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COVER IMAGE: Hawker Sea Fury T.20 VX281 was captured in flight by LEE HOWARD during its delivery to RNAS Yeovilton in March 2011.

Contents

July 2011 Vol 39 No 7 Issue No 459 (on sale May 31)

Features18BYROYALAPPOINTMENT

Jarrod Cotter goes behind the scenes at RAF Coningsby to see how the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight undertook its flypast for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton

50 PERFORMS LIKE A JET,

SOUNDS LIKE AN ANGEL! The life of Hawker Sea Fury T.20 VX281, now operated by the Royal Navy Historic Flight, is hi ghlighted in words and pictures by Lee Howard, with a pilot’s report by Lt Cdr Chris Götke RN

24 DEEDS NOT WORDS

Martyn Chorlton surveys 20 Sqn’s “F.E. years” during the First World War, when the unit earned the Battle Honours Western Front 1916-18, Somme 1916, Arras and Ypres 1917

32 BISLEY SORTIE

Using a wartime photograph album, Jarrod Cotter describes a typical operation by 13 Sqn while operating the Bristol Blenheim V in 1943, and compares it with the last flight, made shortly before the squadron’s recent disbandment

40 SHOWING THE FLAG

Norman Franks provides an extract from the biography of Air Cdre D’Arcy Greig, describing a flight from Egypt to Cape Town in 1931, a journey made annually by chosen Flights from RAF squadrons

60 FAILED PARIS

DEBUTANTES To coincide with this year’s 49th Salon in June, Barry Wheeler recalls a few of the unusual and short-lived designs produced by French manufacturers that appeared in the shows just after the Second World War

90 FAREWELL TO THE “DOLL”

Richard Paver laments the departure from the UK of Rob Davies’s well-known Mustang Big Beautiful Doll

99 KWICHERBICHEN

Squadron Leader Clive Rowley tells the story behind the new identity chosen for the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Douglas Dakota III, ZA947

DATABASE

In News

Polikarpov debuts Page 6

Second Buchon Page 7

Fokker D VII flies Page 8

Oldest Stearman Page 11

Colditz glider repro Page 12

17PAGESOFDETAIL

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69 CONVAIR 880 AND 990 George Williamson tells the story of Convair’s sleek, stylish and fast jetliners ek ylish d fa j li

WIN!WIN!

49 Competition Your chance to win tickets to RNAS Yeovilton International Air Day plus helicopter pleasure flights 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)

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