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These pictures were taken at RNAS Yeovilton on September 29 2001 at a reunion open to all ex-Sea Vixen fliers, maintenance crews and partners. There were also some aviation enthusiasts in attendance.
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Boring in at high speed towards the audience. |
| The increasing moisture content of the air is clearly apparent by the well defined vortex from the port wing tip. The front that had been building to the southwest was getting closer. Whilst waiting for the Palouste hose nozzle to arrive from Hurn we had been viewing this front with some suspicion in case Bournmouth became 'socked in'. This could have prevented the flying as the aircraft was due to return home to Hurn at the end of the display. The aircraft is a 'flyer' but no longer has the instrumentation for an all-weather capability anymore, let alone weapons use. |
Commencing a high speed turn to cross the front of the assembled crowd. |
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The effect of the jet efflux is clearly visible in this shot. The FAA used AVCAT in their operational aircraft rather than the AVTUR (or sometimes AVTAG) used by the RAF. The reason for this was that AVCAT resisted the growth of a fungus in storage tanks which AVTUR did not. This was very important at sea where cleaning storage tanks in an aircraft carrier could cause an unacceptable operational hiatus. AVCAT tended to produce more soot however a quality which caused special measures to be taken for cleaning the combustion chamber burners in the Phantom Spey later.
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