Fly Past

52 RAF CENTENARY CELEBRATION PATROLLERS AND AIRLIFTERS

HASTINGS

HANDLEY PAGE

1948 TO 1977

HASTINGS

T

he need to replace the Avro

York as the RAF’s standard

long-range transport led to the

Air Ministry issuing Specification

C.3/44 in late 1944, and Handley

Page answered this call with a design

referred to internally as the HP.67.

It was an all-metal, low-wing,

cantilever monoplane with a

retractable tailwheel undercarriage,

and power came from four Bristol

Hercules sleeve valve radial engines.

The prototype (TE580) performed

its maiden flight from RAF

Wittering, Cambs/

Northants, on May

7, 1946 but tests

showed the aircraft was laterally

unstable and had poor stall warning

capabilities. A temporary solution

was found by fitting an artificial stall

warner and modifying the tailplane

with 15° of dihedral. A second

prototype followed TE580 aloft on

December 30 that year, and the first

production aircraft (by now named

the Hastings C Mk.1) first flew on

April 25, 1947.

MODIFIED VARIANTS

A total of 94 Hastings C.1 airframes

were delivered, all of which were

later converted to C.1A standard,

which in effect brought them to the

same format as the 42 C.2s built

from late 1950.

The latter sub-type remedied

the earlier examples’ handling

deficiencies by having a larger

Right

The prototype Hastings

was TE580, which

performed its maiden

fl ight on May 7, 1946.

ALL KEY UNLESS STATED

Below

The Hastings fl eet

served extensively in

the Middle and Far East,

as evidenced by this

study of 24 Squadron’s

WJ330. The aircraft

was scrapped at RAF

Shawbury in the 1970s.

1918 2018