I went to Farnborough for the first time in 1950, with my friend Pete Turner both on my 125cc BSA Bantam D1.We left Halifax W Yorks at midnight and were waiting for the gates to open at Farnborough at 8am. The great British aircraft was " sold down the river ' by witless politicians from both parties.
Gone forever....Britain led the world in aircraft design , but there were too many Companies , weak governments , and obstructive trade unions ....and poor management . By the time this was all recognised , it was too late. We handed over to the U SA and Russia ,our knowledge of the jet engine....and much else. Not all of our new planes were perfect.....but there were some worldbeaters ...Comet , Viscount , Canberra ( even the Yanks bought those)...it was a golden age....I remember it well.
Those were heady days, full of optimism and courage (with just a touch of ignorance and naivety as well). It's amazing to see what kind of beautiful machines they could make when money was no object and national prestige was at stake. Thanks for posting, it was great to see.
this was the time of MARSCHALL PLAN.. Italy, Germany, France Britain recieved billios of American help.. all the other nations used it to rebuild their industry.. only Britain was stupid/arrogant enough to use it to strenghten the Army-Air force and Navy in the hope to remain a world force and retain the Empire.. all that is gone.. also all of the industry, ecause it was left with outdated machinery, when all the others used the money to buy brand new stuff from America...
I Remember going to Farnborough with my mum in the Early Sixties, Her Brother worked for Rolls Royce, who made the engines for the First Hovercraft. And mum and me watched the trials.
I was taken to that show by my dad . We went there for many years hearing the sound barrier broken by and the John Derry crash. It was horrendous. I then went on to take my children to the air show at Finningly near Doncaster
I was taken to that show aged 6 by my uncle who was in the RAF - I remember the John Derry crash vividly. I also recall that planes crashed regularly at air shows at RAF Waterbeach near Cambridge: two Meteors colliding during a low flypast and on another occasion a Meteor disintegrating during a high speed flypast. My recollection also of planes flying very low over the crowd was scary!
I feel that many of the statements and comments made here are by the younger ones amongst us who do not realise that these years were the dawn of modern aviation and little was known of the aerodynamics involved. Experimentation always has an element of failure but it is the successes which lead to progress. I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor of civil and gas turbine powered aviation when I started as a flight engineer on Comet C4s, a few years after the Comet 1 crashes. It was quite exciting !!!
You Sir, saw the glory days of British aviation. I was born a year to the day after the first flight of TSR2. And my maternal grandfather worked on that astounding aircraft. During my time as an aircraft spanner an I only got to work on two British aiircraft (not counting ex military ones in museums and a ground running Jet Provost) a Beagle Pup and a Tiger moth. Long live British aviation.
Really sad for the Comet. We beat the Yanks to jet airliners, and until the crashes started it was the best, and boy, did it have sleek lines compared with the 707!
Unfortunately the millennials seem to think that all of the 20th Century is like us viewing Victorian Britain. It feels odd because hey I'm modern but with today's high tech, in my hand, this is happening. Only 2 TV channels, that's so funny..
@@seltaeb9691 as a 55 year old working with many millennials one thing I’ve found. That with so much access to the internet and information I’ve never met a generation that lacks so much general knowledge and common sense. It’s as if they ’ studied a field at uni and that’s literally all they know - nothing outside it. Because frankly their analytical skills and ability question often really sucks. Whereas those over 45 including older than me seem to question everything and that makes them ‘look’ for information that expands their knowledge of the world in general.
As a young lad and son of an RAF Officer, I went to some of these early Farnboroughs. Can't precisely date my first visit, but I do remember arriving to see the Vickers-Supermarine 508 streaking off the runway into a steep climb before the show started. Exciting wasn't the word for it! Lots of new planes every year. Rapid progress and no end in sight. 550 mph was commonplace then, but here we are 65 years later travelling at that same speed in airliners - that damned speed of sound phenomena limited economical travel!
I don't think it was "outmoded technology" necessarily. Aviation was starting in a new era of long distance flying, high altitude and high speed aerodynamics, pressurisation etc. and there is always a danger of some of it going wrong. The Brabazon may have had a life, as short as it may have been, if the Olympus engines had been developed to service. The life would have been short, I think, because it was under development at the same time as the long distance Comet 1 and the B707. It would also have been too large for short/medium haul. I saw it fly, and heard it indeed, when I was on an RAF course at Melksham in 1950. Awe inspiring it was..........
One of the biggest problems confronted by the British aircraft industry in the 40s and 50s was that they were ordered to design aircraft specifically for the needs of BOAC and BEA. A command economy of sorts which meant that many designs were not very attractive to overseas operators. The Trident is a classic example. A really advanced design but, due to BEA's insistence, the aircraft was made too small because of BEA's short sighted view of how air traffic was going to develop. It meant that the aircraft, with limited seating capacity to suit BEA's routes, was not really cost affective. Also the VC10, a fabulous aircraft, was seriously delayed because of dithering by BOAC who kept insisting on design changes so that the type was able to operate from hot and high airports, with the addition of various lift devices etc, to serve the Empire, forgetting that the Empire was in decline and was being drawn back. Because of this the type entered service much later that it could have and the B707 by then had captured the market. When designers were given more of a freehand to design cost affective and efficient types they came up with some great designs, principally the Vickers Viscount and the BAC 1-11, which sold well to overseas operators.
@@ivorbiggun710 re vc10, BOAC went and bought 707s in the end anyway as runways were extended, something that even a blind man could have forseen. the trident with its underpowered engines aka the ground gipper.. boeing knew a good idea when they saw one and the 727 sold in the 1000s. as luck would have it it was that lack of interest from BOAC that helped the viscount to success as they were no longer tied to BOAC's demands.
One of the Avro 707s ( 8:14ish) ended up spending many years in a Williamstown, Victoria, Australia , backgarden before finding her way to a museum a few years ago.
Marathon has 'Miles' written all over it. If military jets hadn't let out the surprise, the Comet would have been Totally mind-blowing; what a beauty.💔
Great footage of the 1949 British airshow showing how the british air craft in action and showing how the people of GB dressed and socialize with each other
Considering that this video featured footage from the 1949 Farnborough (not 'British') airshow, why have you mentioned anything about the 1947 airshow?
@@steviem8466 , the TSR2 wasn’t scheduled to enter service until the late ‘60s, we had the Lightning in service in 1961 which was a Mach 2 interceptor, there were more than a few prospective supersonic aircraft cancelled by the infamous 1957 Defense White Paper which was done at the hands of a Conservative Government, a couple of these aircraft already existed in prototype form or were almost completed. To be honest the biggest enemy the British aircraft industry has always faced has been the British Government itself.
I was an ever present spectator at Farnborough (I had an Aunt who was part of the SBAC organisation) until the 1970's. Tub thumping and patriotism aside, the Brabazon an enormous failure; the Comet - notice the square windows? - they caused the catastrophic crash that set jet powered airliners back almost a decade; flying boats never had a commercial market . There were roughly 32 aircraft companies vying for government money at that time. Yes design and innovation were strong elements, but business acumen was sadly lacking and no government could feed 32 squawking chicks. For every success we had: the Canberra, Lightening, Hunter, Folland Gnat, we had Javelins, Scimitars, Sea Vixens and the Fairy Rotodyne. As many other British industries discovered, hard lessons followed.
@@tonynorris9139, as far as the Comet was concerned Britain had never built a large pressurised passenger aircraft before and DeHavilland assumed that what had worked before would work again, the flying boat issue was a case of trying to stick to a formula that had worked before the war they forgot to take into account the fact that land based airfields had sprung up all over the place during the war. If you look at the way the British aircraft industry went after the war it seems that the industries biggest enemy was the British Government itself, lack of definite direction, lack of faith in the industry itself, the constant pressure to downsize the number of companies producing both aircraft and engines which eventually led to the country going from roughly 20 aircraft manufacturers to a single company that basically has a monopoly on supplying the British military.
Probably the best inventory of aircraft in any Airshow, Farnborough 1949 might represent the "cutoff" moment between the old and the new aviation industry, with turbines taking all over along upon piston engines. The Brabazon was however a majestic sight, as outdated it was it's so sad it didn't have any occasion of scheduled passenger flights...
2:05 Note the square windows on the DeHavilland Comet. The corners of the window openings created stresses and cracks in the fuselage and were responsible for airframe loss(es). Version 2 of the commet and rounded corners on the windows.
Really something to see! Yes those were the days, just after WWII, Europe was still rebidding, Jet engines were the new thing in aviation. But in less than 40 years most of this will be all gone. England's aircraft manufacturers started closing their doors in the 1960's, now there are only 5 major companies left. But the UK isn't the only one that has a lost major section of the aerospace companies. The American's have also lost a good deal of some of the biggest and well known aircraft manufactures. They either went under, got out of the aircraft building industry, some went into weapon systems, some went into space craft or rocketry and others merged with other companies. But what do you do with with more aircraft manufactures than there are markets to sell them to. They go the way of the Brabazon.
@@ivorbiggun710 Country practically bankrupt after World War 2 mainly. Lack of customers for many of their products - mainly (apart from the UK taxpayer).
@@robertmarsh3588 Maybe smart business sense. All your jets being bought might hold U.S.corporate logos, but more than half the parts, engines and electronics are produced in GB, or Europe as a whole. I'm not even sure if the airframes of your current front line aircraft are American made.
Perhaps the downfall of the British aircraft industry was its evident inability to market its products on a large scale. BOAC didn't help, being besotted with all things American.
Just 4 years after WW2...........that's progress, despite the few duds amongst the aircraft. The few aircraft were the Armstrong Whitworth Apollo; too small, ( to compete with the Viscount), and trouble with the Mamba turboprop......and, of course the Brabazon; l.i.u.
@@chopchop7938 The Gloster Meteor and the DeHavillands served long in many nations. And so did the Hawker Hunter, derived from one of these prototypes. Not Duds. The Viscount propjet liner served well too.
Viscount a dud? Canberra a dud? Martin did not fix the Canberra. It was redesigned to fit specific roles which the USAF wanted. You know that really though, I reckon. BTW, it was ordered by the USAF because the intended aircraft for the role, the Martin XB-51, was a dud.
@@lancerevell5979 And was bought by American airlines. It was an excellent aeroplane. The US also liked the Canberra so much, they built it under licence.
@@EricIrl Modern windows have rounded corners. The sharp corners of Comet were weakpoints and led to eventual failure at those points causing some crashes. Since then windows are round or at the very least have rounded corners.
@@CymBan They weren't completely squared off. They did have radiused corners. However, the main problem is that corner strengtheners that were in the original design had been left out to save weight. Another issue was that thinner gauge metal was used in the fuselage - again to save weight. Guess how many pressurised aircraft de Havilland had built before the Comet?
I used to love watching Farnborough on t.v. then, Leslie Mitchell was great,great voice. Our aircraft industry sold out, by the banking cabal, wouldn't pay decent wages for the skills then gave it to US and eu and blamed the union's, socially engineered downfall.
Gave it to the US ? Perhaps British aviation lacked Vision in commercial aviation and Markets more than anything else. Barbizon a shinning example. Massive resources into a plane with no future. The DH Comet was brilliant! Pushed aviation ahead. Hawker brilliant aircraft.Avro Vickers.... US manufacturers such a Boeing developed the B367-80 on their own dime. This aircraft was used as the Basis for the B707 series.. they had an eye on commercial and government sales. Douglas was the same. Prior to WW2 Douglas ,Lockheed,Boeing, made their bones in civilian aviation. Britain seem more focused on military. The Turbo prop Vicount was brilliant but a niche product as was The VC 10, purpose designed, mission specific. World markets demanded more. The US used the Canberra (NASA still uses them today). The Harrier were utilized by armed forces. British commercial aircraft lacked range or capacity for US markets. The VC 10 was a marvel, a true jet age icon ,yet capacity and range hurt it.. Today the US uses Hawk aircraft . The Concorde was a tour de force yet failed because the market wasn't there.
1:55 After the crash (10 Jan 1954) and the windows, which were to large for the cabin pressure, were fixed the Comet remained in service into the 1960's/70's. The last Comet fight was in 1997 for a documentary on the Comet. The crash also destroyed some colour film processed in the UK for Charles & Elsa Chauvel's Australian film 'Jedda' which had the dramatic final scenes from the NT on board and which has to be refilmed in NSW Blue Mountains before the Cannes Film Festival. Killed to was Australian WW2 war reporter Chester Wilmot (aged 42) who was to frank broadcasting on the war time ABC about the fighting in New Guinea so he moved to the BBC.
Recently read Chester Wilmot's book 'The Struggle for Europe'. A very impressive piece of work. I was curious as to his career so recently read that he was on the Comet. Terrible.
The vast majority of the 403 B-57s built had the same wing as the English Electric aircraft. Only the RB-57 had the huge extended wings of which, I believe, only about 20 were built.
@@ivorbiggun710 Indeed. The Americans (i.e. Martin) evolved their versions of the Canberra to suit their own mission requirements. So too did the Brits. The Canberra PR9 was a very different aircraft to the Canberra B2.
In the late 1970s I was a USAF avionics tech on the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart. Both very successful deltas. The Brits and Americans benefitted from A. Lippisch's work on delta wings. Britain had the Gloster Javelin delta wing interceptor.
@@lancerevell5979 Lance. I don't think that that one was much good. High AoAs blanketed the tail plane so it lost airflow and made pitch corrections impossible-------splat !!
@@mikewhite4628 We had similar troubles with our F-101 Voodoo, which I also worked on. Still, it served a long successful career here and in Canada. Another T-tail, the F-104 Starfighter, was something of a widow-maker, but also served for decades.
I've always like Convair's Deltas. The Fairey Delta 2 was a very promising experimental design but not pursued as a fighter, instead efforts being concentrated on the English Electric Lightning. The FD.2 was very helpful, however, in the development of the French Mirage III. Also the type was modified by BAC and renamed the BAC.221 to try out wing designs for the Concorde programme.
I think it's fair to say the Javelin was not the greatest fighter developed by Britain. It was the first, and only, fighter to go in to service with the RAF which was not cleared for full aerobatics due to its stall characteristics. Thus it was only suitable for the FAW role as a bomber interceptor although, as that was Fighter Command's main role within NATO at the time, this wasn't too much of a drawback. It was also quite short on range, however, despite considerable size. With 20/20 hindsight it might have been better to have equipped the RAF with a version of the Navy's DH Sea Vixen, which was a good aircraft and suffered none of the drawbacks which the Javelin had. Having said that the Javelin did serve successfully as a front line fighter from 1956-68. By the standards of the day that's quite a long time.
That Comet sure was a pretty airplane and the fantastic failure analysis of figuring out why they were exploding in midair was truly an achievement!!! The mistake of the square windows was truly unfortunate for the plane's future. Still though, it soldiered (literally) on for decades in the RAF and Royal Navy.
Its leading edge thicko...as it is the forward most part of the airframe in the airflow. Its meaning as analogous.....bleeding has no meaning, allegorical or analogous.
The Canberra bomber brings back memories of watching this plane drop fire bombs on gigantic eyeballs in the movie The Crawling Eye (The Trollenberg Terror).
The Apollo never went in to production. It suffered from problems with its Armstrong-Siddeley Mamba engines and also had instability issues. The Avon Meteor was purely a testbed for reheat trials.
because until reciently the DID NOT EXIST IN THIS REALITY YOU AND I ARE FROM our time line univrse merged with these know jtvalls that remember all thus stuff we came from a reality where this amazing shit DID not exist in 1949
Britain simply doesn't have the money to do so. They can participate in shared risk aircraft like the Airbus and Tornado, but the government doesn't have the resources to guarantee high risk projects. Rolls Royce went bankrupt over the engine fiasco on the L-1011, and the government was nearly made insolvent over the nationalization of Rolls. Without the colonies, Britain is just too small to absorb many financial shocks.
@William Wilson 1949, a British news company, sponsored by the British government of the time, and British aero companies at a British airshow. What competition? The ME262 was taken by both the allies and the Russians, for the tech, but, by then, Whittle's designs were accepted by the Air Ministry, even though our tech was included in paying off Lend-Lease to the US, and they took over. Europe couldn't compete because it was still worse off than the UK economically, still rebuilding their countries infrastructures, the Russian remained secretive and suspicious of everyone, and the US was getting up to speed with Paperclip. We had our window of opportunity, but austerity policies caused us to let it slip. We had the means, the tech and the will to be absolute world beaters in the air, right up to the late 1960s. a few successes - TRS1, Avro Arrow, both cancelled due to high costs - and the innovative Harrier Jump Jet. The rest we know.
lol, yes there is and I already knew a bit about the Canberra bombers (and B57s) and have searched more since. I was just saying that at the time I saw this video from a mere 4 years after WW2, l didn't realise these were already designed and constructed and flying. A long way from the Meteor.
@@matthewcauthorn3948 Not quite. NASA has operated two WB-57 high altitude Canberras for many years. There was another oine in storage at Davis Monthan which they refurbished a few years ago and it has now joined the fleet. They are used for altitude research.
Many plebs on here saying how crap some of these designs were .. well many of them were one off research aircraft and prototypes.. one of the most amusing posts ..is saying that the Canberra and the Viscount were the only successes... Well the Venom / Meteor did quite well didn't they .. did the Venom not stay in service till the late 80's with the Swiss??.... hardly unsuccessful designs .. Oh and for all you big headed YANKS thinking you are all that.... .. your early jets were found to be sh"t when the Mig 15 came to the party ( Hence the rush to get the Sabre into Korea) ..so i wouldn't blow your trumpet too loud . .
You traitorous backstabbing brits gave the Soviets the jet engine for the MIG-15, which killed American service men asshole, and then you were trying to sell the Soviets the comet which the Soviets would have easily converted into a jet bomber and would have given the Soviets the range needed to reach the U.S. But like most things the British engineered, it was severely flawed and regularly blew up killing all aboard, much like your warships are famously known for. Except for now, your tiny fleet remains mostly at dock rusting because the British Rolls-Royce engines do not work. What were you fighting those MIG-15's with? The old "meatbox"? Wow...and you poke fun at the American's. And what kind of bombers were you using at that time, the American B-29 perhaps because you had nothing? The American's broke the sound barrier, built planes like the X-15, F-14, F-15, the Valkarie, and 400,000 American engineers worked on Apollo and landed on the moon several times. What has Britian done lately besides whine about everything in the past? To bad you didn't move forward after you started the two world wars, brutally killing hundreds of millions of people.
@Zane Nobbs hhahah .. We beat the Germans in the Battle of Britain .. you lot got your ass kicked by a couple of hundred Japanese aircraft, and the 6th airforce stationed in Britain cried like babies after getting one or two shot down.. Oh btw .. Harrier .. yup your pathetic efforts at VTOL were so shite you begged for OUR Harrier. 22 of which took on the Argentine airforce ..and won ... you lot couldn't even beat AK47 armed peasents. English electric Lightning,, fasted climbing interceptor of it's day.. you had nothing to compare.
It starts with that scary helicopter & ends with that scary lumbering airliner with engineers clapping "it got off the fecking ground Bert!" notice the few jumbo type windows high-ish up, maybe for beds - nursing beds more like!
Now today , if you had an airshow with British planes .........it wouldn't last very long . Don't these early jets seem fast to a spectator ?? Wales UK/
Umm, not really. Frank Whittle had his jet engine running before WW2 really started though, I agree, the Germans were working on theirs, and the Gloster Meteor could have been up and flying by mid-1940, if the Air Ministry weren't so invested in prop planes. Even though we got two of the best fighters in the War, the Hurricane and Spitfire, Hitler would've thought twice if he knew we had jet squadrons. In my opinion. The P-41Mustang, a great airframe, became THE best prop plane when it got shot of its underpowered Allison engine and had a RR Merlin put under the hood. By the time the Germans got their rocket and jet powered planes into service, it was too little, too late. With ours, including jet bombers, WW2 could've been shortened by, at least, two years.
Lie. Jet british engines. did not have future That is why till today jet engines adopted the german configuration. includin swerpt. angle of atack. in their wings slats etc
Sure it will, but you'll be happy going to hell in the mini swimming pool at the rear that's accessed by the two level spiral staircase, just past the bar and dance floor. ;)
@@PenzancePete In 1949 Britain was not a Nuclear super power. Food was still rationed and would be for another 5 years. India had gained independence and NATO was formed to give her protection... Her star had wained...
Opening: "Britain leads the world in aviation".... After the war Russia and the US tried to hire all the British aviation engineers, except they didn't. :)
Oh yes, those days of yore...... those glorious, halcyon, pre-immigration days.....when first the Jews and then the Germans were the only ones trying to immigrate into the UK. But you stopped them both at the borders.....
the swift fr5was the best armed two 30mm cannons , for low level recon ,it used to beat a shitload of foreign competitions ,cas na na na na naaaa ,i read it in the book about the swift !
I went too Farnborough a couple of times in the 80's and it was Great, but not as good as this, just 4 years after the war Wow! The Sandringham and the Brabazon, god I would love to have seen them. A time before our gov turned against our aircraft industry, just imagine if some guys in the design room at De Havilland's had said," oow this Comet is coming on nicely but those sqaur hole in the fuselage look horible let's try round windows, and just think what a great maritime patrol aircraft we could make out of it.
@@philipbrailey Not as simple as that. The windows weren't actually square. They did have rounded corners which SHOULD have prevented cracking in the corners. However, they should also have had corner strengtheners and these were omitted to save weight. The interesting thing is that NONE of the Comets that crashed showed any indication that a cabin window had failed. This was because not sufficient wreckage was recovered from most of the crashed aircraft. The only window that definitely failed was the one in the Comet tested in a water tank at Farnborough (G-ALYU) and it was ASSUMED that this is what caused SOME of the crashes. The one Comet where sufficient wreckage was recovered AND EXAMINED PROPERLY (G-ALYP) showed that the fatigue failure was in a roof ADF aerial aperture, not a cabin window.
The square windows were not the origination of the disaster. The cracks started at the corners of an aerial mounted atop the fuselage and propagated to the window and then to the corners and rest of the fuselage.
@Mike Cruickshanks The computers are not the problem with Boeing and the 737 max (I assume this is what you are getting at) it is the fact that there was only one AoA probe (angle of attack probe) and if/when the circuit went ape there was no other with which to compare that reading. A high nose up was falsely detected and remained permanently active. When the pilots pushed the stick to correct the attitude it over-rode the false warning and when they released the pressure on the stick the nose rose again. Boeing said this would never happen so no drill was necessary. There are two switches which switch the system off but they were only notified for "Ground servicing". If they had been used the pilots could have flown the plane manually, but with difficulty, and landed safely. This happened the day before one of the fatal crashes because one of the pilots knew about the system. The main trouble Boeing and the CAA is now having, and has to answer to the World, is why did the CAA allow Boeing to certify its own system and why did Boeing agree to this? The foregoing is only a very short resume and is correct as I can write it without referring to the official/semi official opinions.
Why did British aircraft, for the most part, look so clunky in the 30s, 40s, and early 50s? The Spit, Hurry, and Lancaster, were odd because they didn't resemble old London taxicabs.
O.k, sadly, it's finally time now that I will have to start subscribing to TH-cam Premium, as I am not going to listen to a full 6 minutes of political info shorts (which are only to certainly to get much worse in the 10+ months yet to come) thank you very much Epoch Times, and, other such blithering ad's from the likes of The Grooming Guru for Smoother Balls (Manscaped) before I am able to watch and enjoy a video on aircraft operating in 1949.
@@hertzair1186 Thanks. I am really leaning towards doing it for a few reasons. Last night, again, I had to go through 7 minutes of "commercials" before a video I wanted to see started. I'm o.k. with a 30 sec. commercial at the beginning, but 5 min. mini "Infomercial" followed by another commercial on top of that one, then having another advertizing commercial being plopped right in the middle of a video I am watching is enough. Funny thing is, this was not happening to me last year anywhere's near as much.
Mac's Daddy : youtube with Premium has replaced TV for me completely, along with Amazon Prime...cant watch anything I want anytime I want with no ads....brilliant
I went to Farnborough for the first time in 1950, with my friend Pete Turner both on my 125cc BSA Bantam D1.We left Halifax W Yorks at midnight and were waiting for the gates to open at Farnborough at 8am. The great British aircraft was " sold down the river ' by witless politicians from both parties.
Politicians probably paid off by the Americans
Not only that but the US civil and military markets were denied to better British designs.
Whistling,screaming, shrieking, roaring engines. I love all the different sounds. Unmuffled. They were loud, we were proud. Good times.
Gone forever....Britain led the world in aircraft design , but there were too many Companies , weak governments , and obstructive trade unions
....and poor management . By the time this was all recognised , it was too late. We handed over to the U SA and Russia ,our knowledge of the jet engine....and much else. Not all of our new planes were perfect.....but there were some worldbeaters ...Comet , Viscount , Canberra ( even the Yanks bought those)...it was a golden age....I remember it well.
Those were heady days, full of optimism and courage (with just a touch of ignorance and naivety as well). It's amazing to see what kind of beautiful machines they could make when money was no object and national prestige was at stake. Thanks for posting, it was great to see.
galinneall Yes optimism that a nuclear war was imminent.
I could not agree more!
this was the time of MARSCHALL PLAN.. Italy, Germany, France Britain recieved billios of American help.. all the other nations used it to rebuild their industry.. only Britain was stupid/arrogant enough to use it to strenghten the Army-Air force and Navy in the hope to remain a world force and retain the Empire.. all that is gone.. also all of the industry, ecause it was left with outdated machinery, when all the others used the money to buy brand new stuff from America...
You should probably stop taking those drugs.
@@vivo-audio ya think ?
Ranting is hard work.
I Remember going to Farnborough with my mum in the Early Sixties, Her Brother worked for Rolls Royce, who made the engines for the First Hovercraft.
And mum and me watched the trials.
1949!!!!!!! Breath taking! Just 4 years after the Second World War.
Such progress in one decade! Canberra and Comet especially.
I was taken to that show by my dad . We went there for many years hearing the sound barrier broken by and the John Derry crash. It was horrendous. I then went on to take my children to the air show at Finningly near Doncaster
I was taken to that show aged 6 by my uncle who was in the RAF - I remember the John Derry crash vividly. I also recall that planes crashed regularly at air shows at RAF Waterbeach near Cambridge: two Meteors colliding during a low flypast and on another occasion a Meteor disintegrating during a high speed flypast. My recollection also of planes flying very low over the crowd was scary!
Early showing of the great Canberra bomber ! The Comet looks futuristic even now !,
Too bad they put the square windows on the comet
The Canberra Bomber could give some of those fighters a run for speed.
I feel that many of the statements and comments made here are by the younger ones amongst us who do not realise that these years were the dawn of modern aviation and little was known of the aerodynamics involved. Experimentation always has an element of failure but it is the successes which lead to progress. I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor of civil and gas turbine powered aviation when I started as a flight engineer on Comet C4s, a few years after the Comet 1 crashes. It was quite exciting !!!
You Sir, saw the glory days of British aviation. I was born a year to the day after the first flight of TSR2. And my maternal grandfather worked on that astounding aircraft. During my time as an aircraft spanner an I only got to work on two British aiircraft (not counting ex military ones in museums and a ground running Jet Provost) a Beagle Pup and a Tiger moth.
Long live British aviation.
Really sad for the Comet. We beat the Yanks to jet airliners, and until the crashes started it was the best, and boy, did it have sleek lines compared with the 707!
Unfortunately the millennials seem to think that all of the 20th Century is like us viewing Victorian Britain. It feels odd because hey I'm modern but with today's high tech, in my hand, this is happening. Only 2 TV channels, that's so funny..
@@seltaeb9691 as a 55 year old working with many millennials one thing I’ve found. That with so much access to the internet and information I’ve never met a generation that lacks so much general knowledge and common sense. It’s as if they ’ studied a field at uni and that’s literally all they know - nothing outside it. Because frankly their analytical skills and ability question often really sucks. Whereas those over 45 including older than me seem to question everything and that makes them ‘look’ for information that expands their knowledge of the world in general.
As a young lad and son of an RAF Officer, I went to some of these early Farnboroughs. Can't precisely date my first visit, but I do remember arriving to see the Vickers-Supermarine 508 streaking off the runway into a steep climb before the show started. Exciting wasn't the word for it! Lots of new planes every year. Rapid progress and no end in sight. 550 mph was commonplace then, but here we are 65 years later travelling at that same speed in airliners - that damned speed of sound phenomena limited economical travel!
@CAG Hotshot chuckling...Britian has always been defended by SAM'S, UNCLE SAM.
28 spectators killed one year.
@@chopchop7938 My father was there with his young bride. Hoping to impress her with aviation, his chosen profession. That backfired.
@CAG Hotshot 1957 White Paper - not 1959.
The Bristol Brabazon in one of it’s rare appearances, outmoded technology even before it got off the ground
I don't think it was "outmoded technology" necessarily. Aviation was starting in a new era of long distance flying, high altitude and high speed aerodynamics, pressurisation etc. and there is always a danger of some of it going wrong. The Brabazon may have had a life, as short as it may have been, if the Olympus engines had been developed to service. The life would have been short, I think, because it was under development at the same time as the long distance Comet 1 and the B707. It would also have been too large for short/medium haul. I saw it fly, and heard it indeed, when I was on an RAF course at Melksham in 1950. Awe inspiring it was..........
One of the biggest problems confronted by the British aircraft industry in the 40s and 50s was that they were ordered to design aircraft specifically for the needs of BOAC and BEA. A command economy of sorts which meant that many designs were not very attractive to overseas operators. The Trident is a classic example. A really advanced design but, due to BEA's insistence, the aircraft was made too small because of BEA's short sighted view of how air traffic was going to develop. It meant that the aircraft, with limited seating capacity to suit BEA's routes, was not really cost affective. Also the VC10, a fabulous aircraft, was seriously delayed because of dithering by BOAC who kept insisting on design changes so that the type was able to operate from hot and high airports, with the addition of various lift devices etc, to serve the Empire, forgetting that the Empire was in decline and was being drawn back. Because of this the type entered service much later that it could have and the B707 by then had captured the market. When designers were given more of a freehand to design cost affective and efficient types they came up with some great designs, principally the Vickers Viscount and the BAC 1-11, which sold well to overseas operators.
@@ivorbiggun710 re vc10, BOAC went and bought 707s in the end anyway as runways were extended, something that even a blind man could have forseen. the trident with its underpowered engines aka the ground gipper.. boeing knew a good idea when they saw one and the 727 sold in the 1000s. as luck would have it it was that lack of interest from BOAC that helped the viscount to success as they were no longer tied to BOAC's demands.
Yet turbo props still play a very big role in small commuter routes today.
As the Brabazon flew over the prophetic words 'The End' appeared..... How very appropriate. 😔
I was a USAF Brat 1947 - 1962.....I Lived these films!!
One of the Avro 707s ( 8:14ish) ended up spending many years in a Williamstown, Victoria, Australia , backgarden before finding her way to a museum a few years ago.
Marathon has 'Miles' written all over it. If military jets hadn't let out the surprise, the Comet would have been Totally mind-blowing; what a beauty.💔
The Comet temained one of the most beautiful planes until today. It was unfortunate to pay the price of being a pioneer.
Compare those with what they were flying ten years earlier. They'd only just ditched the biplane.
Whilst war is a terrible thing, it does advance technology at an accelerated rate.
Great footage of the 1949 British airshow showing how the british air craft in action and showing how the people of GB dressed and socialize with each other
Considering that this video featured footage from the 1949 Farnborough (not 'British') airshow, why have you mentioned anything about the 1947 airshow?
Woh, , the sound of that Comet!!
The days when Britain actually had an aircraft industry and was still capable of competing with the rest of the world.
We would have even had the first supersonic jet fighter (TSR2) had it not been for the Yanks colluding with the Labour Gov!
@@steviem8466 , the TSR2 wasn’t scheduled to enter service until the late ‘60s, we had the Lightning in service in 1961 which was a Mach 2 interceptor, there were more than a few prospective supersonic aircraft cancelled by the infamous 1957 Defense White Paper which was done at the hands of a Conservative Government, a couple of these aircraft already existed in prototype form or were almost completed. To be honest the biggest enemy the British aircraft industry has always faced has been the British Government itself.
I was an ever present spectator at Farnborough (I had an Aunt who was part of the SBAC organisation) until the 1970's. Tub thumping and patriotism aside, the Brabazon an enormous failure; the Comet - notice the square windows? - they caused the catastrophic crash that set jet powered airliners back almost a decade; flying boats never had a commercial market . There were roughly 32 aircraft companies vying for government money at that time. Yes design and innovation were strong elements, but business acumen was sadly lacking and no government could feed 32 squawking chicks. For every success we had: the Canberra, Lightening, Hunter, Folland Gnat, we had Javelins, Scimitars, Sea Vixens and the Fairy Rotodyne. As many other British industries discovered, hard lessons followed.
@@tonynorris9139, as far as the Comet was concerned Britain had never built a large pressurised passenger aircraft before and DeHavilland assumed that what had worked before would work again, the flying boat issue was a case of trying to stick to a formula that had worked before the war they forgot to take into account the fact that land based airfields had sprung up all over the place during the war. If you look at the way the British aircraft industry went after the war it seems that the industries biggest enemy was the British Government itself, lack of definite direction, lack of faith in the industry itself, the constant pressure to downsize the number of companies producing both aircraft and engines which eventually led to the country going from roughly 20 aircraft manufacturers to a single company that basically has a monopoly on supplying the British military.
@@steviem8466 Outside lookin' in? A real av-guy would never be so rude.
Impressive British aircraft in those days. What happened since then?
I cannot tell if it is a technical issue in production, but these British jets, even the turbo-props, seem VERY loud.
When Britain was great.
Probably the best inventory of aircraft in any Airshow, Farnborough 1949 might represent the "cutoff" moment between the old and the new aviation industry, with turbines taking all over along upon piston engines.
The Brabazon was however a majestic sight, as outdated it was it's so sad it didn't have any occasion of scheduled passenger flights...
Whut? ". . . .all over along upon . . ."
Please explain . . .
Love the whine of the Comets engines, absolutely awesome!
Chuckling...I wonder what they sounded like when the comets blew up?
@@chopchop7938 An unnecessary comment, sir.
Probably because they were centrifugal flow the ghosts not axial.
2:05 Note the square windows on the DeHavilland Comet. The corners of the window openings created stresses and cracks in the fuselage and were responsible for airframe loss(es). Version 2 of the commet and rounded corners on the windows.
Dont perpetuate the old and eroneous myths. The failure was nothing to do with the windows
I like these videos. Love old war birds.
One marvels at the spectacle of the Comet, suddenly it is game over for the Brabazon, the ancient lumbering giant
Excellent video. Thanks
Those air shows were the bomb
7:51 - 7 0 7 - an unintended hint of the future, Only from a different planemaker.
WoW.
A golden age of confidence.
Amazing film.
Really something to see! Yes those were the days, just after WWII, Europe was still rebidding, Jet engines were the new thing in aviation. But in less than 40 years most of this will be all gone. England's aircraft manufacturers started closing their doors in the 1960's, now there are only 5 major companies left.
But the UK isn't the only one that has a lost major section of the aerospace companies. The American's have also lost a good deal of some of the biggest and well known aircraft manufactures. They either went under, got out of the aircraft building industry, some went into weapon systems, some went into space craft or rocketry and others merged with other companies.
But what do you do with with more aircraft manufactures than there are markets to sell them to. They go the way of the Brabazon.
After She ruled the waves She ruled the sky's, not sure why the armament industry of GB dried up. Tremendous talent.
Politicians, mainly.
@@ivorbiggun710 Country practically bankrupt after World War 2 mainly. Lack of customers for many of their products - mainly (apart from the UK taxpayer).
Simple. Lack of UK political/governmental support and a very actively supported US aviation industry.
@@robertmarsh3588 Maybe smart business sense. All your jets being bought might hold U.S.corporate logos, but more than half the parts, engines and electronics are produced in GB, or Europe as a whole. I'm not even sure if the airframes of your current front line aircraft are American made.
Perhaps the downfall of the British aircraft industry was its evident inability to market its products on a large scale. BOAC didn't help, being besotted with all things American.
That’s an LOT of wing on that last plane.
The Bristol Brabazon - never went into service...
@@LouisL1963 not surprised! So many engines to maintain I suspect
Seeing the pre-heartbreak Comet 💔💔💔💔💔
Just 4 years after WW2...........that's progress, despite the few duds amongst the aircraft. The few aircraft were the Armstrong Whitworth Apollo; too small, ( to compete with the Viscount), and trouble with the Mamba turboprop......and, of course the Brabazon; l.i.u.
They were all duds except that the American's bought the rights to build a couple after they redesigned and fixed one.
@@chopchop7938 The Gloster Meteor and the DeHavillands served long in many nations. And so did the Hawker Hunter, derived from one of these prototypes. Not Duds.
The Viscount propjet liner served well too.
Viscount a dud? Canberra a dud? Martin did not fix the Canberra. It was redesigned to fit specific roles which the USAF wanted. You know that really though, I reckon. BTW, it was ordered by the USAF because the intended aircraft for the role, the Martin XB-51, was a dud.
@@lancerevell5979 And was bought by American airlines. It was an excellent aeroplane. The US also liked the Canberra so much, they built it under licence.
I was there.
@@MrDaiseymay Were you two at Bristol at the time? If so you may want to correct some of my stuff above. We're getting on in life, eh ? Dusties all !!
@@MrDaiseymay Were you both at Bristol in the early '50s ? If so you may want to comment/correct some of my stuff above. All "suites" now, eh?
That Comet was sure a good looking plane (except for those square windows!)
Guess what shape most modern airliner windows are.
@@EricIrl Modern windows have rounded corners. The sharp corners of Comet were weakpoints and led to eventual failure at those points causing some crashes. Since then windows are round or at the very least have rounded corners.
@@CymBan They weren't completely squared off. They did have radiused corners. However, the main problem is that corner strengtheners that were in the original design had been left out to save weight. Another issue was that thinner gauge metal was used in the fuselage - again to save weight.
Guess how many pressurised aircraft de Havilland had built before the Comet?
@@EricIrl how many?
Don Love One.
A one off development of the Vampire jet fighter.
I used to love watching Farnborough on t.v. then, Leslie Mitchell was great,great voice. Our aircraft industry sold out, by the banking cabal, wouldn't pay decent wages for the skills then gave it to US and eu and blamed the union's, socially engineered downfall.
Gave it to the US ?
Perhaps British aviation lacked Vision in commercial aviation and
Markets more than anything else.
Barbizon a shinning example. Massive resources into a plane with no future.
The DH Comet was brilliant! Pushed aviation ahead. Hawker brilliant aircraft.Avro Vickers....
US manufacturers such a Boeing developed the B367-80 on their own dime. This aircraft was used as the Basis for the B707 series.. they had an eye on commercial and government sales. Douglas was the same. Prior to WW2 Douglas ,Lockheed,Boeing, made their bones in civilian aviation.
Britain seem more focused on military.
The Turbo prop Vicount was brilliant but a niche product as was The VC 10, purpose designed, mission specific. World markets demanded more.
The US used the Canberra (NASA still uses them today). The Harrier were utilized by armed forces. British commercial aircraft lacked range or capacity for US markets. The VC 10 was a marvel, a true jet age icon ,yet capacity and range hurt it..
Today the US uses Hawk aircraft .
The Concorde was a tour de force yet failed because the market wasn't there.
@@donlove3741 Barbizon? Isn't that a school for fashion models?
Fantastic!
Very few of those aircraft were successful, and some were just test aircraft,
giving valuable data for future designs.
It doesn't get much better than that!!
1:55 After the crash (10 Jan 1954) and the windows, which were to large for the cabin pressure, were fixed the Comet remained in service into the 1960's/70's. The last Comet fight was in 1997 for a documentary on the Comet. The crash also destroyed some colour film processed in the UK for Charles & Elsa Chauvel's Australian film 'Jedda' which had the dramatic final scenes from the NT on board and which has to be refilmed in NSW Blue Mountains before the Cannes Film Festival. Killed to was Australian WW2 war reporter Chester Wilmot (aged 42) who was to frank broadcasting on the war time ABC about the fighting in New Guinea so he moved to the BBC.
Recently read Chester Wilmot's book 'The Struggle for Europe'. A very impressive piece of work. I was curious as to his career so recently read that he was on the Comet. Terrible.
Brabazon flew over at low level, probably flying as high as it could manage
the canberra was adopted by the USAF...nice
With much longer wings
The U2 beat it out but the Canberra still lives on
The vast majority of the 403 B-57s built had the same wing as the English Electric aircraft. Only the RB-57 had the huge extended wings of which, I believe, only about 20 were built.
@@ivorbiggun710 Indeed. The Americans (i.e. Martin) evolved their versions of the Canberra to suit their own mission requirements. So too did the Brits. The Canberra PR9 was a very different aircraft to the Canberra B2.
That 707 was directly intended as a testbed for delta wing research. Avro would use the data in their Vulcan bomber
In the late 1970s I was a USAF avionics tech on the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart. Both very successful deltas. The Brits and Americans benefitted from A. Lippisch's work on delta wings. Britain had the Gloster Javelin delta wing interceptor.
@@lancerevell5979 Lance. I don't think that that one was much good. High AoAs blanketed the tail plane so it lost airflow and made pitch corrections impossible-------splat !!
@@mikewhite4628 We had similar troubles with our F-101 Voodoo, which I also worked on. Still, it served a long successful career here and in Canada. Another T-tail, the F-104 Starfighter, was something of a widow-maker, but also served for decades.
I've always like Convair's Deltas. The Fairey Delta 2 was a very promising experimental design but not pursued as a fighter, instead efforts being concentrated on the English Electric Lightning. The FD.2 was very helpful, however, in the development of the French Mirage III. Also the type was modified by BAC and renamed the BAC.221 to try out wing designs for the Concorde programme.
I think it's fair to say the Javelin was not the greatest fighter developed by Britain. It was the first, and only, fighter to go in to service with the RAF which was not cleared for full aerobatics due to its stall characteristics. Thus it was only suitable for the FAW role as a bomber interceptor although, as that was Fighter Command's main role within NATO at the time, this wasn't too much of a drawback. It was also quite short on range, however, despite considerable size. With 20/20 hindsight it might have been better to have equipped the RAF with a version of the Navy's DH Sea Vixen, which was a good aircraft and suffered none of the drawbacks which the Javelin had. Having said that the Javelin did serve successfully as a front line fighter from 1956-68. By the standards of the day that's quite a long time.
Very, Very Cool...SMASHING!
I don't think they even make the Triumph motorcycle anymore in England.
Hello Mairice, how are you doing today, hope you’re fine and safe from the Virus?
That Comet sure was a pretty airplane and the fantastic failure analysis of figuring out why they were exploding in midair was truly an achievement!!! The mistake of the square windows was truly unfortunate for the plane's future. Still though, it soldiered (literally) on for decades in the RAF and Royal Navy.
I'm not sure the Royal Navy ever operated the type. Of course the Nimrod was built around the Comet's design and they were only retired in 2011.
@@ivorbiggun710 The Nimrods were used as sub hunters, not unlike the P3 Orion in the US.
@@chrislong3938 And operated by the RAF. The Royal Navy never used Comets.
Back when it was ok to break the sound barrier.
None of the aircraft in this video were shown 'breaking the sound barrier'.
You still can. There's a design for an aircraft that can do it silently.
Those are some expensive noise makers! It's too bad that all of the piston-engined planes were already obsolete, including the Bristol Brabazon.
This was the absolute bleeding edge at the time.
Its leading edge thicko...as it is the forward most part of the airframe in the airflow. Its meaning as analogous.....bleeding has no meaning, allegorical or analogous.
The Canberra bomber brings back memories of watching this plane drop fire bombs on gigantic eyeballs in the movie The Crawling Eye (The Trollenberg Terror).
Yeah, on civilians too in real life..
The MiG 15 made far better use of the Rolls Royce Nene (copy developments) than the Hawker Sea Hawk prototype. 1949!
I'd never heard of some of these - the Apollo and the Avon-engined Meteor, for example. That usually doesn't happen.
The Apollo never went in to production. It suffered from problems with its Armstrong-Siddeley Mamba engines and also had instability issues. The Avon Meteor was purely a testbed for reheat trials.
because until reciently the DID NOT EXIST IN THIS REALITY YOU AND I ARE FROM our time line univrse merged with these know jtvalls that remember all thus stuff we came from a reality where this amazing shit DID not exist in 1949
I cannot understand why GB does not produce cutting-edge aircraft anymore. They led the way after WWII.
Britain simply doesn't have the money to do so. They can participate in shared risk aircraft like the Airbus and Tornado, but the government doesn't have the resources to guarantee high risk projects. Rolls Royce went bankrupt over the engine fiasco on the L-1011, and the government was nearly made insolvent over the nationalization of Rolls. Without the colonies, Britain is just too small to absorb many financial shocks.
You've just watched a propoganda film, of course that's what you think.
Politics. It's killed many fine aircraft. Just ask Canada about the Avro Arrow. Superb interceptor prototype, killed by politics.
@@lancerevell5979 ..." killed by corruption and U.S. interference", a lot of people seem to believe.
@@SM-dt1pr you disagree that Great Britain dominated aircraft innovation and design after WWII?
SCREAMing jet engines (Y)
Just to add a ME262 and crowd wld have gone crazy.
@William Wilson 1949, a British news company, sponsored by the British government of the time, and British aero companies at a British airshow.
What competition?
The ME262 was taken by both the allies and the Russians, for the tech, but, by then, Whittle's designs were accepted by the Air Ministry, even though our tech was included in paying off Lend-Lease to the US, and they took over.
Europe couldn't compete because it was still worse off than the UK economically, still rebuilding their countries infrastructures, the Russian remained secretive and suspicious of everyone, and the US was getting up to speed with Paperclip.
We had our window of opportunity, but austerity policies caused us to let it slip. We had the means, the tech and the will to be absolute world beaters in the air, right up to the late 1960s. a few successes - TRS1, Avro Arrow, both cancelled due to high costs - and the innovative Harrier Jump Jet. The rest we know.
.......... especially if it was on a strafing run
Anyone else wincing at the square windows on the comet? I guess it doesn’t always pay to be first.
Wow, didn't realise the Canberra bombers started so long ago
lol, yes there is and I already knew a bit about the Canberra bombers (and B57s) and have searched more since. I was just saying that at the time I saw this video from a mere 4 years after WW2, l didn't realise these were already designed and constructed and flying. A long way from the Meteor.
Four of the RB57 (think U2 style wing) have just been pulled out of storage and a complete new cockpit installed. Not sure of the mission.
@@matthewcauthorn3948 Not quite. NASA has operated two WB-57 high altitude Canberras for many years. There was another oine in storage at Davis Monthan which they refurbished a few years ago and it has now joined the fleet. They are used for altitude research.
Many plebs on here saying how crap some of these designs were .. well many of them were one off research aircraft and prototypes.. one of the most amusing posts ..is saying that the Canberra and the Viscount were the only successes... Well the Venom / Meteor did quite well didn't they .. did the Venom not stay in service till the late 80's with the Swiss??.... hardly unsuccessful designs .. Oh and for all you big headed YANKS thinking you are all that.... .. your early jets were found to be sh"t when the Mig 15 came to the party ( Hence the rush to get the Sabre into Korea) ..so i wouldn't blow your trumpet too loud .
.
You traitorous backstabbing brits gave the Soviets the jet engine for the MIG-15, which killed American service men asshole, and then you were trying to sell the Soviets the comet which the Soviets would have easily converted into a jet bomber and would have given the Soviets the range needed to reach the U.S. But like most things the British engineered, it was severely flawed and regularly blew up killing all aboard, much like your warships are famously known for. Except for now, your tiny fleet remains mostly at dock rusting because the British Rolls-Royce engines do not work. What were you fighting those MIG-15's with? The old "meatbox"? Wow...and you poke fun at the American's. And what kind of bombers were you using at that time, the American B-29 perhaps because you had nothing? The American's broke the sound barrier, built planes like the X-15, F-14, F-15, the Valkarie, and 400,000 American engineers worked on Apollo and landed on the moon several times. What has Britian done lately besides whine about everything in the past? To bad you didn't move forward after you started the two world wars, brutally killing hundreds of millions of people.
@Zane Nobbs haha you nob.. your lot got their asses kicked by ak47 armed peasents in VIETNAM... bwhahaha
@Zane Nobbs hhahah .. We beat the Germans in the Battle of Britain .. you lot got your ass kicked by a couple of hundred Japanese aircraft, and the 6th airforce stationed in Britain cried like babies after getting one or two shot down.. Oh btw .. Harrier .. yup your pathetic efforts at VTOL were so shite you begged for OUR Harrier. 22 of which took on the Argentine airforce ..and won ... you lot couldn't even beat AK47 armed peasents. English electric Lightning,, fasted climbing interceptor of it's day.. you had nothing to compare.
@Zane Nobbs boo hoo get over it sweetcheeks
Chop Chop Your claim that Britain started two world wars just goes to show your complete ignorance of history.
It starts with that scary helicopter & ends with that scary lumbering airliner with engineers clapping "it got off the fecking ground Bert!" notice the few jumbo type windows high-ish up, maybe for beds - nursing beds more like!
Now today , if you had an airshow with British planes .........it wouldn't last very long . Don't these early jets seem fast to a spectator ?? Wales UK/
When Britain led the world
It was posible with German Engineering 👌🏼
Umm, not really. Frank Whittle had his jet engine running before WW2 really started though, I agree, the Germans were working on theirs, and the Gloster Meteor could have been up and flying by mid-1940, if the Air Ministry weren't so invested in prop planes. Even though we got two of the best fighters in the War, the Hurricane and Spitfire, Hitler would've thought twice if he knew we had jet squadrons. In my opinion.
The P-41Mustang, a great airframe, became THE best prop plane when it got shot of its underpowered Allison engine and had a RR Merlin put under the hood.
By the time the Germans got their rocket and jet powered planes into service, it was too little, too late. With ours, including jet bombers, WW2 could've been shortened by, at least, two years.
Lie. Jet british engines. did not have future
That is why till today jet engines adopted the german configuration. includin swerpt. angle of atack. in their wings slats etc
Scary. Expecting them to roll over straight into the ground
6:04
Did he say an _Avon_ Meteor?!
Meteor with two Avon Jet Systems
@@fidziek
I thought they only ever tried them with Sapphires, not Avons.
Did anyone notice the lady in the crowd saying the Rosary as they were flying overhead?
The Brabazon always looks like it's going to fall apart.
Sure it will, but you'll be happy going to hell in the mini swimming pool at the rear that's accessed by the two level spiral staircase, just past the bar and dance floor. ;)
@Sir Bum
The Design Team deserve the Upper-Class Twit Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Group Effort.
They literally erased a small British town to make a runway to get the Brabazon away from the factory.
@@lancerevell5979 they did that as well at London Heath Row by demolishing the village called "Heath Row" (on Hounslow Heath)
The narrator is imploring you to believe Britain still leads the world..
That narrator was speaking at a time when Britain was a world leader.
In 1949 they were.
@@PenzancePete In 1949 Britain was not a Nuclear super power. Food was still rationed and would be for another 5 years. India had gained independence and NATO was formed to give her protection... Her star had wained...
Opening: "Britain leads the world in aviation".... After the war Russia and the US tried to hire all the British aviation engineers, except they didn't. :)
Was only 2yrs old living in Lancashire. Day dream of an SU-57 going vertical over that crowd. Kinda like a Mustang at a Morris Minor ralley.
Brabazon a ridiculous anachronism.
Wonder how many Russian spy's were among the dignitaries and the spectators?
plenty....
All of them!!
At 0:53, the first drone to be filmed in history.
Copy of Luftwaffes Drache
Those glorious, halycon, pre-immigration days - England started going downhill shortly after, and it hasn't stopped the nosedive!
Oh yes, those days of yore...... those glorious, halcyon, pre-immigration days.....when first the Jews and then the Germans were the only ones trying to immigrate into the UK. But you stopped them both at the borders.....
the swift fr5was the best armed two 30mm cannons , for low level recon ,it used to beat a shitload of foreign competitions ,cas na na na na naaaa ,i read it in the book about the swift !
Square window Comet..flight over spectators…
I went too Farnborough a couple of times in the 80's and it was Great, but not as good as this, just 4 years after the war Wow! The Sandringham and the Brabazon, god I would love to have seen them. A time before our gov turned against our aircraft industry, just imagine if some guys in the design room at De Havilland's had said," oow this Comet is coming on nicely but those sqaur hole in the fuselage look horible let's try round windows, and just think what a great maritime patrol aircraft we could make out of it.
What war . There was never any war
Ahh forgett the Brothers Horton
Good idea. Bull shi**ers.
"Reheat; you yanks call it afterburning."
indeed even more strange as sir frank was the one who invented it back in the 40s!
Ya say you've never heard a Banshee ? OK then ....... 2:30...
Supersonic.....with tailwheel retracted.
Yes those square windows on the comet send shockwaves through people’s spines.
No they don't. You do know that the Comet that crashed off Elba did not suffer a window failure?
@@EricIrl metal fatigue exacerbated by square windows.
@@philipbrailey Not as simple as that. The windows weren't actually square. They did have rounded corners which SHOULD have prevented cracking in the corners. However, they should also have had corner strengtheners and these were omitted to save weight. The interesting thing is that NONE of the Comets that crashed showed any indication that a cabin window had failed. This was because not sufficient wreckage was recovered from most of the crashed aircraft. The only window that definitely failed was the one in the Comet tested in a water tank at Farnborough (G-ALYU) and it was ASSUMED that this is what caused SOME of the crashes.
The one Comet where sufficient wreckage was recovered AND EXAMINED PROPERLY (G-ALYP) showed that the fatigue failure was in a roof ADF aerial aperture, not a cabin window.
1:15...i spy a German helicopter.
Ahh i forgot Heinkel sorry
Questo sì che vuol dire aver poche, ma ben confuse idee
That’s not the comet engines that are screaming it’s the people inside on the way to the death because some idiot made square windows
Chuckling...
Mike Cruickshanks But, it had.
The square windows were not the origination of the disaster. The cracks started at the corners of an aerial mounted atop the fuselage and propagated to the window and then to the corners and rest of the fuselage.
It's not the computers. It's the dumb programmers that don't know how to test and even dumber management.
@Mike Cruickshanks The computers are not the problem with Boeing and the 737 max (I assume this is what you are getting at) it is the fact that there was only one AoA probe (angle of attack probe) and if/when the circuit went ape there was no other with which to compare that reading. A high nose up was falsely detected and remained permanently active. When the pilots pushed the stick to correct the attitude it over-rode the false warning and when they released the pressure on the stick the nose rose again. Boeing said this would never happen so no drill was necessary. There are two switches which switch the system off but they were only notified for "Ground servicing". If they had been used the pilots could have flown the plane manually, but with difficulty, and landed safely. This happened the day before one of the fatal crashes because one of the pilots knew about the system. The main trouble Boeing and the CAA is now having, and has to answer to the World, is why did the CAA allow Boeing to certify its own system and why did Boeing agree to this? The foregoing is only a very short resume and is correct as I can write it without referring to the official/semi official opinions.
I used to say during Triumph car commercials.."The shape of things that Cum."
Can't see those square windows catching on
They did. Most airliners today have square windows.
Square windows
Why did British aircraft, for the most part, look so clunky in the 30s, 40s, and early 50s? The Spit, Hurry, and Lancaster, were odd because they didn't resemble old London taxicabs.
O.k, sadly, it's finally time now that I will have to start subscribing to TH-cam Premium, as I am not going to listen to a full 6 minutes of political info shorts (which are only to certainly to get much worse in the 10+ months yet to come) thank you very much Epoch Times, and, other such blithering ad's from the likes of The Grooming Guru for Smoother Balls (Manscaped) before I am able to watch and enjoy a video on aircraft operating in 1949.
Oohhhhh poor you.
Mac's Daddy : do it...its worth it. You can also download videos. I dropped cable so the $15/ month well worth it...
@@hertzair1186 Thanks. I am really leaning towards doing it for a few reasons. Last night, again, I had to go through 7 minutes of "commercials" before a video I wanted to see started. I'm o.k. with a 30 sec. commercial at the beginning, but 5 min. mini "Infomercial" followed by another commercial on top of that one, then having another advertizing commercial being plopped right in the middle of a video I am watching is enough. Funny thing is, this was not happening to me last year anywhere's near as much.
Mac's Daddy : youtube with Premium has replaced TV for me completely, along with Amazon Prime...cant watch anything I want anytime I want with no ads....brilliant
Wondering how many people that comet killed🙄
That pathetic country couldn't put together an Airfix model these days by themselves
Jealous i see,bless
"mad" or "angry"?
All these square windows ugh
If they are so "ugh", why do most airliners today still have them?