I miss my drawing board. Blank sheet of paper in front of you. And imagination.

In fairness, we also designed some incredibly ugly aircraft too. Just look at earlier models designed by Blackburn. Saying that, that particular manufacturer atoned for past mis-steps when they designed the Buccaneer. A classic of its kind.

@@sandervanderkammen9230 Good point! I guess they are now off shore enjoying the States or Asia!

Apparently, we have just a service-based economy, and without the European countries we were the sick man of europe

And Dassault were watching and hmmm-ing... voila Mirage :-)

My father was with Fairey's for 46 years. From apprentice building Halifax bombers during the war through Fireflies and Barracudas at Ringway, then the drawing office and stress office in Heaton Chapel, Stockport. He was with them through the end of the aircraft company and into the nuclear industry. He often talked of the FD2 being the finest aircraft they ever made. As an aside, Peter Twiss retired from test flying to become Fairey Marine's demonstrator skipper, taking Huntsmen and Swordfish powerboats all over the world.

With the TSR2, well burned and buried thanks to the high quality Royal Politicians that control the UK over people´s wishes...

My Grandfather Matt Lipscombe was Foreman the body works (experimental aircraft) until he died in 1962. He worked on both the FD2 and Rotodyne.

@@keithhoughton4308 I met Peter Twiss up here in Wales when he bought a newly bought Huntsman up for a customer. As I was just 11 at the time, I was more interested in the boat than the man. He gave me a Fairey tiepin - long lost of course.

And all too often with a naffly implausible dialogue dubbed over the top.

Nice one bill

Newhaven certainly has changed a bit since this was filmed, didn't recognise it until the bends heading in to Peacehaven. Not from there myself but live close by and have family there. Drove that road twice a day for years and tears, not at 1100+ mph though...

Were the best

That is where the Concorde designers got the idea.

@@johnkelinske1449 wow that's awesome 😀

It was tested out on t FD2

Makes it look like a buzzard.

A good example of documentaries before the widespread Attention deficit disorder most people have these days.😜

The Lighting was barely acceptable as a Soviet bomber killer. no endurance, only two very very unreliable missiles ( Firestreak or Red Top) a third of them were lost mainly due to fire in the rear lower engine bay. Good fun to fly but years behind the Yanks!!! Like TSR2 another white elephant that lives on as an undeservered legend.

all firms in all walks of life occasionally get it wrong (lookup Avro Manchester, yet..) - tbf the Battle probably satisfied the Air Ministry specs it was aimed at...... perhaps the spec was wrong, not the aircraft. As a graduate engineer in '84 I joined EMI in Hayes west London, making radar, in the mechanical "stress section" next to the drawing office. The oldest man in the section (of 8 men) was an ex Fairey's engineer, old school stress man. Fairey had previously had a big factory in Hayes as well as using Heston airfield down the road, the head office to their later/newer plant at Stockport. Jim was a dour old Scotsman, but the nearest I've seen to a maths genius, he could do complex differential calculus etc in his head for fun. Yes we had basic computers and scientific calculators buit Jim was from the old school sliderule days, just like your old boy, when drawing offices had loads of skilled engineers number crunching etc etc. Most of the time our Jim had no work, so he'd read thro old maths text books, looking (and finding) errors, or would wander around looking for people to bore haha. Given his age he must have joined Faireys abt 1940, I remember he'd worked a lot on the Gannet, which was how he'd got to work at EMI as we were making airborne radar systems similar to what the Gannet did - the Gannet was a horrible looking aircraft but VERY efficient, a great design. Ditto the Rotodyne was way ahead of its time, Faireys really could and did design some great aircraft, also missiles (associated with the FD2). And pre WW2 Fairey had built their reputation on maritime aircraft, seaplanes etc, and as you'll know they HAVE to be really tough, rugged, reliable aircraft, hence they may look ugly but so what. Which is how the stringbag Swordfish still did great job in WW2. Re the FD2, I've always been interested in ultra high speed cars and flight, and that may well be due to the fact I liked making Airfix model kits as a kid, and one of the earliest I made was the FD2, with drooping nose, dunno why someone thought I'd like that as a small boy it had no guns lol), but it struck a chord with me.

I was just 13 days old when it made its maiden flight

I used to see them fly from RAF Waddington in the 60s.

I live a mile away from the old factory. Now a housing estate (of course)

Yes i wish they would play videos like these next to the aircraft. Know somewhere who works there. But like most of these places, management..say no more.

@@flybobbie1449 Maybe you have to join the RAF first.

Great engineers but terrible bureaucrats.

@@sandervanderkammen9230 So you think Britain has the most advanced Aeronautical engineering Knowledge in the World today. I would have to agree. Their aircraft and engines definitely outperform anything flying today.

Ian God… no he didn’t claim what you seem to think. Try reading his post again … jeez!

Ah, no. The electronics were of a very high standard, albeit using thermionic valves. Good enough that they could be used in proximity fuses in flak rounds, which exploded in close proximity to German bombers during WW2. Good enough to withstand the tremendously high g-forces when being fired out of an anti-aircraft gun & still work. Electronics were of a very high standard before solid state semiconductors.

Actually, I went to the Navel Air Fleet museum in Yeovilleton (UK) - the Concorde wing design is exactly the same as this jet, that is what caused the nose to be to high when landing, hence the nose was modified to drop on landing. This jet was designed in 1954, ten years before Concord.

I thought the same thing when I saw it

@@matrixpub the FD2 shown here had a straight leading edge while Concord has a graceful otive leading edge.

@@neiloflongbeck5705 they built 2. The record breaking version shown here was later modified with an ogival wing, as a prototype for the Concorde wing. So no, not the wing shown here but yes, the wing the plane has now in the museum. The later plane still has the original simple Delta wing.

Our pleasure, glad you enjoyed it!

Glad you enjoyed it

Our pleasure!

Peter Twiss went on to fly a Fairey Swordfish in the film Sink the Bismarck , and also a Powerboat Skipper for Smersch in From Russia With Love..

also trafficviolations... and most likely without seatbelts...

@@w.callens1629 Seatbelts weren't fitted until 70s for the most

@@ianmangham4570 thats why i said it. . .

No fancy runway markings in those days, to have had them wasn't British, old chap.

Not a hi-vis jacket in sight, they just got the job done

Precisely, the Concorde was the result of the use of the Fairey FD-2, the Short SC-1 & the Bristol T-188 as test platforms. I regret only that this video doesn't have more flight views of this beautiful plane. Love Britain !

A modified version was indeed used much later for Concorde test purposes. Look up BAC 221 used until 1973.

You are welcome!

Thank you for visiting

Many thanks, glad you enjoy it!

@@BritishHelicoptersHistory Oh yes, i enjoy all of your stuff here - because it is very worth it !

@@BritishHelicoptersHistory Enjoying all of your stuff... and it`s really worth it !!!

@@BritishHelicoptersHistory For You, all the time Sir !!!

It sure is! thanks for watching

@@BritishHelicoptersHistory I knew a gentleman who got to fly in the back seat of the Gloster Meteor chase plane used on the final flight of one of the FD2s. When they got back on the ground he handed the FD2 pilot a clipboard with a signoff sheet for his comments and he simply wrote "Satis" on it meaning satisfactory. Elegant ending for an elegant aircraft.

@@sandervanderkammen9230 read back trough the comments or get an adult to do it for you, we were on about the nineteen fifty’s it’s now 2021most of the British aircraft manufacturers were bought out and merged multiple times to form groups such as BAE systems

So much so not for the government bean counters and company forced mergers since the white paper of the late 1950's. Things that escaped, GE's Lightning, the Kestrel/Harrier, V bomber upgrades though one stop gap design, the Valiant, had to be retired due to wing spar fatigue due to the low level flight adoption. Also coming in the 1960's was the Shackleton replacement (Comet 4/Nimrod) and the later VC10 in flight re fuelling tanker adaption together with the Victor. A later joint nation defense aircraft development was the Tornado.

@@sandervanderkammen9230 It is hard to believe now that Britain was a world power only a lifetime in the past , one success they seem to excel at is failure in everything they do except welfare and the national religion NHS .

@@sandervanderkammen9230 Have you been in lockdown too long?...you seem very negative in all your comments. Cheer up, it may never happen.

@@martinjohnson9316 Possible Wilbur Finnegan/Soaring Tractor. Absolutely loathes anything British.

That's proper budget control, that is!

@@FlashPan73 Bloody typical more like. Well chaps, we can buy decent steps or restock the drinks cabinet.

And gloves without his fingers poking through!

'Brylcreme' and city shoes typical p.p.e. of the day.

@MichaelKingsfordGray They named him after Gytha Ogg's cat. You don't *get* cooler than being named after Nanny Ogg's well 'ard cat.

The Bell X1 borrowed heavily from British input from the Miles aircraft company whose design drawings were gifted to the Americans when we cancelled the Miles M52. Most notably the flying tail was an idea we gave them.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_M.52

The Bell was rocket powered, the Fairey was jet turbine powered (R.R. Avon). The Bell had to be air launched, the Fairey used a conventional airfield. The Fairey was the first aircraft to exceed 1,000 M.P.H. in level flight and still holds an unbroken record of having broken the absolute world air speed by the biggest ever margin. It (the Fairey) was designed and built when Britain ruled the air.

@@PenzancePete Correct comment.

@@timhancock6626 Sure did.

@valleywoodworker He certainly doesn't know much. Its probably another alias of that other idiot soaring tractor.

Boscombe Down. If you put that in Google Maps search field you will see it.

It's difficult to say since i could not find any reliable source online talking about it. However, Fairey had good relations with Dassault and the Delta 2 even did testings in France, so, in the end, everything is possible :). For me, even if the two had a delta wing and similar looks, the Mirage III was definitely not a direct copy of the Delta 2.