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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0278.PDF
i84 FLIGHT MARCH 6TH, I947 MISSION TO N Dl A recent month, I was lucky enough to be offered the opportunity of flying on a special navigational liaison mission to India. In this, a team of three instructors were led by W/C. R. T. Billett, the chief navigation instructor at Shawbury, in a Halifax VIB captained by S/L. J. S. Aldridge. By way of still further indicating the things that go on at Shawbury, it might be added that S/L. Aldridge had previously been the captain of Aries I on its penultimate flight before retirement, during which the London-Karachi, London-Darwin and London-Wellington F.A.I, records were broken in the not-so-ordinary course of the outward journey of a liaison mission to Australasia last year. On this trip the team had been led by the Com- mandant of the School—A. Cdre. N. H. D'Aeth, C.B.E. No records were broken on our trip—such things require a certain amount of special planning, if only that involved in obtaining competitors' licences—but, after hold-ups at Shawbury, both outward and homeward journeys were made with a minimum of delay. Our best non-stop run with the Halifax was that between Lydda (Palestine) and Mauripur (Karachi), on the outward journey, when the 2,050 or so statute miles were covered in 8 hr 50 min, giving an average speed of about 232 m.p.h. More representa- tive, perhaps, was the time between Shawbury and Castel Benito, when a track nautical mileage of 1,413 was covered in 7 hr 8 min from take-off to landing—a block-to-block average of 198 knots (228 m.p.h.). Minor Snags The preliminary delays were hardly surprising, since the Halifax VIB—named Sirius in keeping with the E.A.N.S. system of nomenclature—had been sitting at a nearby maintenance unit for eighteen months or so before delivers'. At Shawbury itself the man-power difficulty appeared, and the few available and always nameless bodies put in a prodigious number of hours, day and night, on the job of clearing the various snags. Once off the ground, how- ever, the Halifax gave surprisingly little trouble in some seventy hours' flying, during which it was necessarily given a minimum of attention. Apart from the turning of the starboard inner engine cowling during one take-off and the partial unserviceability of the automatic pilot on the latter part of the trip, the only serious trouble involved the failure, in succession, of three of the fuel booster pumps —no doubt as a direct result of the eighteen months of inactivity which these items had previously experienced. The pumps were necessary to safety since the engines were direct-injection Hercules 100s and were consequently left with their engine pumps alone both to supply the injectors " Flight " photograph. Close quarters : With a crew of thirteen in the Halifax, space was at a premium and any position-changing tactics required careful planning. and to lift the fuel from the tanks. We were lucky enough to notice the first signs of failure before arriving at an airfield within ten miles or so of a maintenance unit which actually carried a few of these almost unobtainable marks of pump. For the rest, the Halifax ran like clockwork, with the Hercules turning rhythmically together at 1,850 r.p.m. or so during anything up to ten hours at a stretch. The first of the times and speeds already given was for a leg with a favourable wind component, but, even in still-air conditions, the Halifax got along very well indeed. At 1,850 r.p.m., and at an economical throttle setting to give i\ lb boost, the indicated air speed was always 170-175 Vlitjht " photograph' Stripped 01 us war paint down to the bare metal, and with a lairing to replace the rear turret, the Halifax VIB became quite an.-' ttti ift The blister telow carried the H2S scanner. When parked, incidentally, a Hif^^^! down and the bomb-doors open. Jjpp attractive aircraft.
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