Lee Howard

If you fail to hit the aerodrome then it's neither an aerodrome, a dummy deck, nor a landing....it's a crash 😄

Makes sense. But 'DDL' isn't a recognised term when dealing with FAA types. It's ADDLs (Aerodrome Dummy Deck Landings).

Andy It's an impressive undertaking regardless of any inaccuracies (see my earlier comment on that). Abbreviation queries found so far as examples: 'CA' and 'CB' are given as an accident categories, but no real explanation of what the abbreviations actually stand for. Presumably the letters are Category A and Category B? ATO = Aborted Take Off? [see Z7067 & AE965] AC = Presumably Category Ac? DDL = ? [see AE968] Robin sites? Lee

Thanks @Troy Smith. Always useful to check all sources. However, while there's clearly been a lot of work put into compiling it, I think it worth pointing out that there are a good number of errors I've spotted in what I've checked so far (an obvious example being a RNZNVR pilot - listed as RNZVR - whose date of death is wrong) and abbreviations for which there are no explanations - even in the abbreviations list. And the abbreviation 'RNAS' being cited as 'Royal Naval Air Service', which grates enormously... None of us will ever achieve 100% accuracy, but hopefully when our revised book is published it'll be a good deal easier to read and interpret.

It's definitely Yeovilton. The hangar immediately behind, on 'Taranto Way' (check it out on Google Earth) is now 845 NAS' hangar full of Merlin HC.4s. 5 Hangar (the one with the buttress roof) is still in use too. The old Dope Shop in between has long since been replaced by a new facility.

There's a salutary lesson there to everyone: buy early! 🙂 Unfortunately, no plans to reprint - it wouldn't be financially viable given that it's taken 8 years to sell the initial print run. It would be pointless anyway without updating everything (which we do continually, but not in a laid-out book form). Something that will no doubt happen in due course, but not for some time yet (I've still to complete the wartime serials book). Second hand copies are the only alternative if Navy Wings have sold all of theirs, too.

The Air-Britain member discount price applied when bought direct from Air-Britain, but they've sold all their stock now. It's been out since 2016! Depends if you want correct info or not....

Nice film made mainly at Yeovilton and featuring an instantly recognisable Dickie Cork.

Unfortunately, that's the 1994 version. Way out of date. The Squadrons and Units of the Fleet Air Arm (2016) by Theo Ballance, Ray Sturtivant, and me is what you need. Available here

They're all metal construction, so nothing to do with material (like Mosquito self sealing tanks). On LS326 this and the main tank have been refinished in the peculiar bluey-greeny grey colour (NOT 'cockpit green') we found when stripping the aircraft. It's a difficult one to describe and had to be colour matched especially. But note on the diagram from the Air Publication how light the colour is - definitely not red, which also lends weight to the belief that it was the same grey. The oil tank had been finished by BAES years ago in what appears to be EDSG.

If it's easier... The body was akin to (at a guess) Light Aircraft Grey with a matt black circular transducer antennae.

The side view illustration above appears to show the Type 194 transducer head, not the 195 (as shown in the pics from Weston-super-Mare above from the HAS.3/Sea King HAS.1 etc.). I only managed to find one real example of the 194 (in the back of XP142 at FAAM with the cable un-ceremonially hacksawed off); the pic of it is in my Haynes Manual (p.112). However, the HAS.31B had an altogether different version - again, photos of all three are on the same page of the book. Unfortunately I don't have a flickr account to be able to share the image here.

So you are....! 🙂

Haynes Manual is pretty good.....;-)

At some stage we have seen Bret's logbook and made a summary of the notable entries. However this won't necessarily give the precise info you're looking for as it was in the days before access to easy copying methods; also, I don't have access to it at the moment. I'll try and remember to add it to my list of things to dig out.