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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0806.PDF
FUG APRIL 25TH, 194O Britain's Test Pilots No. 6 PHILIP LUCAS, CM. PHILIP LUCAS learnt to fly on a Kenault-enginedAvro 504 at the de Havilland Flying School at StagLane in 1924. This was the pre-Moth period when surplus aircraft and engines left over from the 1914-18 war were still being used. The eight-cylinder 90 h.p. Renault air-cooled engine replaced the air-cooied rotaries previously used in the Avro 504 and gave the advantage of a throttle control instead of a plain on or off " blip" switch. Lucas was, at the time, an engineering apprentice at Vickers, and was also one of the first twenty members of the London Aero Club. Like many young men at that time who had learnt to fly, Philip wanted more hours in the air than he could afford to buy and also the oppor- tunity to handle some of the more powerful military types. To this end he took a short-service commission in the Royal Air Force in 1926, serving with Fighter Command (then Air Defence of Great Britain) and the Fleet Air Arm which, at that period, was part of the R.A.F. It seems strange now to speak of "powerful military types" whereas, of course, they were only Avros (100 h.p. Mono- soupape), Bristol Fighters (250 h.p. Rolls-Royce Falcon) and Sopwith Snipes (200 h.p. BR2). He was in the last course at No. 1 F.T.S., Netheravon, to be- taught on rotary- engined aircraft. Three years after joining the Service he was posted to Martlesham Heath as a test pilot. The experimental estab- lishment, where all our most secret types are flown, is now at Boscombe Down having been moved from Martle- sham when war broke out. The point about Martlesham Heath and secret machines is that a public road goes right through the centre of the camp for all to use. During the next two years Lucas remained at Martlesham test-flying •multi-engined types. Nice gentlemanly aircraft they all were, with a top speed in the region of ioo m.p.h. In the midsummer of 1931 he joined the Bulman-Sayer team of Hawker test pilots at Brooklands. This was in the heyday of the Hart and Fury period (with all their variants), and it fell to Philip to take many of these abroad, either for demonstration or delivery. He travelled the world over, going to Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Esthonia, Belgium, Egypt, Iraq, Persia and the Far East. He is one of the few outsiders who have lived with the Japanese Navy. In 1931 he took two Nimrods—the Fleet version of the Fury^—to deliver and instruct the Japs in flying and maintenance. Cable Aerobatics Those who remember the R.A.F. displays at Hendon in pre-war days will recall the annual event in which a kite balloon -was shot down after Major Sandbags had baled out. In 1932 the S.B.A.C. gave a show on the day follow- ing the R.A.F. display and, unbeknown to him, Lucas picked up the derelict balloon cable in the tail skid of the Jupiter Hart he was demonstrating. He went through the flying programme with this 200 yards of half-inch steel cable flailing from his tail. In 1933 Lucas had one of bis biggest jobs. He had to go UHi ou^ ^° Aflwaz in Persia, erect a Boulton and Paul steel hangar with local labour and assemble, test-fly and deliver the Hawker Audaxes and Furies which had been bought by the Persian Government. He had three spells at this work, being relieved at intervals by Mau- rice Summers (now with Vickers Aviation and just recovering from a broken spine after a bale-out) and altogether over 100 aircraft were delivered. When Jerry Sayer was appointed to Glosters as chie-1 A Hawker Fury and Audaxof the Persian contract in r933> being test flown from Brooklands airfield beforedespatch. The Fury and Audax both had 700 h.p. *%%M Pratt and Whitney Hornet ^H engines.
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