94 FLYPAST June 2018FROM THE WORKSHOP HARRIER
St Pancras Express
Chris Wilson of Jet Art Aviation describes the restoration of a very special Harrier
N
ext year sees the 50th
anniversary of the
transatlantic air race
organised by the British newspaper
the Daily Mail. By a happy
coincidence Yorkshire-based Jet Art
Aviation is bringing to an end a five-
year restoration of Hawker Siddeley
Harrier GR.1 XV741, the winner of the
now legendary event.
As the 1960s ended, the Harrier- the world’s first vertical/short take-
off and landing (V/STOL) aircraft –
entered RAF service with 1 Squadron
at Wittering, Northants. Keen to
show off its wonder jet, the RAF ‘top
brass’ took very little persuasion to
enter a brace of its Harriers in to the
race – XV741 and XV744.
This was also a great excuse to
fly the flag for British industry and
demonstrate the new marvel to the
rest the world. In particular, the
United States was seen as a potential
purchaser for the ‘jump jet’.
Staged between May 4 and 11, 1969
the Daily Mail race was intended to
commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the first nonstop crossing of the
Atlantic by British aviators Captain
John Alcock and Lt Arthur Brown
in their modified Vickers Vimy.
(The Vimy is today on show at the
Science Museum in London.) In 1919
the British newspaper had offered
a prize of £10,000 (equivalent to
about £550,000 today) for the first
team to achieve this epic feat.
The 1969 competition was not
an airfield-to-airfield dash; it also
involved other means of transport
to get pilots from the top of the Post
Office (now BT) Tower in central
London to the summit of the EmpireState building in Manhattan, New
York. Anybody could enter, the only
criteria being that they needed to
take some form of air transport: light
aircraft and charter flights were also
acceptable.
The Royal Navy entered a
McDonnell Phantom FG.1 which, like
the rest of the competitors, would
be taking off from a conventional
runway, unlike the V/STOL Harrier,
which had a great advantage: it
could operate from very close to the
start and finish lines.Can-do attitude
Let’s pause for a minute and step
back to look at the big picture.
This was an age before ‘health
and safety’ had been invented and
a ‘can-do’ attitude could make
things happen. Imagine somebodyproposing this now...
The Harrier had been in frontline
service for a matter of weeks –
XV746 was the first of the type
delivered to Wittering on April 18,
1969, with XV741 and ‘744 following
a few days later. For the start of the
race the jump jet was to land in a
disused railway yard at London’s
St Pancras Station. Its pilot after
signing in at the top of the Post
Office Tower would make his way
down and high-tail it to St Pancras,
where the Harrier would depart and
head west.
In the event, XV741’s landing
and subsequent take-off ended up
covering most of the capital in a
large cloud of coal dust and created
enough noise to wake the dead!
The flight would involve the
lone pilot flying flat-out acrossThe ‘kit-of-parts’ inside the Serco paint
shop.