Handley Page Hastings

Hastings
Hastings TG503 in flight in June 1977
Role Transport aircraft
Manufacturer Handley Page
First flight 7 May 1946
Introduction September 1948
Retired 1977 (RAF)
Primary users RAF
RNZAF
Produced 1947 1952
Number built 151
Variants Handley Page Hermes

The Handley Page H.P.67 Hastings was a British troop-carrier and freight transport aircraft designed and built by the Handley Page Aircraft Company for the Royal Air Force. At the time, it was the largest transport plane ever designed for the RAF, and it replaced the Avro York as the standard long-range transport.

Design and development

Handley Page's answer to meet Air Staff Specification C.3/44 for a long-range general purpose transport was the H.P.67.[1] It was an all-metal low-wing cantilever monoplane with a conventional tail unit. It had all-metal tapering dihedral wings, which had been designed for the abandoned HP.66 bomber development of the Handley Page Halifax and a circular fuselage suitable for pressurisation up to 5.5 psi (38 kPa). It had a retractable undercarriage and tailwheel. The Hastings was powered by four wing-mounted Bristol Hercules 101 sleeve valve radial engines. In service, the aircraft was operated by a crew of five and could accommodate either 30 paratroopers, 32 stretchers and 28 sitting casualties, or 50 fully equipped troops.

One of the two Hastings prototypes

A civilian version of the Hastings was developed as the Handley Page Hermes. The Hermes prototypes were given priority over the Hastings but that programme was put on hold after the prototype crashed on its first flight on 2 December 1945 and the company concentrated on the military Hastings variant.[2] The first of two Hastings prototypes (TE580) flew at RAF Wittering on 7 May 1946.[3] Tests showed that the aircraft was laterally unstable and that it had poor stall warning capabilities. The prototypes and first few production aircraft were subject to a series of urgent modifications and testing to resolve these problems. A temporary solution was found by modifying the tailplane with 15° of dihedral, while being fitted with synthetic stall warning.[4] This allowed the first production aircraft (Hastings C1) to enter service in October 1948.

RNZAF Hastings C3 in 1953

The RAF initially ordered 100 Hastings C1s but the last six were built as weather reconnaissance versions as the Hastings Met. Mk 1, and seven other aircraft were converted to this standard. Eight C1 aircraft were later converted to Hastings T5 trainers which were used for training the V bomber crews, three at a time.

While tail modifications introduced to the C1 allowed it to enter service, a more definitive solution was the fitting of an extended-span tailplane, which was mounted lower on the fuselage. These changes, together with the fitting of additional fuel tanks in the outer wing, resulted in the C Mk 2,[5] while a further modified VIP transport, fitted with yet more fuel capacity to give a longer range became the C Mk 4.[6]

A total of 147 aircraft were built for the Royal Air Force and four for the Royal New Zealand Air Force, a total of 151.

Operational history

The Hastings was rushed into service because of the Berlin Airlift, with No. 47 Squadron replacing its Halifax A Mk 9s with Hastings in September–October 1948, flying its first sortie to Berlin on 11 November 1948. The Hastings fleet was mainly used to carry coal, with two further squadrons, 297 and 53 joining the airlift before its end.[7] A Hastings made the last sortie of the airlift on 6 October 1949,[8] the 32 Hastings deployed delivering 55,000 tons (49,900 tonnes) of supplies for the loss of two aircraft.[7]

Hastings Met Mk.1 of No. 202 Squadron RAF wearing Coastal Command camouflage at Manchester Airport in 1954
RNZAF Hastings C.3 of No.40 Squadron at Heathrow Airport in 1953

One hundred Hastings C.Mk 1 and 41 Hastings C.Mk 2 were built, and they served both on Transport Command's long-range routes and as a tactical transport until well after the arrival of the Bristol Britannia in 1959. An example of the latter use was during the Suez Crisis when Hastings of 70, 99 and 511 Squadrons dropped paratroopers on El Gamil airfield.[9]

Hastings continued to provide transport support to British military operations around the globe through the 1950s and 60s, including dropping supplies to troops opposing Indonesian forces in Malaysia during the Indonesian Confrontation.[10]

The Hastings was retired from Royal Air Force Transport Command in early 1968 when it was replaced by the Lockheed Hercules.[11] The Met Mk.1 weather reconnaissance aircraft were used by No. 202 Squadron RAF at RAF Aldergrove, Northern Ireland from 1950 until the Squadron was disbanded on 31 July 1964, being made obsolete by weather satellites.[12] The Hastings T.Mk 5 remained in service as radar trainers well into the 1970s, even being used for reconnaissance purposes during the Cod War in the winter of 1975—76, finally being retired on 30 June 1977.[13]

Hastings were also operated in New Zealand, where the Royal New Zealand Air Force's 40 Squadron flew the type until replaced by C130 Hercules in 1965. Four Hastings C.Mk 3 transport aircraft were built and supplied to the RNZAF. One crashed at RAAF Base Darwin and caused considerable damage to the city's water main, its railway and the road into the city. The other three were broken up at RNZAF Base Ohakea. During the period that the engines were having problems with their sleeve valves (lubricating oil difficulties) RNZAF personnel joked that the Hastings was the best three-engined aircraft in the world.

Variants

Hastings C2 WD488
HP Hastings T5 TG517 at the Newark Air Museum
HP.67 Hastings
Prototype, two built.
HP.67 Hastings C1
Production aircraft with four Bristol Hercules 101 engines, 94 built all later converted to C1A and T5.
HP. 67 Hastings C1A
C1 rebuilt to C2 standard
HP.67 Hastings Met.1
Weather reconnaissance version for Coastal Command, six built.
HP.67 Hastings C2
Improved version with larger-area tailplane mounted lower on fuselage, increased fuel capacity and powered by Bristol Hercules 106 engines, 43 built and C1s were modified to this standard as C1As.
HP.95 Hastings C3
Transport aircraft for the RNZAF, similar to C2 but had Bristol Hercules 737 engines, four built.
HP.94 Hastings C4
VIP transport version for four VIPs and staff, four built.
HP.67 Hastings T5
Eight C1s converted for RAF Bomber Command with ventral radome to train V bomber crews on the Navigation Bombing System (NBS).

Operators

A No. 40 Squadron RNZAF Hastings refuelling
 New Zealand
 United Kingdom

Survivors

Hastings TG503

Four Hastings are preserved in the UK and Germany:

Accidents and incidents

Specifications (Hastings C.2)

Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1951–52[29]

General characteristics

Performance

See also

Related development


Related lists

References

Notes

  1. Barnes 1976, p.435.
  2. Barnes 1976, p.437.
  3. Barnes 1976, p.440.
  4. Jackson 1989, p3.
  5. Jackson 1989, pp. 5—6.
  6. Jackson 1989, p.7.
  7. 1 2 Jackson 1989, pp.4—5.
  8. Thetford 1957, p.262.
  9. Jackson 1989, p.49.
  10. Jackson 1989, pp. 50—51.
  11. Jackson 1989, p.51
  12. Jackson 1989, pp. 49—50.
  13. Jackson 1989, p.52.
  14. TG611
  15. TG499
  16. TG574
  17. WD478
  18. Wilson, Keith (2015). RAF in camera, 1950s. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. p. 89. ISBN 9781473827950.
  19. TG602
  20. WJ335
  21. WD484
  22. TG522
  23. Cooper, John. "Splashdown on the Equator". Britain's Small Wars. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
  24. WD497
  25. WD498
  26. TG577
  27. TG575
  28. Bridgman 1951, pp. 59c–60c.

Bibliography

  • Barnes, C. H. Handley Page Aircraft Since 1907. London: Putnam, 1976. ISBN 0-370-00030-7.
  • Barnes, C. H. Handley Page Aircraft Since 1907. London: Putnam & Company, Ltd., 1987.
  • Bridgman, Leonard. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1951–52. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd, 1951.
  • Clayton, Donald C. Handley Page, an Aircraft Album. Shepperton, Surrey, UK: Ian Allan Ltd., 1969. ISBN 0-7110-0094-8.
  • Jackson, Paul. "The Hastings...Last of a Transport Line". Air Enthusiast. Issue Forty, September–December 1989. Bromley, Kent:Tri-Service Press. pp. 1–7,47—52.
  • Hall, Alan W. Handley Page Hastings (Warpaint Series no.62). Bletchley, UK: Warpaint Books, 2007.
  • Senior, Tim. Hastings, Including a Brief History of the Hermes - Handley Page's Post-War Transport Aircraft. Stamford, Lincs: Dalrymple & Verdun, 2008.
  • Thetford, Owen. Aircraft of the Royal Air Force 1918-57. London: Putnam, First edition 1957.
  • The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985). Orbis Publishing. 
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