RAF Aircraft Based in Whenuapai to Support Nuclear tests

[30sqnatc]

I have just been reading RAF museum seminar on the Canberra. It includes mention of monitoring flights undertaken by RAF Canberras based in Australia and Whenuapai. I was not aware of this bit of history.

www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal_43a_Seminar_The_Canberra_in_the_RAF.pdf

The seminar includes a presentation of Canberra use in FEAF which naturally includes RNZAF Canberra.

Paul

[camtech]

Quite an amazing document. Well worth reading all 150 pages.

I am guessing the monitoring flights would have used Whenuapai as a refuel/rest base.

[nuuumannn]

Nice, thanks for posting the document link.

I was not aware of this bit of history.

There's a thread about it here. RNZAF aircraft were involved in the British nuclear testing, both at home and abroad, including RNZAF Mustangs that carried out radiation cloud sampling;

rnzaf.proboards.com/thread/22632/radiation-cloud-monitoring

[zolteg]

Love this paragraph...

The New Zealanders were practising straight-in attacks at 250 feet. When
it was pointed out that their bombs would almost certainly skip and go
off underneath them, they countered that this would not be the case if
the bombs were retarded. This was true but, although retarded tail
units were just beginning to become available, there were none in the
Far East. Unperturbed, the Kiwis wanted to be ready for when they
did arrive and anyway, they said it was ‘more fun that way.’

[avenger]

Not Whenuapai but Nadi, there was a TEAL crew on stopover who observed the Valiant land and taxi to the site of the old terminal.
They vaulted the fence and introduced themselves as ex RNZAF to the RAF crew who were refuelling. The RAF crew did admit they'd been atmospheric sampling and surprisingly allowed the TEAL crew to enter the aircraft but first covering a large circular instrument on the copilot's panel.
OK off thread, again the date uncertain but later than the British tests at Christmas Island.

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting. Note the kangaroo zap on the nose, perhaps picked up at Woomera?