I was fortunate recently to be reacquainted with two old
friends in the form of the cockpit section of XV490, a McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom
FGR2 and the Phantom Mission Simulator both of which are now on display at
Newark Air Museum.
XV490 was first delivered into service with No. 54 Squadron
Squadron at RAF Coningsby in the ground attack role. I first flew the aircraft
on my first unit, No. 56 Squadron at RAF Wattisham where it had transferred to
the air defence role and again on 92 Squadron at RAF Wildenrath in Germany. It
continued to follow me through my career to RAF Coningsby where it served again
on No. 228 Operational Conversion Unit. The aircraft gave sterling service
flying nearly 5000 hours before it was retired in 1992.
Although it was
consigned to the scrap yard, a victim of Cold War defence cuts, the forward
section was rescued and has been on display at Newark Air Museum for a number
of years. It was a regular to the Waddington Air Show where the owner Mike Davey
opens the cockpit to visitor. Back at Newark it will again be open at the
annual Cockpitfest at Newark in June 2015 when I will be able to introduce enthusiasts
once again to my old “Office”.
The Phantom Mission Simulator was originally located at RAF
Coningsby in Lincolnshire. One of two, it was known as “M1” and came into
service shortly after the Phantom arrived in 1968. It is a full scale replica
of the real cockpit and was used to train crews in operational scenarios but,
more importantly, in emergency procedures. From the first days of training as
crews converted onto the aircraft they were schooled in how to respond to
failures of the aircraft systems and how to recover the aircraft safely to
Terra Firma. The simulator was fitted with a motion system and the whole
cockpit section moved on a tilting pedestal driven by hydraulic rams.
Originally equipped with an analogue visual system the crews saw a representation
of a small area around RAF Coningsby projected onto a screen in front of the
cockpit. In those days a small camera flew over a modelled landscape, a far cry
from modern digital projections. A section of the landscape survives. The
simulator was moved to RAF Wattisham in Suffolk in 1990 where it ended its
operational service before being acquired by Newark Air Museum in 1992.
If you would like to hear more about either my old aircraft
the Phantom, the simulator, my career flying the beast or my books, two interviews
by “Aircrew Interview” are posted on You Tube:
No comments:
Post a Comment