FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0844.PDF
FLIGHT, AUGUST 7, 1931 PRIVATE ELYINS AND CLUE NEWS A NIGHT FLYING MEETING N Saturday last, August 1, Mr. Lindsay Everard, whose fertility of mind has been the means of staging some interesting event pretty nearly every week-end throughout the season, either at his own aerodrome at Ratcliffe or at the Leicestershire Aero Club's at Desford, held a Night Flying Meeting at RatclifEe. This is certainly one of the first occasions since the war on which a proper programme of flying events has been run at night, and the evening proved exceptionally attractive. We were told that Mr. Everard had not advertised themeeting in any way, but to such an extent do the people of Leicester stick "together that the word had evidently-been passed round to every man, woman and child in the county, with the consequence that the crowd whowitnessed the show must have numbered some thousands ; at any rate, the police estimated the number of cars atwell over 1,000, and, so far as we could see, both sides of the road were a mass of motor cycles and push bikes.The aerodrome, of course, had been properly fitted for night flying, except that certain of the illuminations wereof a temporary character. The boundary lights were of the oil-burning hurricane-lamp type, so beloved by everytown and district council who spends money on their road repairs, and exceptionally good boundary lights they made ;in spite of the handle on top of them, they were easily discernible from the air, and for the period of the meeting,at any rate, required no attention. The aerodrome itself has iiow been enlarged and carried down each side ofMiss Winifred Spooner's house, making this an island site, with the result that it is somewhat like a miniature Han-worth, giving a run each side of the house of over 1,000 yds. On one corner of the " island " there is abeacon with a visibility of well over 30 miles, which, according to the Air Ministry, flashes "L". The Morsecode, however, must have been reorganised, since every- one who saw it came to the conclusion that it was flashingfours " longs," however, despite that, it did its job very well and Mr. Jackaman, who flew up by night fromLympne, said he could see it from a very great distance. Mr. Jackaman's effort was quite a little event of its own.He is at present in camp with No. 601 (City of London) (Bomber) Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force at Lympne,and, after having dinner there, he got out his own Puss Moth (Gipsy III) and flew straight up to RatclifTe, arrivingat about 9.45 p.m. When the meeting was about halfway through, that was somewhere about 11 o'clock, he leftagain and flew back to Lympne, where they were await- ing him with a new type of Chance floodlight. Of course,a trip like this denotes an entire and confident reliance on one's engine, but Mr. Jackaman has had so muchexperience that no doubt he felt quite justified in taking what risk there was ; it does, however, show the way inwhich the possibilities of private flying have grown within recent years. Naturally enough, for such a trip, one wouldhave to choose suitable weather, but once there are adequate arrangements for landing by night at severalof the more important aerodromes about the country, the scope and use of aerial travel for busy men will greatlybe increased. The programme itself consisted at the start of a forma-tion flight by Miss Spooner (leader) with Messrs. R. Stan- ford and A. Francis on either side of her. Their three-Moths naturally carried navigation lights, while Miss Spooner's, in addition, was outlined along the bottom ofthe fuselage and underneath the lower plane with small lights, making a very effective picture for those who havenot seen much night flying. Subsequently, there were displays of aerobatics by both the latter pilots, an illu-minated parachute descent by Capt. Stewart and a set piece to finish up with. The parachute descent was prob-ably one of the first ever made over here by night and caused quite a lot of excitement. On his way downCapt. Stewart lit up his parachute by shining the ray of a large electric torch directly up into it. He made a gootl landing on one side of the aerodrome, although itlookad at one time that he might overshoot a certain amount. As readers will know, we do not, nor ever shall,agree with parachute descents being used as a means of attraction at flying meetings, as we maintain that therisk is not justified. However, we do not wish to deprecate Capt. Stewart's effort, but only hope that if he mustcontinue this sort of thing, he will confine himself to straight drops and not try to carry out spectacular stunts.After his drop there was an interval from flying, during which a small display of fireworks was let off. This formeda pleasant little interlude to the flying and roused the enthusiasm of younger members of the crowd to boilingpoint. Miss Spooner then did a rather novel sort of turn byflying round with a large motor-car headlight in the machine, which she used as a modified form of spot light,shining it on the car parks and people round the edges of the aerodrome.The set piece was to a certain extent the type of thing we see at Hendon, with lots of tribesmen and nativewomen who captured a girl (Miss Spooner), whom they tied to a stake and were apparently preparing to roast,whether whole or in quarters was not quite evident, but the pot for the purpose certainly seemed rather inadequate!While the party were enjoying the spectacle of their cap- tive writhing at the stake, two aircraft came and sat downand disturbed them thoroughly. The pilot of the leading one, evidently being a very fine :>hot, for he dispersed theheavily armed band, although himself was only armed with a pistol of very small calibre. At this juncture theyoung woman played a very dirty trick on him, for as soon as he had cut her loose she took to her heels, leaptinto the cockpit of the machine and flew off, leaving him to his fate ! So far we have said nothing about the floodlight itself,and this deserves very special mention. We gather that it is a new and somewhat experimental product ofG.E.C., Ltd., but that in its standard form it will differ very slightly from the one used at Ratcliffe. All thepilots who used its aid in landing said it was the finest type they had ever seen, and that the illumination pro-vided was far better than from other types and more than adequate for their needs. It consists of a battery of nineelements, each consisting of a parabolic reflector and an electric lamp with a horizontal tungsten-wire filament,these elements being arranged in tiers of three, thus form- ing a large square projector. It is run from the ordinary220/240-volt mains and consumes some 90 watts, giving at the present moment a total candle-power of 630,000over an arc of 170 deg. but with certain modifications to the reflectors, round about one million is confidentlyexpected to be the output of the standard type. One of its most amazing features is that the whole outfit costssomewhere about one-fifth of the other types of flood- lights on the market, and, by virtue of it using lamps,this type does not require any adjustment during use. Mr. Lindsay Everard has had it mounted on a turntableaffixed to the back of one of his more elderly Rolls-Royce cars, and the complete outfit is, therefore, very mobileand forms a compact unit, which can be taken to any suitable corner of the aerodrome, where electrical con-nections have been provided according to the direction of the wind. Mr. R. H. S. Brown, the secretary of the LeicestershireAero Club, was iii charge of the organisation, and, together with his assistants, he carried it through without a hitch.Mr. Brown's main business in life is in establishing aero- dromes, hangars and, in fact, everything to do with theground equipment of flying for his firm, the En-tout-Cas Co., of Syston, but such is his keenness for the Leicester-shire Club, that we fancy he must consider it a job of almost equal importance, to be run concurrently with hisaerodrome work. Mr. Lindsay Everard is really rather an exceptional man,for he is one of those rare people who, although blessed 790
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
