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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0203.PDF
JANUARY 25, 1940. 77 Afloat again and ready for the cake-off. A SALVAGE EPIC " Corsair," ajter being Marooned, Flies Back from Congo : Refloated and Taken Off from Barrage-Deepened River. ON January 15, 1940, Captain J. C. Kelly Rogersat last landed Corsair in England after she hadbeen lying on—and in—a small river in the heart of Africa for ten months. The big flying boat showed some honourable scars on her hull, but otherwise was still a boat capable of flying home through the present bad Mediterranean weather in two days instead of the usual three. Aviation is a great stimulus to the study of geo- graphy, tor the little village of Faraje—the cross mark- ing the spot—takes a lot of finding on the map. It is some 3 degrees north of the Equator, in the Belgian Congo, and about 150 miles south-west of Juba. It was here, on March 14, 1939, that Corsair was forced to land, being off her course when flying homeward from Port Bell, on Lake Victoria, to Juba. Bad Luck in Landing The landing must have been a nicely judged manoeuvre, for the River Dungu is only about 50yd. wide, very little more than the span of the flying-boat. All would have been well but for a submerged rock which, near the end of the run, ripped a large piece out of the chine. With presence of mind, the pilot opened his throttles and ran the machine at the steep bank. There he held her by her engines until all passengers had been disembarked. After which she slid gently back into the water and sank, but luckily not deeply enough to submerge the engines, except for one carburettor. There were no injuries and no loss of mail or freight. Subsequent salvage operations indicate such persist- ence and engineering imagination that even Kipling's engineer, Hinchcliffe, would have been moved to ad- miration. And he was a man who, "given an oilcan, could coax a stolen bicycle to do typewriting." The river was, of course, not good enough for a take-off, so it was decided that the river should be made good enough. A barrage was built to bank up the water. Simple words, but a barrage meant stone, and stone meant a quarry ; and that meant labour and transport. So, with native prisoners supplied by the Belgian Congo authorities, a road was made through 2,000yd. of bush to connect with the nearest road, and quarries were opened on each bank. Then wooden box frames, made out of local round timber, were placed across the stream at 10ft. intervals to form the barrage. After placing, they were filled with stone transported by the natives. Clay was tried in an attempt to make the barrage watertight, but had to be abandoned in favour of "antbed," that strange material of which anthills are made in tropical parts. (Being hard-set- ting, it is used for tennis courts in northern Australia.) To further prevent leaks, a mat of rushes and canes was woven along one face of the barrage. Engines Removed A nearby gold-mining company, Kilo Moto, gave much aid in all this construction work. Meanwhile, the Imperial Airways engineers had been at work on Corsair. Lightening her as much as possible, even to the extent of removing the engines as well as cabin furnishings, she was jacked under one wing from the bank and raised on the other side by a raft of oil- drums. This was got into place by filling the drums with water and partially submerging them. They were then pumped out, and so lifted the boat. With the
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