The conventional Spectre DSpe.5 had been developed alongside a DSpe.4 RATO variant, the latter for the Avro Vulcan and Handley-Page Victor V bombers, another programme subsequently cancelled after a single trial take-off of a Victor from the de Havilland aerodrome at Hatfield.
The intended market was for assisting take-off of de Havilland Comet 1 airliners (as hot and high operations in the British Empire were considered important) and also for V bombers carrying heavy nuclear weapons.
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He was Chief of the Air Staff in the late 1950s and, in that role, deployed British air power during the Suez Crisis in October 1956 and defended the RAF against the views of Duncan Sandys, the Minister for Defence, who believed that the V bomber force rendered manned fighter aircraft redundant.
The station housed a 'V' force of Vulcan bombers during the Cold War, and for 35 years it hosted a regular air show which, by the 1990s, was the largest one-day military air show in the country.
It was originally specified for the English Electric Canberra bomber, and subsequently used in a number of other aircraft, including much of the V bomber fleet.
The bomb hailed from a 'Whitley Mark V Bomber', of the No. 102 Squadron RAF, based at RAF Linton-on-Ouse which crash landed on October 27, 1940, with all personnel having bailed out and survived.
His most notable victory was his role in capturing a German Gotha G.V bomber that was attacking Britain.