What was Exercise Kea Claw?

[Dave Homewood]

Apparently on Sunday the 4th of May 1969 the No. 75 Squadron "Yellow Hammer" Vampire display team performed at the Exercise "Kea Claw" open day at camp, New Plymouth, to 17,000 spectators.

Does anyone know what this exercise was all about? Was it a No. 14 Squadron exercise?

[skyhawkdon]

75 Sqn operated the Vampires in 1969 Dave - 14 Sqn was Canberras.

[Dave Homewood]

Yes but I just thought with the Kea connection it might be a 14 Sqn exercise, as that is their symbol.

[phil]

Funny this has came up today, saw some photos belonging to Jim Jennings this afternoon, one was a 11x14 aerial shot of a row of 75sqn Vampires parked in a field (yes, on grass) in front of a tented camp. I'm not sure if the print was dated, I know some of the other prints in the collection were dated 1969 (just can't recall if this was one of the dated ones).

Also included was a print of a vampire display team with doing a diving 'bomb burst' type manoeuvre over the OH Tower.

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting Phil. I wonder if you could persuade Mr Jennings to join the forum and post some photos? Thanks to Barf doing a bit of research into the Yellow Hammers, he has helped me to do an update to my page entry which I've just done here:
www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Airshow_Display_Teams_75Sqn.htm#Yell

[phil]

I think GT took scans of them, he's the one who borrowed the prints. I'll have a chat with Glen on Monday and see if he would like to post them.

[skyhawkdon]

Phil - where there any Skyhawk photos amongst Jim's collection?

[phil]

Yes there were a couple (Glen had perhaps 8 prints of Jim's). There were two early photos of Skyhawks, one with the fernleaf roundels and striaght probe, another with the Kiwi roundels but all white undersides tanks. Both air to air

The others were ones I'd seen before of the formation in all the liveries - SEA, RAN grey/blue, RAN grey/white, Euro 1, which I'm assuming you will have since they are fairly common images.

Talk to Glen, I'm sure he'll send you the copies he made.