Crossing the great divide Page 22 Action! 1960s fi lm fl ying Page 30 Building confi dence Page 42

HAWKER HUNTER SP EC I A L S EC T I O N

36 Flying the Cold War

Front Line Mike McEvoy, former Hunter driver with 2nd TAF in West Germany, recalls being young and in love — with the Hunter

41 The Hunter in detail Mike Badrocke’s superbly detailed Hunter FGA.9 cutaway

42 Sand, Sweat and

Hunters Ex-Hunter FR.10 pilot Nigel

Walpole explains how the RAF Airfi eld Construction Branch made Hunter ops possible in the Middle East in the 1960s

48 Hunter centrespread

pull-out poster An exclusive two-Hunter study from the lens of Richard Paver

51 The Dream Hunters Tim Skeet profi les Delta Jets, the Kemble-based Hunter and vintage jet specialists

Other Features 14 A Tragedy of Errors In this month’s Hidden History Robert F. Dorr reveals both sides of the story of the air combat event of the Second World War which nobody talks about: the “friendly fi re” incident in which two dozen USAAF C-47s were shot down — by the US Navy

30 Shooting Lili In 1968 pilot-for-hire Charles Boddington fl ew the tricky fl ying sequences for the Julie Andrews fi lm Darling Lili. His son, display pilot Matthew, shares his memories of visiting the set as a boy, along with his father’s stunning collection of colour photographs taken while fi lming

22 Blériot — Man of

La Manche Louis Blériot: pioneer of overwater fl ying and fervent nonswimmer. Philip Jarrett sifts fact from myth in the story of the great man’s Channel fl ight 100 years ago

58 A Twenties Twosome A splendid photograph, plus report, by Steven Jefferson, of BAE Systems’ Blackburn B-2 and D.H.60 Cirrus Moth duo, now based together at Old Warden COVER IMAGE RICHARD PAVER photographed Delta Jets chief pilot Andy Cubin fl ying Hawker Hunter T.7 WV318/ G-FFOX at about 5,000ft a few miles north of its base at Kemble, Gloucestershire, on May 31, 2009. See this month’s centre-spread and the feature on page 51.

THIS PAGE “Gott in Himmel!” — a Fokker D VII replica goes up in fl ames during the making of Darling Lili in Ireland in the summer of 1968. Matthew Boddington’s story of the fi lming of the movie’s fl ying sequences begins on page 30 . . .

CHARLES BODDINGTON

Contents

August 2009 Vol 37 No 8 Issue No 436 (on sale July 1)

Regulars 4 News All the latest preservation news, compiled by Tony Harmsworth

20 Aircrew James Kightly describes the role of an Airspeed Horsa pilot, with illustration by Ian Bott

AircrewAircrew

28 Where on Earth? The virtual search is on for a DC-6B in Slovenia, with Peter Davison

57 Picture of the Month Your chance to buy an evocative image of a Hawker Hunter FR.10

75 From the Archives Nick Stroud revisits the aviation news

and issues of 65 years ago — 1944

76 Readers’ Archive A colourful selection of photographs, sent in by reader Jorge J. Suárez

85 Crosswind John Fricker provides sideways comment on the aviation world

John Fricker provides sideways comment on the aviation world

90

90 Skywriters A selection of readers’ letters on a wide range of topics

93 Flying Visit Melvyn Hiscock puts his usual questions to Roger Milburn

96 Hairy Moment Our regular spot for your historic-aviation close calls

In Database

61 The Gloster Grebe Gloster specialist DEREK JAMES tells the full story of the company’s little-celebrated Grebe fi ghter — the RAF’s fi rst post-First World War operational biplane fi ghter 62 Genesis — the development of Henry Folland’s High Lift Biplane wing 63 Scale drawings by Juanita Franzi 65 Anatomy of a diving bird — the small and agile Grebe in technical detail 67 Development — preparing the Grebe for its introduction into RAF service 69 Service history — includes full colour squadron markings by Juanita Franzi 72 The New Zealand Grebes

PAGES IN-DEPTH IN-DEPTH IN-DEPTH IN-DEPTH IN-DEPTH IN-DEPTH PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES 12IN-DEPTH PAGES 12

IN-DEPTH

In Navigator

Our Navigator section at the back of the magazine tells you all you need to know about what to buy and where to go:

79 Three Greens 79 Book Reviews 83 Auction update 84 Information Exchange 85 Crosswind 86 Airshows and Events 87 Registration Update 88 Classifi ed 94 Aeroplane services — back-issues, subscriptions, binders, newsagent order form, annual index and more 95 Contacts and next month in Aeroplane

In News

Canadian Lysander Page 4

French FW 190 Page 6

MiGs in Poland Page 8

Dornier roll-out Page 11

Triplane rediscovered Page 12

established 1911established 1911

established 1911 Aeroplane traces its lineage back to the weekly The Aeroplane, founded by the legendary C.G. Grey in 1911 and published until 1968. It was relaunched as a monthly magazine in 1973 by Richard T. Riding (Editor for 25 years until 1998)

1968. It was relaunched as a monthly magazine