Trotski

Yes the RAF were using several types at the time in Transport Command, the Beverly, the Argosy ( whistling wheelbarrow ) the Andover , the Britannia, and the Belfast, also the Comet 2 and 4 the Beverly was phased out once we started re equipping with the C130 also the Argosy went too, the Belfast stayed in service until around 1977 I do remember my Father who was a Flight engineer on Britannias praying not to be posted on to a Herc Squadron, as he disliked the C130 for some reason, I never did find out why, So after the Brits were retired from service, he was posted fromm 99 Squadron at Lyneham, to 53 Squadron at Brize Norton, and he went on to fly on the Belfast, an aircraft he loved almost as much as the Britannia, when the Belfast was demobbed in 77, the RAF in their wisdom decieded that a Master Flight Engineer, who had served from 1942 until that time, and only had about 18months of service left before mandatory retirement , that they would post him to a VC 10 squadron, my Dad was horrified and mystified at the same time, as he had never flown on Blow jobs, as he always said a good screw is much better So he banged his notice in and ended up flying with Heavy Lift on the Belfast so he was a very happy bunny indeed.

its got nothing to do with looks....the F4 Phantom was even called a double ugly, and look what a great aircraft it was, Tornado was ok as an attack aircraft, but it was crap as a fighter, especially compared to the likes of the F-15 and 16, and the Mig 29 & Su-27 s as for being a beauty.......errr...no.....the Jag was a beauty, the Bucc was, the Tornado was all fin and nothing else.......The Lightning was never ugly...Brutal yes, ugly no...and what pray is a Viper ? unless you mean the F-16 so the article is about the actual aircraft and how pants they were, and nothing at all to do with how poncy they looked....Just sayin'

wonder if it had anything to do with the Farnbrough disaster ? Also were procurements different for the RAF and the FAA......there was a lot of political wrangling going on at the time too the Labour Government of the time wasn't very Forces friendly. TSR2 scrapped etc. plus I guess there was some amount of competition between British aircraft companies and the American ones as well, so that may have caused a few issues as well......Didn't we aquire the Phantom as a stop gap ? and look how long the Rhino served in both the FAA and the RAF.

Yup there are some horrors in there for sure the Roc was awful, as awful as the defiant , until that stalwart was made a night fighter, where it was quite successful , I never ever liked the Tornado, at all, we should have bought F-16's , used to see Beverlys quite a lot as a kid as I lived on RAF Lyneham , so all the transport command aircraft came through there, the Javelin, may have been a bit crap, but it did stay in service for 12 years, and crap or not, its a cool looking aircraft......We on the other side of the coin has some superb aircraft too, the Buccaneer, the Spey engined F4 the Hunter, the Jaguar, the Lightning, to name but a few, I guess every country has its fair share of howlers.