it and looking in the Observers hell hole
And now War Thunder is gonna make *big stonks* with the Premium Sea Vixen in the British Tree.
Nice job, Cris. Cheers, from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Honestly, after seeing your feature on F-5 cockpit, it feels like going from a well-tended garden into a jungle. Regardless, a unique aircraft with oh-so-British assymetrical cokpit.
Mistake, second missile was Red Top. That missile was only forward aspect if the Target was doing Mach 1.5. The aircraft could also carry the Bullpup AGM.
A dreadful shame that this aircraft may never fly again. What a busy cockpit. Great video as always.
Excellent video thanks very interesting 👍
Love your description of the observer's seat as "a bit forlorn". I think that is a very accurate impression from what I know about the crew who sat there!
Great video on this aircraft very enjoyable thank you.
NGL, if I had access to any plane with powered folding wings, I'd be flipping that switch every couple of hours. Wing go up! Wing go down!
Drach in the back
I've always loved how the Sea Vixen looks, happy to be learning more about it!
Great video. Always had a soft spot for this aircraft. You mentioned the two missile variants as Firestreak and then Firestreak again (but you did mention the red top shortly after) so just for anyone that was unaware of the missile types he meant to say that the Red top replaced the Firestreak
This thing looks like it could have been straightly pulled out of 1965's series Thunderbirds.
A very well-versed and informative presenter, it's obvious to me he knows his way around an aircraft.
It was great that the technicians were able to demonstrate the wing folding mechanism as well as to see the flaps operating. Nice video and very informative. When I was an RAF engineering apprentice we used a Sea Vixen for some elements of our training and I'm pretty sure it was the first time we were introduced to Ram Air Turbines for emergency electrical power. Loved the design of the Vixen, very futuristic shape.
Used them for seat fit' training too, back in the seventies. Actually quite similar in mark of seat and positioning on the aircraft to a PR9 Canberra.
The Sea Vixen reminds me of the Vought F7U Cutlass and the Scimitar reminds me of the McDonnell F3H Demon. Nothing scientific, just the visual impression, and being more or less contemporaries on opposite sides of the “pond”. Nice video.
The shape of the nose and the canopy (F3H didn't have it asymmetrical) completely see where you're coming from.
Beautiful attention to detail. I love your channel man!👍😊
Another well done video from our tamed german!
Nice to see you got into RNAS Yeovilton. I was in that very hanger back in 2015 doing work experience with the Babcock Engineer’s on 727 NAS’ tutor aircraft. The Sea Vixen at the time was undergoing quite a bit of work. Did you manage to see the pair of Harriers and Swordfish if they were still in there?
great on the history tour and inside of the only airworthy sea vixen it looks good as new since the 2017 landing incident hope it stay flying for the next 50 years till the last flight retirement.
Unfortunately the foundation that owns the aircraft has announced that they will no longer be trying to bring this aircraft back to flight status.
@@bdh985 oh dear so that the end of the era for both the sea vixen and two seater sea fury only left is the seafire swordfish and singer seat sea fury I’m wonder they going to buy a seafire mk.iii that is up for sale.
RE the improvised tube to the oxygen cutoff switch: As late as the 1980s, UK Automobile Association road atlases suggested carrying a roll of soft iron wire a roll of PVC insulating tape, and a tube of superglue in your repair kit. They noted that "This is an aspect of car repair that Baden-Powell would have loved, for the techniques and materials used are little removed from the native wit and cunning methods of the great Scout leader."
Love the Drach cameo :D
So did I 😀
The Sea Vixen is indeed a Vixen.
Sleek, sexy... but also deadly!
👍🏾🇺🇸
My brother served on HMS Eagle and told me that the aircraft was 'deadly' on several occasions.
18:35 Would you mean Red Top?
Nicely Done!
24:26 This gives me enormous confidence in flying this plane I am proud and honoured to be part of this squadron please tell my wife I loved her.
Just to help. Your English is fluent and very good. The English term for fluid control systems is Hydraulic. plural Hydraulics. "There are three Hydraulic systems, but this aircraft always had problems with its hydraulics ", for example. Brilliant show. Please keep them coming. I learn so much. Thanks
My favourite aircraft ever 😍😍😍😍
Nice video! One of my favourite aircraft. Currently building a model of one and remember seeing these when HMS Hermes visited Cyprus in about 1970 (?). The Sea Vixens visited RAF Akrotiri where my dad was based and they made a lasting impression on this then schoolboy!
Have you looked at the F4U on the ground?
I knew there was a Sea Vixen video coming. :D
That co-pilot hole looks nice and cozy! What i would give for a ride in this seat xD
When you said it had Garmin GPS, I thought I misheard you - until you showed an actual Garmin GPS 😂
So is the Vixen still under repair to flying status? I was under the impression that costs had meant it was now grounded on a permanent basis?
I just started to watch this. I only seen Sea Vixen cocpit in Warthunder. This will be a nice horror episode.
British engineering at its finest...
I'm guessing the radar operator was Drach in this case :D
21:20 I think we found some new meme material of you Chris
Thanks so much for this! The Sea Vixen is one of my favourite aircraft, but there's so little about it here on TH-cam. There's a few videos under 10 minutes, but nothing substantial. I look often to see if any new videos have been uploaded and was thrilled to see this.
Thanks for the wing folding! Full function museum!
As always a great video the access that they give you to the aircraft is phenomenal technically run the hydraulic systems and such for you to demonstrate is amazing the the lack of an internal gun reminds me of an early F4 Phantom in like the fat Americans found early missiles just weren't that reliable
Navy F-4 Phantoms never carried guns for A2A missions yet mainted better performance then USAF Phantoms
It was a combination of bad tactics, early missiles, and poor maintenance
Thanks for covering the Sea Vixen, one of my favourite planes of all time. Such a beuaty.
Early jet fighter, I am loving it!
- Very impressive...that you were able to show us the folding-up wings *in motion* and the flaps too !
Really great !
Also, the Sea Vixen is such a great looking plane, (although not having a spectacular service history, as far as I know).
Anyhoo, best regards from Iceland, -K.
"Sea vixen" Bravo, sir! That must have been very difficult for a German to say with a straight face.
11:56 Did I spot a sneaky Harrier in the background? Did you have a chance to get a look at it?
Yes. There are two in that hanger from memory when I was there in 2015
The huge problem with these 'restored to flying condition' Cold War fighters is the fact that they need to have modern nav equipment installed which displaces all the weapon controls, so we never get to see what 50s and 60s fighter pilots had to contend with.
Beautifully preserved aircraft. Excellent presentation.
I can almost smell the aircraft grease, hydraulic fluid, and other 'hanger smell's. After all these years, one would think the services would pick an airframe to be the future museum bird. Thanks to the maintainers for demonstrating wing fold's several times. Very cool. As the other comments said, yes, there are quite a bit of switches and knobs. Nice detail Chris.
There is one in the fleet air arm museum.
*interesting vid, liked & Subcribed!!!*
The sound of the hangar is no problem at all, you are miced up well enough that it just gives some 'atmosphere'.
Very interesting video and aircraft - great stuff
Britain in the 50's: Let's make a trio of V-bombers.
Also Britain in the 50's: Let's make a trio of V-fighters.
Brilliant idea ol' chap! Glad we have such a clever plan!
Ah.. That observer sounds familiar. Hmm
2017, wheels up landing. Oh no.
Glad you're back in the cockpit 🤠🤠
(Thx for sweatin' it out so us viewers could see this awesome bird)
Great video for all us Av geeks. Always was intrigued by this AC, but we need to be honest - one of the worst carrier borne planes ever in Fleet Air Arm service, with something like a 40% loss rate.
Fantastic presentation - well done you all 10/10.
Very enjoyable and informative. (ex RAF techie 👍)
Many thanks!
One of the stranger looking early jets.
I was just recently playing this in War Thunder and I was curious about this plane and its history, Thanks Chris!
That cockpit makes me feel anxious. What a nightmare of design!!
You don't buy British for excellent ergonomics :D
Much as I love a Spitfire, the layout of essential controls is really lacking. Whoever decided to put the flap lever in the upper left corner of the instrument panel instead of near the throttle quadrant clearly hadn't had enough tea that day.
Buccaneer cockpit was described as an ‘ergonomic slum’
I thought inverters took in DC and put out AC. Rectifers do what you said.
@James Thompson thanks
Correct, however I just had a look at when I mention this, and I appear to say that in my mind.
Your memorization of the systems and controls is amazing 👏
At 6:00 integral rocket pods are talked about, but I can't find any reference to them anywhere else aside from a forum post saying they were on the FAW1 only? Has anybody got any more information on these please?
do one on the mighty Scimitar, please
Two GNS430’s. Good to go. All else part of the flying museum mode.
Greetings, Chris. In future videos, could you please spend a few seconds talking about the wing folding mechanism and its locking system, in aircraft which do have it?
If possible, a video solely dedicated to this topic would, of course, be even better!
Many thanks for your great work!
Working hangar? Chris is in his happy place.
It's wonderful to get to do what you love like this, but he's also actually good at it, and also the primary research.
Hi, my father was an observer in the Sea Vixen from 1963 to 1968. I think it was known as the widow maker,particularly for the observers. The ejection sequence for the observer was quite slow and not always reliable. Interesting videos, thank you. Mark
Thanks for presenting this beautiful aircraft .
Such a gorgeous design.
Nice very nice. Now let's see a mig 21.
„Initially there was the Firestreak missile….“ …. „Then there was the Firestreak missile which greatly improved capabilities“. Glaub da hast Dich einmal versprochen. 😉 cheers, trotzdem wie immer top. See you in the skies!
Think you mean Red Top.
@@sandemike yes but he said Firestreak 2 times. 😉
@@Patrick-pm1sn Exactly
What a beautiful aircraft and excellent presentation. Thanks for your work!
Holy Jeebus that effing cockpit. If you sneeze the plane will fall out of the sky because your snot hits half a dozen switches no matter which way you turn your face.
6:00 The Microcell rockets and launchers were removed on the F.A.W. 2 and replaced with oxygen bottles
one of my favorite cold-war aircraft. Beautiful, but rapidly rendered obsolescent by later generations of aircraft. Thank you for a fascinating talk.
Chris & Drach! What a pair... of historians, that is. I have been fascinated by both military aviation history and military naval history ever since I was child. Growing up in eastern N.C., I had B-52s and later F-15s flying overhead from Seymour Johnson A.F.B., going to our place at the beach we passed by Cherry Point M.C.A.S. and watched the A/V-8Bs taking off (out on our boat we would watch them flying over the ocean; heading inland to the gunnery range), sometimes we would drive from there down to Wilmington, N.C., which took us through Camp Lejeune M.C.B. and past New River N.A.S. with various U.S. naval assets flying overhead, then finally arriving in Wilmington to go aboard the U.S.S. North Carolina battleship. Of course since we spent a lot of time at the beach we often visited the U.S. Coast Guard Stations and Cutters that were docked and their air assets were usually seen as well.