Talk about old-school cool.
How about this full-page ad from the 1946 edition of Jane’s in my collection? Taken out by the De Havilland company, it shows one of its new Sea Vampire jets– LZ551G– over the recently-completed RN Colossus-class aircraft carrier, HMS Ocean (R68).
As we have covered in the past, it was on 3 December 1945, when an early model Sea Vampire flown by LCDR Eric “Winkle” Brown made the first ever carrier landing of a purely jet-powered aircraft when he touched down on HMS Ocean, then soon after completed the first take off. It is the same one in the above ad.
De Havilland Sea Vampire Mk.10 LZ551G catches the arresting wire aboard HMS Ocean, on 3 December 1945.
Ocean, which served in the Korean War as a traditional flattop and in the Suez Crisis as a helicopter platform, was scrapped in 1962.
Meanwhile, Capt. Eric Melrose “Winkle” Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, retired from the RN in 1970 capping a 31-year career during which he flew 487 types of aircraft. Brown passed in 2016, aged 96.
But he did get to see his old De Havilland again.
Captain Eric M. Brown with the De Havilland DH.100 Sea Vampire Mk.10, LZ551, at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton, Somerset, England. (Nigel Cheffers-Heard, Fleet Air Arm Museum)