As an ancient French sailor, flight deck crew member aboard Porte-avions Foch and Clémenceau in the early 90's, i must say that's an amazing footage, very impressive, magnificent Wessex and F4, Buccanneers were so massive!! well done! the Ark royal was a very nice ship not very different than ours, old fashion way..Back in time i usually worked around the Flottille 12F equipped with F8 Crusader, the last gunfighter, amazing aircraft, night ops were pretty scary,..Cheers fron France
@Slater Slater I think the French navy was the last operational user ( early 2000's) after Philipines dicomintionned their own F-8, ours F-8E ( FN) recieved special modifications like the angle attack of the deployed wing, leading edges slats in two element, new avionics...glad to have seen these amazing fighters in action on board...
@Slater Slater yes the exocet missile/ Super Etendard was a deadly combo, RIP for the crews of the Sheffield destroyer...When i was aboard the Foch and Clémenceau most of the entire air group could fit on the hangar ( aproximatly 30 aircrafts), 2 Alouette III ( aka " PEDRO" escadrille 23S.), 1 or 2 Dauphin chopper ( also " Pedro") same job than your Wessex, Super Etendard ( 10 aircrafts flottille 14F, 17F) ( like Buccanneer), few Etendard IV P for recon mission ( P for Photo flottile 16F ), 4 or 5 Bréguet Alizé ( same as Gannet flottille 6F.) AEW mission, and like the Phantoms, F-8E FN for the air superiority missions ( less than 10, Flottille 12F call sign "lascar"), a couple of Super-frelon ( like seaking flottille 33F) and often, 2 super Etendard with air refuelling belly pods. Flottille had the same type of aircraft, escadrille were composed with different aircrafts ( Alouette II/ III, Dauphin).most of the time only few planes were spotted on the flight deck when the 3 hangars were fully load...
@Slater Slater i have some very good mémories about the F-8 at sea, during night ops, full afterburner after cat launch, and that aircraft was magnificent on the glide slope with fully rised wing, full down flaperons, dark smoke at every power management, And what about that amazing front wheelie after every touch down...
HMS Ark Royal RO9, was my first ship in my 25 year Naval career. I was on board 1972 to 1973, just one year, but what a year! Trips to Rosyth, Oslo, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Malta and then a 3 month deployment to the Caribbean and the USA where I managed to get a week's leave in Florida. This footage is from two years after I left but nothing has changed, with the mighty Phantoms and Buccaneers in high profile. I worked in the Pay Office with a dozen others but would often spend my leisure time up on the 'Goofing Deck' on the Island amidships watching the take-offs and landings and taking slide pictures. It was known as the 'Jewel in the Crown' of the Royal Navy at the time, and I was sad to see it scrapped. The name ARK ROYAL has been lost, it seems but maybe one day it will emerge again, I do hope so!
I was on board the Ark when they made this video. A very exciting place to be working as a young lad - particularly during recovery stations in rough seas and at night.
This is the sort of gem of a film that makes it worthwhile coming to UA-cam. I loved every moment of it, thank you - and who doesn't just love the sight and sound of a busy Aircraft Carrier (especially with Buccaneers!) ? Just brilliant.
I visited HMS Ark Royal in the 2nd half of the 70's ...I was more or less 16/17, impressive shipi, visitors were welcome and guided by Royal Marines.. unforgettable... I am now 63...
I'm an american and sailed along side of her back in 1975 while I was stationed aboard the USS Independence, CV-62. I was on the flight deck and your phantoms landed on our flight deck.
@@timj41 Maybe you should realise that the old commie agitator Merkle is really Putin's friend, she is slowly making Europe dependent on Russia for energy supply and now setting people up for Sputnik instead of AZ, watch what some former East Germans and eastern Europeans are up to, some of them still long for the old system and are longing to spread throughout the EU
I'm always struck by just how short our catapults were. BTW, the full video is a great teaching-aid for anyone wanting to show their little uns something about teamwork.
More than 50 years have passed by since this incredible documentary was shot. Most of the sailors and naval aviators depicted in this film must be 75 years old +/-! Those blokes served their country on a magnificent flattop. Pity that no more money was allocated by the government to build a third QE-class carrier to bear the legendary name HMS Ark Royal.
Was on board during this as a stoker. Happy days! I remember watching these launches and recoveries, what bottle! Also the pilot of SAR 47 who on RAS’s used to throw the Wessex around the sky like a toy. Fantastic
Its good to be reminded that the Royal Navy has decades of experience deploying aircraft carriers and their flight wing. I was never in favour of losing our carrier fleet for those years before the Queen Elizabeth class were built and commissioned.
RAF old man here: worked with many of these Buccaneers when they moved over to us. Strike, Maritime Strike and Nuclear Strike, through the times at Red Flag, and into the latter years when so many were grounded 'cos pols wouldn't spring for the remanufacture of some of the spars. Never ran out of spare parts due to this though, and our two-seat Hunter trainer for Buccaneer crews lasted another twenty years after the Buccs were retired, even though we had to replace a wing due to a 'firm' landing. The film 'Exercise Open Gate' (IIRC) covers the year before I came to Honington. Awesome Vangelis music, too. ;-)
@@MikeLacey52 Buccaneers aren’t USA and all carrier technology is British apart from daft Nuclear Power that will be disastrous when they see real naval warfare
What saddens me, is that its likely that many of the people seen in this video are now either dead or doddery! 47 years is a long time and if they were in their 30's back then, they will be in their late 70's-early 80's now! That said, I hope they all had great service lives and enjoyed their lives after they left the service. Thanks for keeping us peasants safe!...xxx
This a top quality document, with lots of details about the preparation work to be done prior a plane departs. Never seen that before, well done and thanks for sharing
God bless the Royal Navy. Undefeated since its inception, and all us Brits should be thankful for evermore for that. My father served for 15 years and was a Cold War submariner. It set the standards for all Anglosphere and Commonwealth navies and its traditions and excellence are still alive today, thankfully. Hearts of Oak indeed.
These were the golden ages. A Royal Navy Britain could justifiably be proud of. Just imagine if the Falklands War had been fought with assets like these. Maybe it would had never taken place, right?
The bitch would have scrapped it. Just like she was set to get rid of one-third of the UK Navy's surface fleet following the 1981 "Defence" Review. She was also intending to sell HMS Invincible and her aircraft to the Australians.
This isn't a training film, it's a recruiting film! I can't resist watching every time it's here available: great tempo, great announcing, the unbeleivable squeeze of giant a/c on a Very Short deck, a classy Gannet, i could go on... It would B nice 2 C the new twins snap it up like this old FAA used 2
John Cameron FFS John.Our American friend wasn't having a dig.He was merely stating a fact.The fleet air Arm boys done a great job landing those jets on our smaller carriers.
One of the greatest inventions by the Royal Naval Air Arm was the Ramp. Simple and elegant and copied by the Russians and Chinese... I wonder why the Americans have not subscribed to it
@Teh Goat, the ramp affords less than half the payload and weight of the Aircraft than the Catapult. The Ramp has no advantages over the catapult: none.
@@jacktanner4948 Because it fits much better. Ark Royal is THE name for british aircraft carriers. QE is a battleship name, now appropriate for a submarine, not for a carrier.
American flattops are named after presidents so the Brits followed the same piece of advice by naming their new carriers after the Queen and her heir. It would've been fantastic to name the new carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Victorious since both names represent a magnificent naval heritage in the Royal Navy. It's all politics nowadays.
This was made the year I was born, the Royal Navy really used to be something. Maybe with the introduction of the new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers it will restore some pride to the RN.
The whole West has gone backwards, courtesy of the leftard quislings. Someone like Callahan would have licked Galtieri's boots after handing him over the Falklands.
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy How do you know that? The Labour Party supported Thatcher during the Falklands. I'm no fan, believe me, but Callahan and Healy were decent people.
@@mookie2637 decent as individuals, no doubt. But moved by their leftist convictions which had always been those of the appeasers who view patriotism as warmongering. Like (the British Noam Chomsky)Alan John Percival Taylor's ''There was nothing wrong with Hitler except he was a German.'' in his 1968''The Origins Of The Second World War''.
It just shows you can't have a navy on the cheap..... HMS Ark Royal was the best carrier of her time, cats and traps, with phamtom's and buccanners. We should have had cats and traps on HMS QE's carrier but it will cost us in the end!!!
Man read my comment! I don't know why they built them with no cats? So the only platform that can fly off QE and PoW is the f35. I guess the future is vstol. I don't know? Maybe.
Our new carriers have NO airborne early warning or airborne anti submarine capability. Unlike the US, who have the E2 hawkeye (the last thing the fleet air arm had with those sorts of capabilities was the Fairey Gannet)
We had the Ark Royal, Eagle, Hermes and Victorious at one time. Thats hundreds of aircraft capabilities at sea. Now we have two massive carriers, with a handfull of planes.
Me too, coming over on the ferry from Larne for Easter and summer holidays. As they chopped her up she rose out of the water to offer more of herself. What a visitor attraction she would be now but perhaps her destruction was a more fitting end.
Flight deck procedures look pacy enough by day and in fair weather. What must it have been like at night or in poor weather? I remember being told that a carrier such as Ark Royal could reckon on losing a man per commission through incidents such as walking into a Gannet's prop disk.
So this kid puts on a captain's hat and says "Yarrrr! I'm a PIRATE!" I asked him "Where's your Buccaneers?" And he says "On the sides of me Buccan 'ead!"
One of the pilots (at 5:30) is David Hansom, known as Twiggy. David and I joined Cathay Pacific on the same day, and we did our command courses (on the B747) at the same time, We were both checked (one of many over many months!) by a fellow by the name of Pete de Sousa, ex Fleet Air Arm Scimitars (who was checked out by my Hamble instructor, Roy Noyes). I recall going up to the 4th floor of the CX building around Christmas 1987 with David to sight our check reports (which we had to read and sign off). De Sousa did us proud, we both got reports that glowed in the dark. Sadly, both have now passed away.
Did you happen to have know a Phantom driver named Jim Bellamy either in the navy or with Cathay Pacific? He was a cabin mate at Dartmouth, but we lost touch. I understand he too passed away.
My grandfather worked on that ship, he was an engineer who would fixedThe jets if there was a problem. He was on another ship which I don’t know the name off but there where sea fury’s and sword fish on it with the jets
Mine was involved in building her! He fitted the fire fighting systems. Thinking about it, it was probably the previous Ark Royal, not this one, the one that eventually got torpedoed and sank in the Med.
A golden era no doubt - in fact I'd argue there was still a role of Buccaneers - not exactly 5th Gen but with its boundary layer control and ground effect could get in very fast and low and have capacity to deliver some serious ordnance.
I was only 9 at the time but I remember the Audacious-class Ark Royal being decommissioned It'd be nice to see an Ark Royal in the Navy's SuperCarrier fleet. I know they only plan on having 2 but a lot can change over the next decade or so. A Nuclear powered Carrier with emals and lasers may be out of the question due to costs but 10 or 20 years down the road when have all our F35's maybe then, It'd be good for the Navy to have the option to field multi-role aircraft like the Typhoon & maybe even a few Gripens if they're smart enough to buy some..
End of the Cold War meant a huge drop in funding. Same time we were seeing a huge jump in costs due to poor procurement and increasing costs of developing aircraft, ships and weapons.
The Ark and Eagle were about as small a carrier you could have to operate Bucks and Phantoms. The phantom needed a longer nose wheel than US Versions to increase lift and the Bucanneers were raised to increase lift.
Also RN Phantoms were hindered by Rolls Royce Spey engines increasing their length by iirc 100mm which necessitated the longer nose wheel or added to the reasons for it. Also, I believe the RN Phantoms were prone to damage on their tail sections due to this modification. The UK government insisted Phantoms were fitted with RR Spey engines for all the obvious reasons none of which were technology based.
After searching , I found at Falkland war British scrapped the aircraft carrier for F4 Phantom so that sent one for Harrier instead? Or she thought self defense first to keep F4 not to send?
I don't think we had a carrier for Phantoms at that time. Two carriers were involved in the Falklands war: HMS Invincible and the flag, HMS Hermes. Both carried Sea Harriers. HMS Ark Royal in this video (pennant no. R09), with a flat deck and two catapults, was an earlier generation and had been decommissioned in 1979, three years before the Falklands war. In 1982, a different HMS Ark Royal (R07) with the same ski-jump as HMS Invincible had not long been launched after building but didn't enter service until 1985.
Could be my favorite video; the building tension, beautiful aircraft (even Gannets, in their own quirky way), intake/exhaust/contraprop anxiety on a very compact deck (FEAR- the bulgy shape of a Buc must be to fair-in the pilot's cojones, but what about deck crew?). Wish we, Ever, could produce film ala Britannia. But how could 950' of deck look so small? 💜
R09 my old ship, before the angled flight deck added, for three yrs - but my work was deep inside rather than on deck. My mess deck was right below one of the catapults.
far out 7.50 .. love that nose gear and angle of attack .... gold . is it just me or is the usaf f4 nose strut shorter .. why did the brits do it so different ?
In truth, British carriers, mostly designed in the piston-engined era, were too small for operating modern jet aircraft and this was one of the expedients used to enhance them.
The Task Group my ship was in met up with Ark Royal's Group in May 1975 after a visiting Brazil. I managed to organise a visit to the Ark and was in our Wasp Helo just about to take off when the Flight Crew rushed out to the Wasp and pulled me out and the helo took off immediately. Ark Royal's Search And Rescue Wessex had an engine failure and ditched into the sea. The Wasp returned and l got my flight to the Ark. Because of the accident flying was cancelled so l couldn't see take offs and landings.
The Buccaneer had a tail bumper / skid as well. Also the Phantom in British Royal Navy service was built with an extending nose-wheel leg for the same reason. It's in this film.
Gannets, Buccaneers and Phantoms (with the able assistance of Sea Kings and Wessexes) - this was the Royal Navy's air force. It boggles the mind to think what's become of that.
No thanks, she and the rest of the 'nobility' of Europe have fucked over the common people for over a thousand years, she's a traitor and broke her sworn oath days after taking the throne.
As an ancient French sailor, flight deck crew member aboard Porte-avions Foch and Clémenceau in the early 90's, i must say that's an amazing footage, very impressive, magnificent Wessex and F4, Buccanneers were so massive!! well done! the Ark royal was a very nice ship not very different than ours, old fashion way..Back in time i usually worked around the Flottille 12F equipped with F8 Crusader, the last gunfighter, amazing aircraft, night ops were pretty scary,..Cheers fron France
@Slater Slater I think the French navy was the last operational user ( early 2000's) after Philipines dicomintionned their own F-8, ours F-8E ( FN) recieved special modifications like the angle attack of the deployed wing, leading edges slats in two element, new avionics...glad to have seen these amazing fighters in action on board...
@Slater Slater yes the exocet missile/ Super Etendard was a deadly combo, RIP for the crews of the Sheffield destroyer...When i was aboard the Foch and Clémenceau most of the entire air group could fit on the hangar ( aproximatly 30 aircrafts), 2 Alouette III ( aka " PEDRO" escadrille 23S.), 1 or 2 Dauphin chopper ( also " Pedro") same job than your Wessex,
Super Etendard ( 10 aircrafts flottille 14F, 17F) ( like Buccanneer), few Etendard IV P for recon mission ( P for Photo flottile 16F ), 4 or 5 Bréguet Alizé ( same as Gannet flottille 6F.) AEW mission, and like the Phantoms, F-8E FN for the air superiority missions ( less than 10, Flottille 12F call sign "lascar"), a couple of Super-frelon ( like seaking flottille 33F) and often, 2 super Etendard with air refuelling belly pods. Flottille had the same type of aircraft, escadrille were composed with different aircrafts ( Alouette II/ III, Dauphin).most of the time only few planes were spotted on the flight deck when the 3 hangars were fully load...
What a great conversation you two are having! Thanks. I enjoyed your interaction.
Super Entendard or Buccanneer, thats a hard choice.
@Slater Slater i have some very good mémories about the F-8 at sea, during night ops, full afterburner after cat launch, and that aircraft was magnificent on the glide slope with fully rised wing, full down flaperons, dark smoke at every power management, And what about that amazing front wheelie after every touch down...
HMS Ark Royal RO9, was my first ship in my 25 year Naval career. I was on board 1972 to 1973, just one year, but what a year! Trips to Rosyth, Oslo, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Malta and then a 3 month deployment to the Caribbean and the USA where I managed to get a week's leave in Florida. This footage is from two years after I left but nothing has changed, with the mighty Phantoms and Buccaneers in high profile. I worked in the Pay Office with a dozen others but would often spend my leisure time up on the 'Goofing Deck' on the Island amidships watching the take-offs and landings and taking slide pictures. It was known as the 'Jewel in the Crown' of the Royal Navy at the time, and I was sad to see it scrapped. The name ARK ROYAL has been lost, it seems but maybe one day it will emerge again, I do hope so!
I've always said that one of our new QE class carriers should have been given the ARK ROYAL title.
@@NOWThatsRichy ...and another should be Eagle for sure? :)
Can you describe a tyical day for yourself. What was your shift pattern and what was the food like?
My Dad was on RO9, he was on its last commission voyage. Just married and was at sea straight afterwards. He was chef and boxing 😂
A Royal Navy without Ark Royal isn't a navy at all!
My Yankee heart goes out to you Men for sharing the load of protecting the free world. And y’all make it look really really good!
I was on board the Ark when they made this video. A very exciting place to be working as a young lad - particularly during recovery stations in rough seas and at night.
That's awesome. Bet those memories will be with you forever.
How old are you, James boy? You must be 75 years old or so, mustn't you?
@@NJTDover ... 65. The video was made around the mid seventies.
How were the buccaneers? I’m a big fan of them but couldn’t find any stories from carrier crew.
I absolutely love these old films. What a gift
This is the sort of gem of a film that makes it worthwhile coming to UA-cam. I loved every moment of it, thank you - and who doesn't just love the sight and sound of a busy Aircraft Carrier (especially with Buccaneers!) ?
Just brilliant.
I visited HMS Ark Royal in the 2nd half of the 70's ...I was more or less 16/17, impressive shipi, visitors were welcome and guided by Royal Marines.. unforgettable... I am now 63...
I'm an american and sailed along side of her back in 1975 while I was stationed aboard the USS Independence, CV-62. I was on the flight deck and your phantoms landed on our flight deck.
We.will get Biden's crew uninstalled and you Commonwealth will get right too. Then we can get back to this and space too. Fuck China
@@genebohannon8820 No need to fuck China, that is a self-fucking scenario.
My father was stationed in southern Italy. The Indy came to a nearby port (Brindisi) in 76. I went on board.
Maybe worry more about Trump’s friend in the Kremlin , he’s the one messing in everyone else’s stuff. No one has stood up to him in the past 4 years
@@timj41
Maybe you should realise that the old commie agitator Merkle is really Putin's friend, she is slowly making Europe dependent on Russia for energy supply and now setting people up for Sputnik instead of AZ, watch what some former East Germans and eastern Europeans are up to, some of them still long for the old system and are longing to spread throughout the EU
I'm always struck by just how short our catapults were. BTW, the full video is a great teaching-aid for anyone wanting to show their little uns something about teamwork.
More than 50 years have passed by since this incredible documentary was shot. Most of the sailors and naval aviators depicted in this film must be 75 years old +/-! Those blokes served their country on a magnificent flattop. Pity that no more money was allocated by the government to build a third QE-class carrier to bear the legendary name HMS Ark Royal.
Always nice to see phantoms. I spent 20 years of my life working on F4C/D/E radars in USAF.
Narrator has nearly the same enthusiasim and tone as a sports commentator and I love it
Fast-paced commentary - excellent stuff. They don't make documentaries as good as this anymore.
A superb film, which really put you on the carrier deck. Great stuff! Incidently, my cousin served onboard HMS Ark Royal as a Master Ship's Diver.
Was on board during this as a stoker. Happy days! I remember watching these launches and recoveries, what bottle! Also the pilot of SAR 47 who on RAS’s used to throw the Wessex around the sky like a toy. Fantastic
Its good to be reminded that the Royal Navy has decades of experience deploying aircraft carriers and their flight wing. I was never in favour of losing our carrier fleet for those years before the Queen Elizabeth class were built and commissioned.
Love it! Only the Brits could do commentary like that!
My late great uncle was on this ship at this time RN Engineer
@@SGBlackstar :
Who's most responsible for the giving up of this ship: *Callahan?* , *Heath?* , *Wilson?*
@@Dreaded88 Wilson!! Heath could have stopped it but didn't , Callahan was off to the IMF so could not even as a ex-navy man he would want to.......
7 years later we could have done with that beauty and her brood ....
Hey, Labour needed the money for.... something.
Yep would of love to seen the buccaneer dropping bombs on the argies
@@motormech1h343 Coming in at 150 feet above the deck..... "SURPRISE"!
If we'd had her, the Argentinians probably wouldn't have attacked in the first place.
@@mongohotline Thatchers government sold her for scrap in 1980 but yeah you blame Labour you muppet.
RAF old man here: worked with many of these Buccaneers when they moved over to us.
Strike, Maritime Strike and Nuclear Strike, through the times at Red Flag, and into the latter years when so many were grounded 'cos pols wouldn't spring for the remanufacture of some of the spars.
Never ran out of spare parts due to this though, and our two-seat Hunter trainer for Buccaneer crews lasted another twenty years after the Buccs were retired, even though we had to replace a wing due to a 'firm' landing.
The film 'Exercise Open Gate' (IIRC) covers the year before I came to Honington. Awesome Vangelis music, too. ;-)
Great video. The Buccaneer was a great aircraft
FAA Phantoms FGR2s in that blue colour are are finest looking aircraft ever. Its also fun to see Buccaneers having to climb to land on a deck.
I love when the funky wah guitar comes in near the end. It dates the film perfectly!
British ship with British aircraft! I LOVE IT😍😍😍
The good old British Phantom, eh?
@@MikeLacey52
Buccaneers aren’t USA and all carrier technology is British apart from daft Nuclear Power that will be disastrous when they see real naval warfare
OMG THOSE GUYS ARE CRAZY! Holy crap that deck is small!!!!! Hats off to ya Britts good Lord.
You were more crazy during the war because you didn’t have armoured decks and that’s why the Japs were smashing into you
(kamikaze)
What saddens me, is that its likely that many of the people seen in this video are now either dead or doddery!
47 years is a long time and if they were in their 30's back then, they will be in their late 70's-early 80's now!
That said, I hope they all had great service lives and enjoyed their lives after they left the service.
Thanks for keeping us peasants safe!...xxx
My dad was CPO flight deck on the Ark mid '70s,he died aged 58 in 1999.He loved the old girl, she was his last ship before he went shorebased.
This a top quality document, with lots of details about the preparation work to be done prior a plane departs. Never seen that before, well done and thanks for sharing
I watched this video in early 70' at Hong Kong television station RTV.
went round her on a kids daytrip at Edinburgh in 1977, it was great ,i remember the ship had its own newspaper i picked one up and kept it for years
Love the commentary. RN humour at its best.
They sound like horse racing commentators 😁
God bless the Royal Navy. Undefeated since its inception, and all us Brits should be thankful for evermore for that. My father served for 15 years and was a Cold War submariner. It set the standards for all Anglosphere and Commonwealth navies and its traditions and excellence are still alive today, thankfully. Hearts of Oak indeed.
These were the golden ages. A Royal Navy Britain could justifiably be proud of. Just imagine if the Falklands War had been fought with assets like these. Maybe it would had never taken place, right?
Fascination view of a time in history.
That was wonderful. I'd have been at school at the time, but I loved anything flying or sailing.
You can understand why Maggie was disappointed when she was told the Ark Royal was no longer in service in Spring 82,!
she was scrapped in 1980, the story goes that maggie wanted a ship sent to the falklands, but did not realise it was 3 weeks sailing time
Who's most responsible for the giving up of this ship: *Callahan?* , *Heath?* , *Wilson?*
The bitch would have scrapped it. Just like she was set to get rid of one-third of the UK
Navy's surface fleet following the 1981 "Defence" Review. She was also intending to
sell HMS Invincible and her aircraft to the Australians.
Im sorry, but who's maggie?
@@Bangjopet :
*Margaret Thatcher*
A little carrier with a big punch. Crewed by the best.
This isn't a training film, it's a recruiting film! I can't resist watching every time it's here available: great tempo, great announcing, the unbeleivable squeeze of giant a/c on a Very Short deck, a classy Gannet, i could go on...
It would B nice 2 C the new twins snap it up like this old FAA used 2
seeing what we used to have makes me want to cry......
John Cameron FFS John.Our American friend wasn't having a dig.He was merely stating a fact.The fleet air Arm boys done a great job landing those jets on our smaller carriers.
One of the greatest inventions by the Royal Naval Air Arm was the Ramp. Simple and elegant and copied by the Russians and Chinese...
I wonder why the Americans have not subscribed to it
Air frame lasts a lot longer with ramps so its a toss up between catapult and ramp.
@Teh Goat, the ramp affords less than half the payload and weight of the Aircraft than the Catapult. The Ramp has no advantages over the catapult: none.
Right up to the point that the catapult goes u/s. Yes it does happen.
Fascinating. As a frenchie , fell really sad for your Navy. A shame.
Such amazing footage, thank you very much! I do miss those lovely old times...
They should have named the Queen Elizabeth Ark Royal, and the Prince of Wales Eagle.
Hermes would have more appropriate for Prince of Wales , yes Queen Elizabeth should have been name Ark Royal.
Why?
@@jacktanner4948 Because it fits much better. Ark Royal is THE name for british aircraft carriers. QE is a battleship name, now appropriate for a submarine, not for a carrier.
American flattops are named after presidents so the Brits followed the same piece of advice by naming their new carriers after the Queen and her heir. It would've been fantastic to name the new carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Victorious since both names represent a magnificent naval heritage in the Royal Navy. It's all politics nowadays.
@@UriNierer Queen Elizabeth is also the name of our, err, Queen...
Amazing how fast they work. All in unison, like a well oiled machine
I just love the look of a buccaneer, so many 60s aircraft just look so much better than modern versions, just more curvy i think
I got a good tingle in my spine watching this!
Great film footage. Amazing narration too like listening to a horse race but adds the tension.
This was made the year I was born, the Royal Navy really used to be something. Maybe with the introduction of the new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers it will restore some pride to the RN.
46 year
We seem to have gone backwards over the last Forty years.
The whole West has gone backwards, courtesy of the leftard quislings.
Someone like Callahan would have licked Galtieri's boots after handing him
over the Falklands.
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy :
Who's most responsible for the giving up of this ship: *Callahan?* , *Heath?* , *Wilson?*
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy How do you know that? The Labour Party supported Thatcher during the Falklands. I'm no fan, believe me, but Callahan and Healy were decent people.
@@mookie2637 decent as individuals, no doubt.
But moved by their leftist convictions which had always
been those of the appeasers who view patriotism as warmongering.
Like (the British Noam Chomsky)Alan John Percival Taylor's
''There was nothing wrong with Hitler except he was a German.''
in his 1968''The Origins Of The Second World War''.
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy Both served in the second World war. In the Navy and Army. They were also officers.
If memory's correct a couple of years later she featured in the ITV series "Sailing"?
It just shows you can't have a navy on the cheap..... HMS Ark Royal was the best carrier of her time, cats and traps, with phamtom's and buccanners. We should have had cats and traps on HMS QE's carrier but it will cost us in the end!!!
yes ,,,true words...penny wise pound foolish..mod and uk governments
You would have had F35Cs, E2Ds, even EA18Gs and other british made aircraft (maybe a sea tempest)
George Collie agreed, but they haven’t ruled out putting an ems system in at a later date
Man read my comment! I don't know why they built them with no cats? So the only platform that can fly off QE and PoW is the f35. I guess the future is vstol. I don't know? Maybe.
Our new carriers have NO airborne early warning or airborne anti submarine capability. Unlike the US, who have the E2 hawkeye (the last thing the fleet air arm had with those sorts of capabilities was the Fairey Gannet)
Awesome.. Thanks from NZ 👍🇳🇿
We had the Ark Royal, Eagle, Hermes and Victorious at one time. Thats hundreds of aircraft capabilities at sea. Now we have two massive carriers, with a handfull of planes.
My Late-Cousin was an air frame fitter on the Ark in the late 50's-60's.
The on deck choreography for a launch is brilliant
I.enjoy watching these docu from the old royal navy
I remember seeing her being scrapped in Lough Ryan..it was a melancholy start to the annual family holiday in Blackpool
Me too, coming over on the ferry from Larne for Easter and summer holidays. As they chopped her up she rose out of the water to offer more of herself. What a visitor attraction she would be now but perhaps her destruction was a more fitting end.
Love the voices in this
Flight deck procedures look pacy enough by day and in fair weather. What must it have been like at night or in poor weather?
I remember being told that a carrier such as Ark Royal could reckon on losing a man per commission through incidents such as walking into a Gannet's prop disk.
A flight deck crewman told me one man per month
A flight deck crewman told me 1 man per month lost . He was R09 74-78 .
My dad served on the Ark Royal at the same time we believe ❤
I want to join THAT navy. Where do I sign? LG.
So this kid puts on a captain's hat and says "Yarrrr! I'm a PIRATE!"
I asked him "Where's your Buccaneers?"
And he says "On the sides of me Buccan 'ead!"
The RN would say they have been scrapped dam it .
Does anyone know who is doing the commentary? The voice reminds me a bit of the actor Patrick Holt.
Beautiful in every way. 👏👏👏👏
One of the pilots (at 5:30) is David Hansom, known as Twiggy. David and I joined Cathay Pacific on the same day, and we did our command courses (on the B747) at the same time, We were both checked (one of many over many months!) by a fellow by the name of Pete de Sousa, ex Fleet Air Arm Scimitars (who was checked out by my Hamble instructor, Roy Noyes). I recall going up to the 4th floor of the CX building around Christmas 1987 with David to sight our check reports (which we had to read and sign off). De Sousa did us proud, we both got reports that glowed in the dark. Sadly, both have now passed away.
rightangle do you know a guy called Dave Waller, he was an engineer on the ship. He’s my grandfather
Hi Harry, no I'm afraid I don't know him.
Did you happen to have know a Phantom driver named Jim Bellamy either in the navy or with Cathay Pacific? He was a cabin mate at Dartmouth, but we lost touch. I understand he too passed away.
Would be the same Pete de sousa who flew scimitars off Victorious 58/59
My grandfather worked on that ship, he was an engineer who would fixedThe jets if there was a problem. He was on another ship which I don’t know the name off but there where sea fury’s and sword fish on it with the jets
Mine was involved in building her! He fitted the fire fighting systems. Thinking about it, it was probably the previous Ark Royal, not this one, the one that eventually got torpedoed and sank in the Med.
Nice to see the crazy cool Garnnet.
Makes you wonder if the falklands would have been over that much faster if the RN still had its strike carriers.
Gunslinger800 don’t think the Falklands would have happened at all if the Ark and Eagle had been retained and replaced by CVA-01 as intended.......
A golden era no doubt - in fact I'd argue there was still a role of Buccaneers - not exactly 5th Gen but with its boundary layer control and ground effect could get in very fast and low and have capacity to deliver some serious ordnance.
yea and there was a better jet for this role, panavia tornado, we should've kept it in service tbh
UK's new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers makes the Ark Royal look like a steam boat :)
Solidarity some great team work from the working class.
What does he say at 19:35? Right before "anti-shipping strike."
COAST UP
Tyranusfan I thought he said "Coast out"?
Anyone recall RoyalNavy Operation Safari in North Sea 1975? Any details on the loss of XV695?
I only ever saw her being broken up at cairnryan while I was serving as an AB with Townsend Thoresen ..
Europic Ferry and the FE 4...
Love those british carriers. Much more beautiful than the current ones.
My father was on the air arm and flew the Sea Vixen. He wanted me to follow him into the service, but unfortunately I am cross eyed.
I was only 9 at the time but I remember the Audacious-class Ark Royal being decommissioned It'd be nice to see an Ark Royal in the Navy's SuperCarrier fleet. I know they only plan on having 2 but a lot can change over the next decade or so. A Nuclear powered Carrier with emals and lasers may be out of the question due to costs but 10 or 20 years down the road when have all our F35's maybe then, It'd be good for the Navy to have the option to field multi-role aircraft like the Typhoon & maybe even a few Gripens if they're smart enough to buy some..
I must watch Sailor again !
Another great video ...thanks again! Great info.
Where did it all go wrong UK?
End of the Cold War meant a huge drop in funding. Same time we were seeing a huge jump in costs due to poor procurement and increasing costs of developing aircraft, ships and weapons.
Incredible operations!
Why were the Buccaneers positioned for launch with their nose wheel raised off the deck?
To give them enough airflow over the wing so they would actually fly at launch.
The Ark and Eagle were about as small a carrier you could have to operate Bucks and Phantoms. The phantom needed a longer nose wheel than US Versions to increase lift and the Bucanneers were raised to increase lift.
Also RN Phantoms were hindered by Rolls Royce Spey engines increasing their length by iirc 100mm which necessitated the longer nose wheel or added to the reasons for it. Also, I believe the RN Phantoms were prone to damage on their tail sections due to this modification. The UK government insisted Phantoms were fitted with RR Spey engines for all the obvious reasons none of which were technology based.
After searching , I found at Falkland war British scrapped the aircraft carrier for F4 Phantom so that sent one for Harrier instead? Or she thought self defense first to keep F4 not to send?
I don't think we had a carrier for Phantoms at that time. Two carriers were involved in the Falklands war: HMS Invincible and the flag, HMS Hermes. Both carried Sea Harriers.
HMS Ark Royal in this video (pennant no. R09), with a flat deck and two catapults, was an earlier generation and had been decommissioned in 1979, three years before the Falklands war.
In 1982, a different HMS Ark Royal (R07) with the same ski-jump as HMS Invincible had not long been launched after building but didn't enter service until 1985.
Awsome video, my favorite was the buccaneer launch.
Incredible work all around. Whiplash at 23:00 for that Phantom driver!
Could be my favorite video; the building tension, beautiful aircraft (even Gannets, in their own quirky way), intake/exhaust/contraprop anxiety on a very compact deck (FEAR- the bulgy shape of a Buc must be to fair-in the pilot's cojones, but what about deck crew?). Wish we, Ever, could produce film ala Britannia.
But how could 950' of deck look so small? 💜
Only 800ft deck . 845ft total inc bow bridle catcher & stern extension !
R09 my old ship, before the angled flight deck added, for three yrs - but my work was deep inside rather than on deck. My mess deck was right below one of the catapults.
stoker??
far out 7.50 .. love that nose gear and angle of attack .... gold . is it just me or is the usaf f4 nose strut shorter .. why did the brits do it so different ?
In truth, British carriers, mostly designed in the piston-engined era, were too small for operating modern jet aircraft and this was one of the expedients used to enhance them.
a higher angle of attack at take off meant they could get away with a lower take off speed
The Task Group my ship was in met up with Ark Royal's Group in May 1975 after a visiting Brazil.
I managed to organise a visit to the Ark and was in our Wasp Helo just about to take off when the Flight Crew rushed out to the Wasp and pulled me out and the helo took off immediately. Ark Royal's Search And Rescue Wessex had an engine failure and ditched into the sea. The Wasp returned and l got my flight to the Ark. Because of the accident flying was cancelled so l couldn't see take offs and landings.
Thats the last strike carrier we had
The Buccaneer's front wheel is off the deck when ready for launch. That's unusual.
The Buccaneer had a tail bumper / skid as well.
Also the Phantom in British Royal Navy service was built with an extending nose-wheel leg for the same reason. It's in this film.
Brilliant love the commentary
Thank God we have carriers back .
That was brilliant to watch 👍
I used to know a couple of "tiffys" on this cruse from 849 B Flight from Lossiemouth.....hels bells, those Gannets were plug-ug aircraft or what?
has it ever visited Singapore ?
Great narrator: Gannet, Buccanneer, Phantom! They think it's all over. It is now!
Gannets, Buccaneers and Phantoms (with the able assistance of Sea Kings and Wessexes) - this was the Royal Navy's air force. It boggles the mind to think what's become of that.
Was this the mission that it was despatched to the Caribbeans to ward off Honduras's attempt to overrun Belize?
1972, despatched to the Caribbean to protect Belize from Guatemala.
Belize was called British Honduras back then.
@@carreg-hollt Thank you.
Bloody great
God save the Queen
No thanks, she and the rest of the 'nobility' of Europe have fucked over the common people for over a thousand years, she's a traitor and broke her sworn oath days after taking the throne.
I swear the fleet air arm museum used some of this for the carrier deck experience
How would this ship perform in the Falklands War?
Pretty big aircraft, small deck…varsity. I flew F-4J onboard Indendence(CV-62) and that seemed small.