Fly Navy!

Regular readers my have gathered that I really like aircraft.

I mean, I like aircraft a lot.

I like aircraft to the point that Mrs Snail has been known to decide against a potential campsite because it was too near either an active airfield or an air museum and she knew that if we stayed there I'd essentially do noting but watch planes for the duration of our stay.

Which is not to say that I don't get to see a lot of aircraft on our travels - because I do. Our favourite site at Grummore/Altnaharra in the northern Highlands has afforded us flypasts by pairs of American F-15 Eagles (not the kind of eagles we were looking for at the time, but I was pleased to see them), Typhoons, Tornados and C-130 Hercules planes. Our regular stop at Bunree just south of Fort William has also afforded us close up views of RAF planes and helicopters from the RAF, Royal Navy and HM Coastguard. And of course if you read the recent post about Glastonbury Tor you know that I was treated to a show by three Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters operating from the Royal Naval Air Station at Yeovilton about thirteen miles south of the iconic hillock.*

And you see, the thing is that Yeovilton is not just an active Naval Air Station, where all manner of aircraft operated by the Royal Navy** can be seen going about their daily operations, it is also the home of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Museum. A place where the history of Royal Naval Aviation is recorded, explained and celebrated.

I was going to drive all that way and not take a look?

Not bloody likely!

So, off we went. the deal was simple. Mrs Snail would agree to spend a morning tolerating me drooling over planes and helicopters if in the afternoon we went and visited Thomas Hardy's Cottage, which is maintained by the National Trust, open to the public and located not all that far away.

We arrived at the Air Station just before the Museum opened at ten o'clock. It was easy to find and the massive car park meant that parking was no problem whatsoever, which meant we were through the entrance hall and into the displays literally as the doors opened. For an aircraft nut like me it was like walking into a toyshop with all the very best toys. I would have been more than happy just wandering aimlessly around staring open mouthed at the historic naval aircraft - from the slightly battered fuselage of a Short 184 (the oldest naval aircraft in the world) to the mighty Sea Harrier - the last truly naval fixed wing aircraft flown by the Fleet Air Arm, and all points in between.

Didn't do that though, because just as we were about to sally forth into the displays we noticed a sign informing us that if we hung around for about a quarter of an hour there would be a free guided tour of the exhibits. So we waited.

Well worth the wait.

Our guide was knowledgeable, enthusiastic and entertaining - he'd flown in Buccaneer's back in the nineteen seventies and his love not only of flying, but of the Royal Navy as a whole shone through his descriptions of the aircraft and the ships they operated from and we learned a lot.

Our guide took us around the first two exhibition halls and showed us models of Aircraft Carriers from the Second World War using them to explain why angled flight decks were such an important development in the post war years*** as well as the reason the Royal Navy has returned to linear flight decks for its carriers since the eighties.**** He showed us planes that operated in the First World War, before the Royal Naval Air Service merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the RAF, and planes from the Second World War, such as the beautiful Seafire, the maritime version of the Spitfire, and the venerable Swordfish - a biplane which served with some distinction as a torpedo bomber.

I could go on, but essentially what you'd get is a long list of all the types of aircraft featured in the museum. I'd enjoy writing that, but I accept that it might not make the most gripping reading.

So, suffice to say that we enjoyed the tour immensely.

At this point I would normally share some pictures of these wonderful airframes. I took a lot. Trouble is, I can't find them anywhere. This is particularly disappointing because of what we went to look at after the tour.

Our wonderful guide ended our tour at the entrance to exhibition hall three - the home of the "Aircraft Carrier Experience". This is no ordinary exhibition hall. Oh no.

For a start, you cannot simply walk in. No, you have to wait until the helicopter is ready to ferry you out there - it's supposed to be an Aircraft Carrier, after all. You board the chopper with a dozen or so fellow museum visitors, the door closes behind you and you feel the vehicle vibrating beneath your feet. During the short "flight" a brief video announcement fills you in on what to expect when you land, then you feel a mild jolt which indicates that you've landed, the door slides open and you've arrived.

Alighting from the helicopter you find yourself on the flight deck of the Ark Royal one of the Royal Navy's traditional carriers - that is to say, not one of the Invincible class mini carriers designed for the Sea Harrier*****, but one of the big jobs that carried the likes of the Sea Vixen, the Buccaneer and the Phantom. The kind of ship that didn't see the end of the seventies but that everyone to occupy the office of the First Sea Lord since has wanted to resurrect.

The deck area is occupied by several historic aircraft that would have operated from the Navy's carriers over the years - the venerable practical ugliness of the Fairey Gannet, an airbourne early warning aircraft, the sleek lines of the Supermarine Scimitar and the Hawker Seahawk, the huge wingspan of the slightly off centre Sea Vixen and best of all, the menacing bulk of the Blackburn Buccaneer and the raw in your face power of the McDonnell Phantom FG1. There is even an (unsurprisingly disarmed and inert) example of one of the "Red Beard" free fall nuclear bomb that formed part of the Buccaneer's weapons capability.

So far, so ordinary. I mean, "some aircraft in an aircraft museum - so what?". Well, if you're me, being able to stand next to and put my hands on aircraft like this is enough, but I recognise that not everybody feels as passionate about this kind of thing as I do. Don't worry though, because there's a lot more to the Aircraft Carrier Experience.

We'd been perusing the aircraft for a few minutes when a voice over the tannoy warned all hands that the Phantom was about to launch. The lights dimmed. The blast screen behind the Phantom rose from the deck. The twin Rolls-Royce Spey engines lit up with an ear-splitting roar - I may be misremembering but I'd swear the ground actually shook, and then, projected onto a floor to ceiling, wall to wall screen at the far end of the deck we saw a phantom scream down the deck, dragged by the steam catapult and leap over the bow of the ship into the sky.

The illusion isn't perfect. But it very nearly is - at no time did the actual Phantom airframe move, but I'd still swear that I'd seen it take off.

The illusion was repeated a few moments later, as the tannoy advised all hands to look aft, where, projected onto another wall to wall floor to ceiling screen we could see the unmistakable outline of a Buccaneer coming in to land. By the time it dropped onto the arrestor hook and shuddered to a halt it appeared ever so slightly larger than life, before it appeared to taxi to the point where the actual Buccaneer airframe was resting.

Again, it's not a perfect illusion, but nobody standing on that flight deck cared. We could all suspend our disbelief enough to be totally taken in. The sight and sound was almost overwhelming and just felt real.

The voice came over the tannoy again, suggesting that we explore the "Island" - the Aircraft Carrier's equivalent of the Air Traffic Control Tower. I presume the next group was about to "fly in" aboard the helicopter, as by the time we'd made it to the observation level inside the Island there were more people below us watching as the the Phantom took off again.

The Island serves two purposes. First of all it gives you a sense of what life aboard ship might be like. This is important because as you walk around the spacious exhibition halls looking at aeroplanes it's easy to forget that this is a Royal Navy museum. These aircraft did not, as a rule, operate from land with the luxury of three mile long runways. These aircraft and the men****** who flew and supported them were working in cramped conditions on a deck that was never stable with a runway a few hundred yards long.

It also, via a sequence of displays illustrating how this mobile, floating military airfield was controlled and operated, guides the visitor into the forth exhibition hall, which features a Hawker P1127 - an early forerunner of the Harrier, as well as its direct descendent, a Sea Harrier which served aboard HMS Invincible during the Falkland's conflict displayed right on the end of an Invincible Class style "ski jump" as though embarking on another mission.

There are other aircraft too, a couple such as the BAC 221 and the HP 115 that, like the P1127, were seriously experimental in their day, although unlike the P1127 they were never developed into long serving, world beating aircraft like the Harrier.*******

The most interesting - and certainly the most incongruous - aircraft in the hall however is the very early example they have of the BAC Concorde. It's such an early prototype it doesn't even have the now iconic drooping nose for better visibility on take-off and landing. It is undoubtedly beautiful, and standing next to it it's striking how futuristic this astonishing supersonic machine still looks - no mean feat for an aircraft that's been here since 1976.

I remain slightly unsure what it's doing there, mind you. I mean, yes, it's a historic aircraft and a fantastic example of British (and, it has to be said, French) engineering. But it's not exactly a Naval aircraft, is it? I mean, it's not even military.

Yes, a short search on Google will lead you to all sorts of historic ideas about using Concorde as the base for a supersonic bomber, but if that had happened those planes would have gone to the RAF not the Navy. Mind you - it would be interesting watching one of these try to land on an Aircraft Carrier...

Eventually we made our way out - again via the gift shop.

An indication of how good it was? It was now knocking on to late afternoon. Not only was it too late to get to Thomas Hardy's cottage (we still haven't been) we had missed lunch!!!!!!!!!!

Yup. That good.

In all seriousness. If a museum can keep us so enthralled that we don't notice that it's lunch o'clock then that's a pretty enthralling museum. You should probably go.





*Yes, yes, but really, it isn't that tall..,

**Since 2010, basically a few varieties of helicopters. Don't get me started...

***Basically it enables aircraft to land without the risk of smashing into other aircraft on deck. Something so obvious it's hard to understand why they didn't think of it from the word go...

****The last aircraft in Royal Naval service that needed a runway were the Buccaneers and Phantoms that operated from HMS Ark Royal until she was decommissioned in 1978. Since then, everything landing in a Royal Navy ship has landed vertically, whether it was a helicopter, a Sea Harrier or a regular Harrier. Assuming it ever makes it into service the variant of the F-35 that is intended to replace the Harrier will also be landing vertically.

*****And yes, they called one of those mini carriers "HMS Ark Royal", just to confuse things. I don't mean that one. I mean the proper one that was featured in the 1970s TV series "Sailing".

******And in the times we're talking about, they were all men. The Navy has since embraced the twenty first century and women do now serve in all capacities at sea.

*******The Harrier left RAF and Royal Navy service in 2010 after defence cuts. At time of writing however the type is still in service with the Indian Navy, the Spanish Navy and the US Marine Corps.