As soon as it took its public bow, the English Electric Canberra stunned onlookers with its turn of agility. Roland Beamont, later a regular Aeroplane Monthly author, was the man who forged the legend… but not without some opposition
From its first flight, which took place on the inauspicious-sounding date of Friday 13 May 1949, the flight trials of the prototype English Electric B3/45, VN799, were highly successful. After a short lay-up from 1 June to 5 July for modifications to the elevator horns and mass-balances and to the rudder horn balance area, progress continued rapidly: in 36 flights between 6 July and 31 August, handling clearance was achieved over the whole initial design flight envelope; an ‘eight-cycle’ flutter had been alleviated by the elevator modifications, and some ‘snaking’, traced to wake turbulence behind the canopy, had been cured by a simple fairing.
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