DH.110 Sea Vixen - meeting the restoration team at work скачать в хорошем качестве

DH.110 Sea Vixen - meeting the restoration team at work

The Sea Vixen is one of the largest and most eye catching of the exhibits at the museum. It has been on display since 1976 and is undergoing some restoration work. Ray and Rob from the Vixen restoration team give us a tour around the aircraft and explain its significance whilst it was in service with the Royal Navy. Designed and built at Hatfield, the DH110 took the Vampire/Venom twin-boom layout into the era of swept wings and transonic flight with all-metal construction, powered flight controls, and twin engines. It became the first two-seat aircraft to exceed the speed of sound, in a shallow dive The pilot’s position is offset to port, and the observer is seated to starboard, lower down in a darkened cockpit (known to Fleet Air Arm crews as the ‘coal hole’) for ease of viewing the attack radar. The FAW Mk.1 entered service with the Fleet Air Arm in 1957 and incorporated power folding wings, a long-stroke landing gear, steerable nose wheel, underwing catapult horns and an arrester hook. The FAW. Mk.2 introduced GEC AI Mk. 18 radar, new electronics, and was armed with the DH Red Top missile. Increased fuel and avionics for the Red Top missiles were carried in enlarged tail booms extended forward of the wings. A total of 29 Mk.2s were built, and a further 67 were converted from Mk.1s. The Museum’s Sea Vixen was built as a Mk.1 at Christchurch in 1960 and converted to a Mk.2 at Chester in 1965. It was acquired by the Museum in 1976. Our thanks to Dulux and Rodells who contributed to this restoration work.