Dart number 408
65 years ago, 26 November, 1951, the first prototype of the English heavy double-seat fighter Gloucester Javelin (Javelin - dart) took off for the first time. The aircraft was intended to intercept Soviet bombers at any time of the day and in any weather conditions with aiming at the target using the airborne radar. At that time, it was a very advanced and promising machine, and it became even more advanced in the 1956 year, when, in addition to guns, it was equipped with four homing Freistrik air-to-air missiles.
In 1955, the Javelin was put into service and launched into a series, collecting 505 copies in total, of which 265 - in "rocket" modifications. Despite such success, Javelin was the last product of the once famous Gloucester Aircraft Company, which built the first turbojet and the first production jet fighter of the anti-Hitler coalition countries. In the 1963 year, it went bankrupt and became part of the Hauker Siddley Aviation aircraft manufacturing concern, which in turn ceased to exist in the 1992 year.
The Javelins were based in Great Britain and West Germany. The divisions of these interceptors were on alert until 1969, when the Dart was removed from service due to the emergence of new vehicles with higher flight characteristics. Thank God, the cold war never turned into a hot one, and therefore it wasn’t possible for them to engage in real battles.
The first prototype "Javelina" in flight. Radar and weapons are not installed yet.
First serial modification of the FAW Mk.I
The modification of FAW Mk.7 is the most large-scale version of the Javelina, replicated in 142 copies.
FAW Mk.7 at the airport terminal.
In addition to the above, I note that with Javelin I first met back in 1979, but only after a couple of years I found out that it was Javelin. The fact is that that year, on the shelves of Soviet toy stores, suddenly, a large number of various prefabricated aircraft models appeared that were completely different from our aircraft. These aircraft had very strange names: “157 Index”, “170 Index”, “204 Index”, “363 Index”, etc. There was no other information about them either on the boxes or on the assembly instructions.
Then I bought, glued and put on the shelf a model of a rather large jet plane with a triangular wing, on the box of which it was stated that it was "Index 408". Then, comparing the outlines of the model with photographs in a reference book on foreign books published under the heading of chipboard aviation, which I was given to read for a couple of days, I recognized the car, and at the same time many other "indexes". And even later, already at the time of "glasnost", the reason for the "masquerade" was clarified. And she turned out to be as idiotic as almost everything that happened in the Brezhnev USSR.
In 1978, the Soviet export and import office Novoexport purchased from the English firm Frog a large batch of equipment for the production of plastic prefabricated models, including molds for casting sets of blanks for more than a hundred different models of aircraft and about a dozen ships. In those days, collecting such models was a very popular hobby, but in the USSR they were in constant shortage. Massive emission on the shelves of "ex-Frogov" models the problem of scarcity, at least in this market segment, hoped to be solved.
However, a “delicate” nuance immediately surfaced: almost all of the Frog models reproduced western technology, first of all English and American. And one of the high-ranking KapESS functionaries, having belatedly found out about the deal, was indignant: “How is that ?! Soviet children will assemble models of airplanes and warships of the aggressive NATO bloc! This is unheard of! This is an ideological sabotage! especially among young people! " Oddly enough, this outrage found support in the party circles. Obviously, they seriously believed that a teenager who stuck together a model of an English, American or French aircraft would immediately turn into an anti-Soviet.
Meanwhile, the money for the mold was paid, and a lot of money in currency, it was too late to cancel the transaction. Then they found a “Solomon’s” solution: the models were still put on sale, but “anonymously”, without specifying their prototypes, placing simply abstract indexes on ordinary-looking boxes, or indicating the functional purpose of the machine - “fighter”, “bomber”, “reconnaissance " etc. And I must say that in the conditions of the “iron curtain” and control over information, this partly worked. Most of the people who bought and assembled models in the USSR at sunset of the Brezhnev era did not know what they were collecting!
The most amazing thing is that even the models of passenger liners and airplanes 20-30 of the last century, as well as of the Second World War, were produced in the "nameless" design. One can only guess what kind of "ideological sabotage" was noticed by Soviet official morons in the old "Spitfires" and "Mustangs". Hellkells or on the Bristol-138, which set the world altitude record in 1936.
At the same time, some models were produced in export version, for sale abroad. They were designed in a completely different way: they were packed in bright, colorful boxes with inscriptions in English and an indispensable indication of what kind of aircraft the model reproduces. In addition, sets of decals (decals) with identification marks and other emblems that were to be applied to the model after assembly were placed in the boxes. In the models for "domestic consumption" they were not. And on the underside of the boxes, which in the "Soviet" version was a simple piece of cardboard, the export models printed beautiful color instructions for coloring and placing decals.
It is curious that the models for the domestic and foreign markets were made and packaged in the same factories and in the same workshops. Of course, export models were actively stolen, and then they “surfaced” on the black market, where they were sold from under the floor at prices that were 5-10 times higher than the store prices of their “Soviet” counterparts. Sometimes they stole and sold only boxes and decals, since the “plastic” itself could be bought in any “Children's world”.
In my opinion, in this absurdist stories with models that went on until the end of 80, as in a small drop of water, there was a big insanity and hypocrisy of the late Soviet ideological system. Such a system should collapse sooner or later.
Model "Javelina" in the original English packaging company "Frog".
In this form, it was sold in the Soviet Union.
And this is an export box, feel the difference.
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