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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 1777.PDF
THIS CAC went SOLO BEFORE he FLEW DUAL By J. HARRISON, A.M.I.Mech.E., A.M.I.A.E. 7HIS is the confession of a 43-year-old who started in aviation in 19 Vi bul did not learn to fly until 1937, long after he had severed active connection with the industry. The writer actually flew 1 hour 26 minutes solo before receiving any dual instruction. It was not until February this year that he passed his "A " licence test. JUST after the Army Trials of 1912, when aeroplanes were box-kites, I entered the works of the old British and Colonial Aeroplane Co. at Filton, makers of Bristol ,aeroplanes, as a works apprentice. In 1915 I went into the Supermarine works at Woolston, then run by N. Pembeiton-Billing and Hubert Scott-Paine, who, after the war, left aviation to become identified with high-speed motor-boats. While at Southampton I joined the R.N.A.S. and was told to go home to my job. They would call me up when they wanted me. I am still waiting. A year later I joined T. S. Duncan, then the head of the Aircraft Mechanisms Department of Vickers, Ltd., who eventually made me his leading draughtsman. He was a marvellous chap whose whole-time job was thinking up gadgets to defeat the enemy. I still regard him as the ablest technician in the war. A few years after the war I forsook engineering for journalism, but it was not until 1935 that, as a passenger, I had my first long cross country flight. Shortly afterwards, Robert Kronfeld, the glider expert, read a paper before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in which he described his Drone monoplane and the Kronfeld Ground Trainer. He affirmed that he could teach a man to fly solo following a series of lectures and some Ground Trainer lessons. Over a year elapsed before he had got his system suffi ciently far developed to allow me even to think of trying it. By dint of sheer persistence I got him to promise me that I would be his first pupil. The Ground Trainer proved to be a rudimentary aero plane propelled by a 10 h.p. Ford engine. It had an aero plane's tail surfaces and ailerons, but its wing surfaces were about the size of tin trays. You could go through a lot of the evolutions of flight but not get off the ground. In front of the control column stood a vertical strut with three cross-bars on it, called a horizon bar. When the lowest of the three cross-bars was aligned on the horizon d FLIGHT, June 8 1939. "Then suddenly I thought of Broxbourne ..." the trainer was in its climbing posi tion ; the centre cross-bar on the horizon represented level flight; and the upper one on the horizon was the correct gliding angle. Elevator control was taught with chocks in front of the wheels, my job being to lift the tail by push ing the control column forward and then hold the trainer hori zontal. Elementary aileron con trol was practised in a high wind, the trainer being at 45 degrees to the wind and the gusts fought by sideways movements of the stick. Slow tail-down taxi-ing was fol lowed by taxi-ing at flying speed ovei the rough surface of the aero drome, the turns being banked as in flight. In all, I spent 3! hours on the trainer—which, by the way, had no springs and a cushionless seat. Long before they were over I became accustomed to taking my meals standing and to sleeping face downwards. Then came the never- to-be-forgotten day when George, the ground engineer, wheeled out the Drone —a real aeroplane at last. It was decided that future lessons must take place at dawn, when the air was calm and there was no one about. The Drone, as readers will remember, was an unusual type of ultra-light single-seater monoplane with a pusher airscrew. In front of the windscreen was a horizon bar similar to that fitted to the Ground Trainer. The fact that the pilot sat in front of the wing was one of its character istics that made it so easy to control, for one had perfect visibility all the time, even when taxi-ing tail down. More over—another boon to the novice—the stalling speed was in the region of 20 m.p.h., though one used to come in about 32-35 to leave a safety margin. Kronfeld so fixed the throttle that the Carden motor "I felt that meeting a spiky weathercock face to face in a monoplane before breakfast would leave me at a social disadvantage . . " could not exceed 1,800 r.p.m. (its take-off speed was 3,5°° and its normal cruising rate 2,800). After a period of slow taxi-ing came the first tail-up runs at 2,200 r.p.m., and then short, straight hops. Before each hop George and Kronfeld would stand one each side of the fuselage, and in chorus we would chant, '' As soon as she leaves the ground close the throttle immediately." Later I was allowed to use full engine for take-off, and the short hops became longer. At last came the momentous first circuit. I climbed out of the aerodrome, leaving the two tall poplar trees on my
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