Did any kiwis fly the Hornet

[Dave Homewood]

One of the greatest piston engined fighters was the de Havilland Hornet. I wonder, did any kiwis ever fly this aircraft? If so are any still alive now to talk about it?

[davidd]

Dave H
Below is a mention of one New Zealander who flew the DH Hornet in the RAF, extracted from that well-known British aviation publication.

25/2/55; Mentioned in The Aeroplane of this date (page 236) that a New Zealander (Squadron Leader V K Jacobs, of Auckland) was the commanding officer of No. 45 Squadron, Far East Air Force, based in Singapore and equipped with Hornet twin-engined strike aircraft. Reason for the mention was that this squadron was awarded its “Standard” in a colour ceremony at Singapore on February 10th, the first such award to an FEAF unit. Award was made by Air Marshal F J Fressanges, CB, the Commander-in-Chief of FEAF. It was noted that this squadron had flown more than 5,000 sorties against the Communist terrorists.

Vivian Kenneth JACOBS NZ404465, embarked NZ for Canada per AWATEA 27/2/41, graduated 9/6/41, to UK, trained with 52 OTU, thence with 136 Sqdn in UK, North Africa and India, thence with HQ 221 Group, rtd to NZ Oct 1944,completed refresher course with 4 OTU at Ardmore then rtd to India April 1945, for service with ACSEA, rtd UK NZ & to Reserve March/April 1946. Not certain when he returned to RAF service at this stage though, should appear in the RAF Lists.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks David.

Yesterday Paul McSweeny of Pioneer mentioned to me that he'd met a chap back in 1978. He has no idea what his name was but he'd seen Paul in his RNZAF uniform and got chatting. He'd served in WWII in Europe and had flown as a test pilot for part of that, He'd flown the Hornet and then when he came back to NZ he was one of the RNZAF pilots who flew the Meteor. Paul said he was a very well spoken part-Maori chap.

The Meteor pilots came to a list of about 50 men from memory but a postwar jet pilot of Maori descent must narrow it down. Anyone got any clues here?

[davidd]

Dave H,
Just checked out another possibility for a New Zealander flying the DH Hornet, this time of the female gender. This was the well-known Betty Black (later Betty Beaumont) who served with the ATA for about 3 years (possibly less) and was probably the only NZ female ATA pilot to be permitted to fly high powered twins as well as high powered singles. I had recalled that she flew Mosquitos and Beaufighters as well as Warwicks and Whitleys, so wondered if she ever sampled the delectable Hornet, but a good trawl through her logbook (at RNZAF Museum archives) proved that she did not, although the variety of aircraft she did fly is truly mind boggling! From memory she delivered about 8 or 900 aircraft, including Barracudas, Fulmars, Tempests, Typhoons, common old Spitfires and Hurricanes of most marks, Hellcats, Corsairs, Avengers, and possibly even a Botha, but cannot confirm the last with conviction.

One strong possibility would be Don Nairn (FAA pilot, including being engaged on test flying duties for Navy) and Max Scannel, latter a WW2 fighter pilot in Pacific who postwar wangled a commission in RAF and continued on to jet fighters, also Roy LeLong, first NZ pilot to command a supersonic Britsh jet squadron in RAF (Hunters in about 1955). Another possibility might be R M (Bob) McKay who served on Meteors in 1944 with 616 Sqdn, and there are probably many others who may have got their hands on either the RAF or Naval model Hornets between 1945 and the mid-1950s.
David D

[htbrst]

Oct 19, 2013 12:59:18 GMT 12 davidd said:

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David D

Another closer to home (though remote!) possibility is via the Sea Hornet that was used by the Australian Air Force on tropical trials in Melbourne from 1948-1950 ; I'm not sure if we had any form of exchange system with the RAAF way back then

[Dave Homewood]

Very interesting stuff there David. So would Betty Black have been the only female New Zealander in history to fly the Mosquito then I guess? What an amazing list of aircraft she delivered, wow.

When I stayed with Don Nairn in 2009 he still had his Flying Logbook somewhere but he could not locate it, sadly. He was happy for me to photograph it but then couldn't find it. A huge pity as it would have been fascinating, particularly his flying the Corsair prototypes and the captured Zero!