RN Fleet Air Arm: General

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F.A.A. BOYS VOLUMES 3 AND 4

Dear all,

Well, it has been and gone. The launch of FAAB3 last Saturday went really well and many of you who attended have said how much you enjoyed it. The prize for the furthest distance travelled clearly goes to Nick Mayhew, who flew over from Texas - many thanks to all who came and well done Nick!

Navy Wings and the Fleet Air Arm Museum did us proud and the arrangements worked well, so a big "thank you" to Jon Parkinson, Marc Farrance and their respective teams, plus of course, John Davies from Grub Street, Heather for looking after contributor registration (not too easy a lot of the time!), plus Margaret McDonald and Kim Sharman for doing some photography. A few images are attached - let us know if you would like to see more.

The biggest surprise of the day came when Heather and I were summoned to the Flight Deck and found ourselves encircled by a goodly number of the contributors. Jonathan Tod then delivered a most eloquent speech outlining the background to a very special presentation about to be made to us both, and the 11 people involved in bringing it to fruition. We were both touched by the expressions of gratitude for what we have done in bringing the FAA story to a wider audience, and in reply, I said that our reward is knowing that the books are appreciated and enjoyed by the FAA family. Very fittingly, Alexandra Cole-Hamilton was there to make the presentation on behalf of her father Mike (he lives in Canada), to whom volume 3 is dedicated.

Our focus now turns towards the final book, with Volume 4 planned for a launch about this time next year. The format is somewhat different from the first three books, with chapters entitled: 'Tragedy and Close Calls', 'Courage', 'Chockheads, Grubbers, Bombheads and Tiffs', 'The Lighter Side of Navy Life', 'Characters', 'What a Great Idea...Well Maybe Not', 'Training Days', 'In Action', 'With Other Navies', 'Into The Future...Whatever It May Hold'. There is also a section at the end entitled 'Thoughts' where people freely express what their FAA service means to them; some have written a simple phrase, others a sentence or two, others a paragraph, but all really evoke that pride and esprit de corps which is so obvious amongst you all. If you have not already contributed to that section, please do! The other difference is that we have taken the opportunity to include some of the very many one or two-liners gathered over the years - the 'swinging the lamp' stuff. These do not easily fit into a chapter structure, so they are tacked on - completely unconnected - after the end of each chapter under the heading 'Nutty'. Some are sad, some are amazing, mostly they are VERY funny! And of course, there will be many photos, and some are especially poignant.

The aim is to close the FAAB series with something which we hope you will all find to be quite special. To that end we hope that as many of you as possible will be there, regardless of which volume(s) you have appeared in. To date 231 of you have contributed in some way, so let's look forward to making it a major gathering and a highly memorable event.

We will update you all as time goes on.
Best regards to all
Steve and Heather
Dr Steve Bond PhD CEng FRAeS
Walnut Cottage
4 Pant Glas
Oswestry
Shropshire
SY10 7HS
Tel: 01691 661564
Email:by.meteor@outlook.com

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RAF Museum acquires three significant collections from 20th century aviation photographers.

"The first collection, acquired before lockdown, is from Richard Winslade worked with historic aviation organisations, including the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the Royal Navy Historic Flight."

Full article at - https://photoarchivenews.com/news/raf-m ... llections/

Link from Tim.

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845 Naval Air Squadron

Our USMC exchange Officer was promoted to Major this week.
Officiated by CO 845, Capt Washburn took the oath whilst airborne. His wife Katherine then conducted the ‘pinning on’ of the golden oak leaf, denoting the rank of Major in the USMC.
See photos at - https://twitter.com/845NAS/status/1555102052929478656

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X-periment by commando fliers vastly improves helicopter availability for Royal Marine ops

Navy air engineers cut through red tape and embraced tech to improve the availability of front-line helicopters for the Royal Marines by one third.

For a month a team at 845 Naval Air Squadron, whose Merlin helicopters carry Royal Marines and their kit into action from the Arctic to the jungle or desert, ditched old school paper and form-filling practices to see whether going digital – including harnessing Virtual and Augmented Reality – could make them better, faster, more effective engineers.

It did. The four-week dry run led to getting twice as much use out of the helicopters, while increasing their availability by 30 per cent.

The team behind 845 Squadron’s B Flight – three Merlin Mk4 helicopters, maintained by a team of around 50 engineers and technicians – transformed into X Flight (X for eXperimentation).

Engineers drew upon their years of maintaining and servicing cutting-edge helicopters cut through red tape and harness apps, digital accounting, plus virtual and augmented reality.

Using fully-digital recording tools and web-based technical documentation cut supervisors’ administration time in half – a lesson which could be shared by everyone involved in military aviation engineering.

Continues at - https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... marine-ops

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F.A.A. BOYS - VOL. 4

Dear all,

The manuscript for 'Fleet Air Arm Boys' volume 4 is now complete and Heather and I will be starting our first proofread any day now. As ever, a huge 'thank you' to all 108 of you who have contributed.

In fact the final tally of contributions to the four-volume series is, one and a quarter million words and 8,000 photographs from 236 people (so far) - staggering numbers! New material is still arriving and fear not, nothing will be lost - everything will be going to Navy Wings for archiving and made available for future research.

For any of you who may still be unclear about the steer of this "grand finale", please see the attachment. I have to say I am delighted with the enthusiastic way so many of you have pitched in with your stories, photos, etc., and told us how much you are looking forward to it. I think the end result may please and surprise you all. As you might expect, there are no details about the launch as yet, but it is expected to be around the same time of year as the previous two volumes. We will of course, update you all on progress from time to time.

Best wishes as ever, or should we simply say,
Aye
Steve and Heather

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PILOTS

Pilot training.

[ivorthediver]

Well perhaps the UAV's will be both quicker and cheaper eh David ?

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Christmas at the Fleet Air Arm Museum.

This Christmas why not treat yourself and your loved ones to one of our special events at the Fleet Air Arm Museum. Be creative with our Christmas wreath making event or get into the Christmas spirit with our Christmas concert under Concorde. We also have lots for families too with our Christmas Trail, so there really is something for all the family this festive season.

See - https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/inbox/i ... AAAA%3D%3D

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Lough Foyle: Royal Navy helicopter wreck found after 60 years

The wreck of a Royal Navy helicopter which came down in Lough Foyle more than 60 years ago has been found by researchers mapping Northern Ireland's coast.

The Royal Navy Westland Dragonfly crashed into the lough during a recovery exercise on 25 November 1958.
It was discovered earlier in the year by researchers working on a 3D coastal survey of Northern Ireland.
The wreck's exact whereabouts have not been revealed.
The coastal survey was commissioned by Stormont's Department of Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera).

From <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-63505442>

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A History of Rotary-Wing Airborne Early Warning/ Airborne Surveillance and Control in the Royal Navy 1982-2022

A specially commissioned, limited edition hardback book published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Project LAST.
Eyes of the Fleet tells the story of rotary-wing AEW/ASaC in the Royal Navy over four decades. Starting with the hurried conversion of two Sea King AEW helicopters for service in the South Atlantic, this beautifully illustrated volume charts the operational career of the subsequent AEW Mk 2 and ASaC Mk 7 variants through to the final retirement of the ‘Bag’ in September 2018. It goes on to detail the development of the new Merlin Crowsnest capability.
Our thanks to Leonardo Helicopters. Lockheed Martin and Thales for their support
Eyes of the Fleet by Richard Scott - Limited edition - only available from Navy Wings
Regular price£24.95

From <https://shop.navywings.org.uk/products/ ... krEALw_wcB>

Eyes of the Fleet - a history of rotary-wing AEW/ASaC in the Royal Navy - was launched at the AnyFace Association reunion last Saturday. Copies now on sale through @NavyWingsUK

Four photos at - <https://twitter.com/rich_scott2/status/ ... 52/photo/1>