FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1946
1946 - 1577.PDF
AUGUST 15TH, 1946 across Africa and ,-T 1 far East that Eric had a most unusual Hying experience. Tootling along in a Moth one day, he felt something brush against his leg. On looking down he found a stowaway snake in the cockpit with him. The snake ap- parently was charmed at the idea of flying in a Moth with Greenwood and behaved itself, but from then onwards Eric always took a quick look-round before take-off. Had there been a hectic party the night before, the. j^'ent might have been under- stood. Early in 1936, George Bulman, whom Greenwood knew from the days when he flew Hawker Woodcocks, wrote to him and advised him to re- turn to England. (George always had a nose for a good man, even if that man was on the other side of the world. On his return he went to Air Service Training as an instructor until Campbell-Orde left Armstrong Whitworths and Charles Turner-Hughes asked Eric to join him as second dickey. In those days the Hawker-Siddeley group test pilots were more of a pool than they are to-day. Greenwood was based on Coventry, but moved round to Hawkers and Glosters as circumstances demanded. This gave him both wide and intensive experience of the test-flying game, each firm having a different testing technique and specializing in different types of aircraft. > There was, however, a lot of flying to do at Coventry, both for the Siddeley engine side as well as for A. W. Air- craft. There were the Tiger engine (a test pilot's night- mare), the A.W.19, Whitley, Troop Carrier, Ensign and the A.W.29, a monoplane in the Battle class, all to be flown. On the first flight on the prototype Ensign, Turner- Hughes and Greenwood flew together, and it is just as well they did, because the rudder was so overbalanced that it needed both of them to get it central again after it had flicked hard over. Eric used both feet hard on the left rudder, and for the remainder of that flight it was his job to cope with the rudder while Toe. H. landed. In October, 1941, he was sent as chief test pilot to A.S.T. at Hamble, where examples of all the U.S. fighters were being modified in light of our operational experience. Greenwood reckons that he holds the world's record for Allison engines packing up in the air. On one occasion he was testing a new pair of large-area trimmer- tab ailerons on an Airacobra, The type had been flown Eric Greenwood (centre) with Wing Cdr. Beamont, D.S.O.,D.F.C., and Sqn. Ldr. D. V. Cotes-Preedy, G.M., D.F.C. These three, with Sqn. Ldr. P. J. Stanbury, D.F.C., makeup the present Gloster test team. The A.W. Ensign G-ADSR which gave Eric Greenwood and Charles Turner-Hughes such an exciting first ride. The Ensign made up for its early misbe- haviour by doing a splendid job at the time of El Alamein. It was flying fi up to Cairo with heavy overloads of urgently required ammunition. in U.S.A., but never before in England. Immediately the machine was airborne, aileron overbalance became so apparent that Greenwood could not allow the stick to move even a fraction of an inch. At the same time the engine began cutting out, and would only run at all at below zero boost. Straight ahead were "telegraph wires and a school, and farther on was the Southampton balloon barrage. Scraping over the school right on the stall, he had covered 12 miles before he had enough height to essay the gentlest of gentle rudder turn to edge round the balloons. He then flew dead straight to land at Boscombe Down.. From 500 m.p.h. to 600 m.p.h. In June, 1944, when Michael Daunt decided to take on a quieter life of farming, Greenwood went to Glosters as chief test pilot. It was here, while testing Meteors for the World's Record attempt, that he first flew at 500 m.p.h. (on a standard Meteor III with Rolls-Royce Derwent V) and then over 600 m_p.h. in the record breaker. It was an amazing piece of development flying to raise the clear- ance from 500 m.p.h. to 600 m.p.h. in a fortnight. In some of our fastest fighters it took nearly seven years to put the speed up by 60 m.p.h. Glosters had, however, guaranteed the R.A.F. that 600 m.p.h. had been exceeded, and that promise was kept as part of a test pilot's work. Greenwood's most "dicey" show was in a Mustang while performing before many V^I.P.s at Farnborough. Previous to this exhibition there had been considerable trouble with engine bearer bolts shearing. Flying from Hamble, he arrived to find clouds down to 300ft. He wanted to put up a good show, but vibration and the low cloud made him decide to try only the straight and gentle in- stead of the series of exuberant slow rolls which he had intended. When he landed, inspection showed both bottom engine bearer bolts sheared, and if he had done a slow roll the engine would undoubtedly have fallen out. A previous " spot " occurred while he was in the Service, night flying from Kenley. Flying a Gamecock and just admiring—and possibly cogitating over—the lights of Piccadilly from 12,000ft, he had an engine failure. Gliding all the way, he made a perfect landing on the flare path at Kenley. For the benefit of those pilots who know nothing of night-flying conditions before the middle of the war, this meant no runway, no funnels, no drem, no glide-path indicator, no brakes, only 600 yards to fun, and only paraffin flares to land by. Engine-test flying occasionally is a very exacting occupation. While development work was being done on one particular engine, Eric had 22 forced landings on 24 flights—without a single airfrarne breakage. It is this sort of work which lies behind the fact that many a pilot has never had an engine failure in the whole of his Service career. Greenwood has 5,986 flying hours to his credit on •158 types. J. Y.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
