Some said it couldn’t be done — that this old aircraft would fail somewhere along the way. However, the Defence Research Agency’s Comet 4 XV814 defied the doubters and, in the summer of 1992, made it round the world. The then head of experimental flying at Farnborough, Gp Capt Roger Beazley CBE AFC FRAeS, recalled a memorable trip in the May 2016 issue of ‘Aeroplane’
It was late in 1991 that a flight trials instruction arrived on my desk at Farnborough, looking for approval for and outlining a series of high-frequency radio and satellite communication trials. The task involved flying the Defence Research Agency (DRA) de Havilland Comet 4 through the Middle East, across the Indian Ocean and out as far as Singapore.