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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 1543.PDF
JUNE IO, 1937. FLIGHT, 5«5- THE LOW- DOWN —on Low Flying, for the Benefit of the Sussex Police THE Sussex coast is com paratively generously furnished with landing grounds. It also has some curious hills and can, at short notice, produce aero- nautically annoying weather. These facts sometimes necessi tate excusable low flying. Like wise, it is well provided with residences which, if "shot- up " loudly enough and dan gerously enough, can be relied upon to disgorge bevies of admiring friends of the in trepid pilot. This fact is also apt to produce low flying, but not of the excusable variety. Thus, it is perhaps fitting that, like the London police who visited Heston last year, the Sussex police should be given a special demonstration to show them the difference be tween low flying and low flying. Brighton, Hove and Worthing Municipal Airport Commit tee, on Wednesday oi last week, entertained a hundred-odd members of the various Sussex forces to tea and aviation, and never have we seen a more interested and enthusiastic audience —and certainly never a more sunburned one, fairly bursting with rude health. Mr. C. L. Pashley, chief instructor at Shoreham, and Capt. C W. F. Wood, one of Capt. Olley's pilots, flying a Gipsy I Moth and a D.H. Rapide respectively, provided the practice, while Lord Amherst, manager of the airport (himself the holder of a "B" licence, and wearing pilot's uniform) pro pounded the theory most admirably over the loud speakers. Mr. Pashley opened by demonstrating a quick climb in a lightly loaded two-seater, the Moth going up kite-like in the stiff breeze, and Mr. Wood showed the contrasting performance (necessary low flying) of a fully loaded air-liner. For the latter purpose, six volunteer passengers were asked for, and the police charge that ensued must have been quite the most impressive since the Chartist riots. Imaginary Emergencies The Moth showed the whys and wherefores of stalls. Next, a forest of imaginary trees, houses, h.t. cables, factory chimneys and similar unpleasantries, suddenly blossomed ail over the aerodrome, and the audience was asked to imagine that they compelled the unfortunate pilot to take off from a small field (a) across wind, and then (b) down it. Mr. Pashley played his part, and we were treated to two most curious spectacles; cross-wind landings we have seen before, but never the almost indecent spectacle of a Moth, as firmly earthbound as a railway train, chasing the wind right across an aerodrome, catching it up, and eventually _" passing it" sufficient fast to unstick uncomfortably near the boundary. The process was then reversed, Mr. Pashley doing both a cross-wind and a down-wind landing. For the benefit of the uninitiated, it may be remarked that the cross-wind landing is made with the windward wing down, and the aeroplane sideslipping slightly in that direction, so that the drift is neutralised and the chances of wiping off the undercarriage decreased. Meanwhile, the Sapide returned from a conducted tour of Sussex, which its passengers must have thoroughly enjoyed, and demonstrated a rumbling approach over the house-tops ("a high approach with steep S-turns to lose height would be unpleasant lor passengers," etc.). Mr. Pashley demonstrated forced-landing approaches of half Mr. Pashley, in the Moth, is above the Law. a dozen different varieties, slipping down into incredibly small "fields" surrounded by all sorts of supposititious obstruc tions. Both machines then flew backwards and forwards across the aerodrome at various heights, which the audience was invited to estimate. Judging by the laughter which greeted the figures subsequently revealed, the Force has not brought height-judging to a fine art. As a matter of fact, we our selves were not too clever—a large and small machine, passing alternately at different heights, put one badly off the scent. A Man Was Detained . . . Mr. Pashley concluded the flying with the most glorious piece of dangerous, idiotic and suicidal aviation we have ever seen committed. He looped straight off the ground; pulled the Moth so violently out of end-of-loop dives that it went on sinking to within twenty feet of the ground, stalled on an even keel; and sent it hurtling crazily towards the constabulary, who ducked as one man while the wing-tips zipped down and up within ten feet of their noses Even strong men in the lounge of the South Coast Flying Club averted their heads . . . Mr. Pashley (who, by the way, has been flying for twenty- nine years and has done something like 9,000 hours, much of it instructional^) stepped from the Moth. At once he was most justifiably arrested by a burly, bowler-hatted detective- inspector, who demanded his log-book and papers—which led most happily on to the next item, the inspection of aircraft documents, Customs procedure, etc. Having a morbid fear of red tape, we moved over to where another section of the party was hearing Dr. Gordon Smith, the airport's M.O., explain how to extricate the victim of a crash, aided by a couple of assistants and a "victim" so realistically oblivious to everything that the Moth itself was nearly wrecked during his removal from the front cockpit. The lecture was full of sound little points—e.g., use caution in cutting rigging wires, which may easily flail and do more injury. A fire-fighting demonstration by Pyrene, Ltd., with various types of CO, and foam extinguishers, concluded the perform ance. Particularly impressive was the almost instantaneous snuffing of a blazing 200 sq. ft. pit of oil and petrol by means of a foam attachment to the ordinary airport hosepipe. Judging from the speeches made at tea-time, by the Chief Constable of Brighton and others, the pier-jumping type of pilot will be well advised to go farther out or higher up in his future explorations of the Sussex Coast.
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