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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0643.PDF
MARCH 7, 1940 Likewise the amazing production of the Wellington flight " photograph. My Dear Watson-or the Missing Body An Aeronautical Amateur Detective Does Some Sleuthing : And Also Some Debunking 1 By "RUSSEL BR1ND ' AS soon as you realise that you have at hand at thismoment a batch of exciting clues in a real-lifedetective story, your friends will make allow- ances if you sport a fishing hat, carry a magnifying glass in your vest pocket, take rooms in Baker Street and practise before your mirror the smug, if copyright, phrase: "Simple, my dear Watson." For this is the fact. Each and every week in the pages of Flight appear clues of absorbing interest. With icy logic you may draw inferences and make devastat- ting deductions, though frequently months of patient piecing together are required before you can build up a foolproof case. The gentle art of detective work in aeronautical matters knows practically no boundaries: only the amateurs will overlook the news items of vital interest which can be unexpectedly found from time to time even in the advertisements. Unconsidered Trifles As in the best detective stories, it is not always what is included that matters, since what is omitted may sometimes be inferred to be of greater import. In these times, if you are ca-canny, you will particularly notice this point for whilst, God bless us all, we may cheerfully recite things about the nations in competition with us about ourselves we must keep very mum. At any rate. you can put yourself down as outside handicap score if you cannot, somewhere, find an interesting aeronauti- cal clue well worth pursuing. Let us explore, defectively, a few things of current aeronautical interest. There is, for instance, the Case of the Missing Aeroplanes. The aeroplanes in question disappeared on a hot Sep- tember afternoon in 1939. Up to that time they had been fairly healthy, as it were, after a bout of growing pains. They were seen whizzing about the green countryside, waking up cricketers in the long field, in teresting Little Alfie at Blackpool, running ferry services, doing charter work, and frequently conveying Bradford wool merchants to London on you-know-what business —indeed, doing useful things almost every place. At that time our railway services were creeping on with petty pace and the winter of the travellers' discon- tent prevailed even in the summer. Using time-tables that were living lies, the railways had been on the one hand squealing for a square deal, and on the,other, in various guises, doing their best to muscle in on motor transport and civil aviation fields. Weeks of steady sleuthing revealed that the various airlines had dimly become aware of the fact that as one '«•••. . . and the speed of the Beaufort."
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