AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 36 / 75

Plate 36 of 75 · Early jet age · Long-range military transport

Handley Page Hastings

Hastings C.1A, painted as TG528, IWM Duxford’s Handley Page Hastings C.1A, built as a C.1 and flown in the Berlin Airlift and later with No. 24 Squadron, rebuilt to C.2 standard with the larger tailplane set low on the rear fuselage, preserved from 1968 and now hung in AirSpace at Duxford, with its four 1,675 hp Bristol Hercules 106 sleeve-valve radials, painted in the early Transport Command scheme it is displayed in today: natural metal overall with pale grey-green cowlings, a dark blue cheatline with the Transport Command lightning flash below the flight deck, Type C1 fuselage roundels on the cheatline with a black ‘T’ aft of them, a small black ‘TG528’ on the rear fuselage, ‘TG’ over ‘528’ on the fin above a red and blue fin flash, Type C roundels above the wings and black four-blade propellers with yellow tips.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as TG528, IWM Duxford’s Handley Page Hastings C.1A, built as a C.1 and flown in the Berlin Airlift and later with No. 24 Squadron, rebuilt to C.2 standard with the larger tailplane set low on the rear fuselage, preserved from 1968 and now hung in AirSpace at Duxford, with its four 1,675 hp Bristol Hercules 106 sleeve-valve radials, painted in the early Transport Command scheme it is displayed in today: natural metal overall with pale grey-green cowlings, a dark blue cheatline with the Transport Command lightning flash below the flight deck, Type C1 fuselage roundels on the cheatline with a black ‘T’ aft of them, a small black ‘TG528’ on the rear fuselage, ‘TG’ over ‘528’ on the fin above a red and blue fin flash, Type C roundels above the wings and black four-blade propellers with yellow tips. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.5 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Hastings C.1A modelled here.

History

The Hastings

The Hastings was Handley Page’s answer to Air Ministry Specification C.3/44, which asked for a four-engined transport able to carry troops, paratroops and freight over Transport Command’s long routes. It shared its design with the Hermes airliner: a long, round fuselage on a high-set wing, four Bristol Hercules sleeve-valve radials and a tailwheel undercarriage. The prototype, TE580, first flew from RAF Wittering on 7 May 1946, and it was the largest transport aircraft yet designed for the RAF.

The first Hastings C.1s reached No. 47 Squadron in the autumn of 1948, just in time for the Berlin Airlift. From Schleswigland, in northern Germany, Hastings of Nos. 47 and 297 Squadrons flew coal and other supplies into the blockaded city until the airlift ended in 1949. The C.1 was hard to handle at low speed with its tail on the ground, so the C.2 moved a larger tailplane lower on the fuselage and carried more fuel in the outer wings, and many C.1s were brought up to the same standard as C.1As.

Some 150 were built, including four for the Royal New Zealand Air Force, VIP C.4s and Met.1 weather reconnaissance aircraft. The Hastings dropped paratroops at El Gamil airfield during the Suez landings of 1956 and supplied forces in Kenya, Malaya, Cyprus and Aden, until the Argosy and Hercules replaced it in Transport Command in the late 1960s. Eight became T.5 radar bombing trainers with a ventral radome, and the last of these retired in 1977. Three Hastings survive in Britain: TG528 at IWM Duxford, TG511 at RAF Museum Midlands and TG517 at Newark Air Museum.

This airframe

Hastings C.1A TG528

TG528The airframe modelled

TG528 was built at Radlett in 1948 as a Hastings C.1, construction number HP67/32, and was later rebuilt to C.1A standard with the larger, low-set tailplane of the C.2. It served with No. 24 Squadron of Transport Command, and with No. 36 Squadron, in Kenya and at the time of Suez. In January 1968 it was retired to the Skyfame museum at Staverton in Gloucestershire, and when Skyfame closed it came to Duxford, where it stood outside for many years in a white-topped Transport Command scheme. After restoration it now hangs indoors in AirSpace. The model shows it as displayed today, in an early all-silver Transport Command scheme: natural metal with pale grey-green cowlings, a dark blue cheatline with the Transport Command lightning flash below the flight deck, Type C1 fuselage roundels with a black “T” aft of them, a small black “TG528” on the rear fuselage, “TG” over “528” on the fin above a red and blue fin flash, Type C roundels above the wings and black four-blade propellers with yellow tips.

See it at IWM Duxford

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Hastings in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 75 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.