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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 0502.PDF
182 FLIGHT. FEBRUARY 23, 1939 COMMERCIAL AVIATION THE WEEK AT CROYDON "A, Viator's" Commentary : Press Sleuths on the Smoke Trail : Hen-signs at Sun down : Still Bigger and Better Step-ladders : Remote-controlled Food Supplies HATS off to Capt. J. E. D. Scott, of British Airways, who put up a remarkably fine show on Monday of last week, when he landed a Lockheed 14 at Croydon with a jammed undercarriage, on one wheel. A complete account of the affair, with no waste verbiage, was given in British Airways' official announcement of the incident—that one of their aircraft " experienced under carriage trouble but landed safely. No one was injured." Newspapers, unfortunately, had time to get their most emotional young men to the airport during the hour and thirty minutes in which the machine circled, whilst attempts were made to put the undercart right. Everybody, you would suppose, knows the Croydon smoke wind indicator, adjacent to which the Lockheed came to rest. Photographs showed smoke apparently pouring from the aeroplane, but actually from the nearby smoke indicator. Two bright young reporters made two not so bright guesses. One said the smoke was made by the skidding machine and the other that it was a cloud of dust raised by the impact. Quaint that the trail of smoke or dust should have continued to pour from the spot after the machine had been removed and that it is still doing so. Any office boy could have told the experts what the smoke was, but did they bother to ask? Prepared for It Arrangements—fire brigades, ambulances, asbestos suits, lines of hose across the field and so on—were admirable, ; but there were too many up-stage, well-dressed police of the Police College type about, in fast, expensive cars, making unnecessary and, at times, dangerous trips across the landing area and generally buzzing to and fro importantly. „What it was apparently a bit beneath them to do was to control idle pedestrian traffic after the affair; as it was, the whole place was dotted with overalled oafs and flannel (bagged) fools. An airport warder and a traffic hand finally had to shoo the rubbernecks away, whilst the faultlessly attired imported police ran about saluting one another and taking short joy-rides across country. Our warders may be slow, but they do know the place and the people at Croydon. Incidentally, few of us had ever before seen a machine jettison its fuel. It streams behind like a white ostrich plume. One report, by the way, said the pilot signalled that he was descending owing to shortage of petrol. Correct, in a way, for he would only have 60 to 80 gallons left after jettisoning. Anyway, it .was a fine show which did not deserve the mass hysteria which followed it. Somebody drew my attention to a pathetic scene outside one of our few hangars the other evening about sundown. You know how barndoor fowls decide to enter the hen house about that time and how one old hen gets half-way through the little door and then pauses to reckon up the total of worms she's eaten that day. The other hens outside regard her protruding tail anxiously and get more and more depressed as time passes. It was like that on a big scale with three worried-looking Ensigns huddled out side and the fourth with its tail protruding through the hangar door. I imagine that the Directorate of Fowl Housing, which - had the matter of hangar accommodation well in hand about five years ago, still has the matter there, grasped with all the tenacity of rigor mortis. But, courage! Even as I write the first girder of what may turn out to be a new and splendid hangar is being erected. The Ministry grass-seed expert has already been seen in the vicinity calculating ways and means of block ing ingress and egress with a big area of arable on which grass seed will be sown, over which no man or machine may pass for a year and a day. And that will bring us quite near to the time when we all pack up for Fairlop, Heston, Lullingstone or what have you and the demolition boys come along and raze the whole place flat. Flowers leaving Rangoon by K.L.M. on February n were delivered in London on February 14. Airline pilots hardly look on Sunday as a day of rest when, as happened last week, three balloons, trailing con siderable cable behind them, broke loose from a barrage flock and went careering off. One passed over Southend, which is on a definite air route, and disappeared over the North Sea with 400ft. of steel cable behind it, and another left Hook, Surrey, in the early afternoon and descended after dark somewhere in Kent. Proportionate I am amazed at the development of ground service equip ment as aircraft get bigger and bigger. For the Ensigns, for example, Imperial Airways now have huge portable platforms on wheels for engine maintenance. These are nearly as big, quite as strong and almost as impressive as the original control tower at Croydon, which, if I remember aright, was a small greenhouse on stilts which caused air-sickness by swaying in a high wind, and was one day severely shaken when a baby car backed into its legs. Now I see that the D.L.H. have a magnificent pair of steps for the big Focke-Wulf Condor which is coming here regularly, and on which, incidentally, air hostesses are carried. The steps have an ingenious form whereby a slight projection at the top allows an attendant to stand clear of the fairway and permit passengers to ascend or descend. These steps have a tricycle undercarriage, the front wheel being retractable. Press a lever and it's up—or down. Later I look forward to seeing still bigger steps, not operated by hand but by means of a donkey engine, such as Heracles has in a cupboard in his tummy. Modern Suburbia Sir Reginald Ford, who is, it seems, responsible for organising London's war-time food supply, very sensibly lives in Brussels and travels to and fro by air because it is easier and simpler than living outside London and spending hours in crowded railway trains or watching a red light fail to turn green on the roads. He came in on Thursday by Sabena, and refused, also very sensibly, to be photographed or interviewed. This, however, gave rise to the rumour that his func tion is to control the personal food supply of members of the Cabinet and that he had a giant Brussels sprout in his baggage. If so, it was not declared to Customs, and possibly had diplomatic privileges. Live rats were carried by air from London to Berlin recently, and it is hoped that there will never be a con signment of these predatory rodents on the same machine as the large quantities of day-old chicks which we are getting so frequently just now. Congratulations to Capt. G. R. Buxton, recently pro moted to that rank in Imperial Airways, with command of Heracles and Scylla class machines. Particularly in teresting is the fact that Capt. Buxton started as a mechanic many years ago, and that both he and his wife made many sacrifices—movies, perms (on her part), new clothes and other little luxuries—in order that he should obtain flying lessons.
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