Sunday 7 December 2008

Farnborough Air Show, 1964

What a treat! My father took me to the Farnborough Air Show in 1964. Above: English Electric F1A Lightning XM794 (see colour pic of same aircraft here)

Above: A quartet of Lightning F1As in diamond formation fly past an Armstrong-Whitworth Argosy.

Above: Fairy Delta II WG774, after its rebuild to test the ogilval delta shape wings used on Concorde. This particular aircraft is on display at the Fleet Air Arm museum in Yeovilton.

Above: Two test pilots looking on at a Hawker Hunter (foreground, in export camouflage markings) and a BAC Buccaneer. In the distance, left, is visible a Short Belfast.

And here it is (above) - XR364 Pallas. The Belfast's first flight was in January that year, and it was not to enter RAF squadron service until 1966.

Above: Beagle B.206 G-ASMK at Farnborough. Click here for colour picture of same aircraft; details of pic confirm the date of the air show as September 1964.

All photos by my father, Bohdan Dembinski.

3 comments:

Aphelion said...

Those are great photos, wow! It's nice that they're so well-preserved and you got to put them online at last! Looking forward to more, those first ones have whetted my appetite :-)

Ray... said...

I went to many shows here, but maybe not this one.

The Lightning photo is actually a single-seat F.3 (the colour photo is a two-seat T.4) and is probably XP697. The Hunter was actually one awaiting delivery to Iraq.

You may find this link of interest
http://www.scramble.nl/showreports.htm

Ray

Lorraine said...

I am a South African who was living in London during 1964 and went to the Farnborough airshow. It was my first Airshow. Can recall seeing a vertical take-off at the show. My life partner is an ex pilot who has flown the F86 Sabre Jet and the F104 Starfighter amongst many others and we often go to Airshows in South Africa, where we now live.