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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 2304.PDF
.0 498 FLIGHT <V IOVEMBER 9TH, 1944 This is Test F Half an Hour of a Prgduction Test Pilot's Jjfe : The Routine of Checking i A Reply to the Rmnantics By "ONE OF THE MAKYJ -|-1( \Q the average person—even one closely connected with the aircraft industry—the words "test pilot" produce in the mind a beries of strangely diverse^ and generally quite incorrect, pictures. He remembers, perhaps, a remarkably good ground-level aerobatic show with a prototype at a flying display in peacetime ; or, il he was lucky enough to have been invited, a " first" flight of a new type by the somewhat publicised chief test pilot of a big firm ; or even, during this war, the sight of an cntiie test team sitting round a stove and making aviation small-talk while waiting for the appearance of the next sicies 01 aircraft oft the production line. It all seems very easy-going and faintly romantic, as well as being a rather simple life with short "working" hours and u good deal of play. Even the better-informed person, who knows that the- polished display was preceded by hours ol practice, thai the "first" flight was only the termination of hours of "straights" and concentrated cockpit practice, and that a test team cannot fly all day— even this person may not be able to visualise quite what it all mean', and may still, at the back of his mind, have the idea that a test pilot's day consists of an hour or two's amusing flying interspersed with periods of feet-up ease. At the risk of embairassing those whose job it is to do this sort oi thing all day and every day, and who expect neither commendation nor publicity, medals nor mention, here, in ' thought diary " lorm, is a description of a typically bad half-hour in a production test-pilot's life. "This is the last day of the production wee^—and the last aircraft out. The Met. people weren't to^optimistic but their 'front,' at its forecast worst, is stil, I suppose we'd better put up a show, lower broken layer looks like 1,200ft., but the is still somewhere in the early thousands. We go foi glory or whatever. Wonder how high th\ 'top is? Why can't they make water-tight aircraft? Still, I'm more comfortable (in body at least) than the fellows waiting to take away the chocks after I've gone through what they think is an unnecessarily lengthy cockpit check and run-up. Lengthy? I'm only checking half the things I'd like to. Filling the Snag Sheet " Everything seems to be under control. I'll wave the chocks away and the blokes can get under shelter. Take-off check—trimmers set; there's no such thing as ' mixture ' nowadays ; petrol correct; airscrew in override ; flaps up— off we go. Bit on the tail-heavy side ; must get the tabs screwed up a couple of turns. No ' up ' lights ; re-select— ah, here they come ; undercart only needs a little exercising. Take-off boost high . . , and combat boost a shade low. Tricky for the fitters. And very left-wing low. Can't climb through cloud like this; must land and get it fixed as far as possible. Why must the wind always blow from this awkward direction? I'll get the other jobs done later when I've got a full snag list. "Off again. All the instruments seem to be function ing and the thing's now flying reasonably level. One circuit, set the gyro on zero, and we're on our way. As I thought broken la yer at twelve hundred and raining pretty hard. Three thousand and we can still see the ground. Wumph—we're in cloud. Gyro zero ; horizon level; top and bottom needles central; one-seventy on the clock. Hold it there and write down the temperature and pressure figures as well as those boost corrections—shan't have time later. These thing' climb so quickly that it is all one can do to catch the full-throttle height boost drop-off and the figures at alternate thousands. It's better when the rated I boost is alittle high—one can see the needle move just before the height figure has to be written down. Better check the revolutions and speed again before F.T.H. is due, or we'll get a false figure. It's dropping now—at a height just below normal, but well within tolerances. "Still no top to the cloud. Probably we've passed unnoticed through several shallow layer-gaps. Better switch on the pitoMiead heater and wind on a little more oxygen. That very little left-wing lowness is becoming something of a/boie when flying with the left hand; we'll wind on just a/little rudder bias to hold it up. Must make a note of that draught, and of the way that bit of top cowling kinks between the two buttons. The charge rate's low, too d On the Way' Down "We've finished with theJBoost figures. Now all we've got to wait for is the automatic blower-change. Hope they've fitted the right aMtude switch for the type, other wise heaven knows where we shall be before we start to come Sown Any moment now—ah, there it goes, with the red light steady./ A quick check of S-gear combat boost and,,we can sjart to come down. And we never .loud, though a suspicion of sun could theJ ue,>M»d ngf thK/ ainTlayef ^ha*t*> s across a westerly wind, so the turn e through west, to make some allowance careful not to topple the gyro; it's a and if we're not on a reasonably accurate rst sight of land will be Timbuctoo or worse ch an idiot landing at a strange airfield to ask wTiere " Time/to start preparing for the level-speed run at xy-thousand feet. With another thousand to go, open up to combat boost, with maximum revs, and lose height more and more gradually. Now hold it level and watch the K.Sn. needle settling back to datum speed. It takes two or three minutes of very accurate flying to be quite sure of it. Urn . . . datum plus three or thereabouts. Throttle back to 'rated,' and make another turn back to a gyro zero before diving. " I.hate diving in cloud, but there should" be lots of room to pull out in daylight below the main cloud-layer if any thing goes wrong. Down we go with ear-drums cracking. Aileron upfloat seems to be normal a&d it doesn't seem to be as left-wing low as it was. In fact, it's very slightly the other way. Aileron skim must be ' panting," but the trim- change isn't bad enough to be worth attention. No appre ciable vibration at the wing-tips, but we'll have to fix this hood—there's half a gale blowing inside. We can pull out now. Darkness in front; I thought so—we're out of cloud and the bottom layer is still a broken one. "Luckily there's nothing much wrong with the thing, and one more flight should do the trick. Lateral trim, boosts, elevator tabs, draught, charge-rate—and the maxi mum revs are just a shade on the high side , , , and that cowling. . . ." But that, you'll say, is "stooge" testing; what about real experimental and prototype, flying ? In some ways it is less interesting. So mjiioi of it is just a long series of figure-obtainments, repeated ad nauseam so that the tech nicians can garner their information. Level speeds, level cooling figures, "partials" to ascertain the best climbing speeds, stick-force readings, handling characteristics at high Mach numbers . . . and so on. Just very hard, some times tedious, often frightening, sometimes interesting, and occasionally very exciting work.
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