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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0422.PDF
•258 FLIGHT MARCH 27TH, 1947 FLIGHT EQUIPMENT FOR HICH LATITUDES of the trouser-legs. Other refinements included a water-tight screw-plug for urination; a pair of dinghy gloves in sealed rubber envelopes, carried in the knee pockets; andan emergency rip-panel on each leg so that, should the suit become waterlogged for any reason, the water could be letout. As indicating the co-operation of both the interested Services, as well as of the manufacturers, much of the detaildevelopment was carried out by Surgeon-Lieut. Gabb, of the Naval School of Aviation at Eastleigh. Although the suit had already proved its worth by savingmany lives in the Arctic seas before the war had ended, it was still being improved up to that time. In fact, it can-not yet be said to have reached finality, but the latest form is an entirely practical garment. I made my first sea-watertest with the suit in February, 1946. I clothed myself in aircrew underwear, made of wool and Nylon, then donnedsubmarine smock, panties and stockings with the suit— officially classified as Naval Immersion Suit No. 1, overall.On top of that I had a Mae West with a life-line attached d h ii f SLi Gbb Iand, under the supervision lowered myself fromthe stern of a launch into the frigid water ofthe Solent. After swim- ming around on myback for 20 minutes, I climbed back info thelaunch. The only dis- comfort was caused bya slight leak at a patch on the suit, which wasactually an old one. This experience con-vinced me that the in- convenience of havingto don a one-piece suit was adequately out-weighed by the protec- tion given. The subse-quent effect on morale of anyone having to flyover Arctic or Antarc- tic waters is obvious. So the Naval Imnier-sion Suit No. 1 became -our first line of defencein the Antarctic, and for flying down here ithas proved one of our most valuable assets.No difficulty or discom- fort has arisen with thesuits on flights up to 5! hours in length. As a of Surgeon-Lieut. Gabb, I j / •: \ tI 1 . i :••/ i LETTER TELEGRAM Time received From • By " Ship of Q'ijin 0800 GLDG BALAENAP0RTI5HEADRADI0 5 LT POULSEN DORSET HOUSESTAMFORB STREET i LONDON . L • _ MANY THANKS ARRANGING TEN COPIES FLIGHT JUST ARRIVEt STOP OUR COLDEST DAY HERE SEVEN DEGREES OF FROST AND QUITE SUNNY STOP WISH WE COULD SHIP YOU SOME OF OUR WEATHER STOP HAVE DONE USEFUL AMOUNT OF FLYING AND MOPE BRING YOU BACK PLENTY OIL - GRIERSON • Flight fkrthest South. The message reproduced here was received inyespopse to an S.O.S. for copies of our journal. They had to catch a taldcer leaving Capetown for the Antarctic on a certain date, and therewas no time to send them from London, but our Capetown agents managed to scrape together ten copies for dispatch to the Balaena. result of our experience, I should say that no sane person should attempt to fly over Arctic or Antarctic seas with- out one of these suits. Forced-landing Precautions Owing to the uninhabited nature of the Antarctic, andthe dearth of shipping, forced landings must be provided against on the most elaborate scale permissible within thecarrying capacity of the aircraft. The two obvious types of emergency are: landing in such conditions that the creware able to camp out on land, an iceberg or an ice floe, or else a landing in the sea where conditions necessitate livingafloat, either in the aircraft or in the dinghy. Equipment for the first must include a grapnel or ice-anchor so that,if the machine is afloat, it may be secured ; and also a tent, Primus, sleeping-bags and rations on as large a scale aspossible. For the second, a dinghy with the best possible insulation against the elements, as well as containing theordinary dinghy emergency supplies and equipment, is the primary need. In both cases an item of supreme import- ance is the emergency wireless transmitter, with a built-inhand-driven generator. Tents are things on which all the Arctic and Antarcticexperts hold different opinions, so I decided to seek the help of one expert only. My advice came from Mr. WilfredHampton (now of B.O.A C.) who had gained his Polar Medal with bar through his flying and other exploratorywork in East Greenland under Gino Watkins, and also through flying in the Antarctic on the British Graham LandExpedition (1934-36). Consequently a special pyramid tent was made for us by Benjamin Edgington. The tent was adouble one, the floor dimensions being 6ft by 7ft and large enough for three men in sleeping bags. It had no eaves,full sides and a bottom flap lying outwards, a separate^ groundsheet, and a ventilator hole in the top. The pyramidwas formed by four telescopic sets of duralumin tubes and the complete tent in its carrying case weighed only 17J lb. No Fuel Crisis in Antarctic The Primus stove is too well known to call for much comment beyond thequestion of fuel. If the leaded fuel normallyused by aircraft has to be burnt, much troublemay arise through choking of the jet. Inour case, however, this difficulty does not arisebecause we are using a special grade of 91octane clear-run un- leaded fuel. This costsabout 4d per gallon more than the conven-tional 87 octane, but the advantages i nhandling and engine maintenance under therugged conditions of the Antarctic make theextra cost well worth while. Both the Scott PolarResearch Institute and the Insitute of AviationMedicine at Farn- borough have a highopinion of American and Canadian sleeping-bags. However, we en- countered great diffi-culty in obtaining supplies of either, so No. Worth Date Time - Scrvlct Instruction! 6 52 14 we obtained a sleeping-bag of standard R.A.F. pattern tosee if this could be made to meet our requirements. The bag consists of an outer canvas envelope, a quilted inter-mediate envelope stuffed with real down, and an inner sheet envelope. The three advantages are simplicity, nozip fasteners (which may give trouble in snow and ice), and the fact that the down provides good upper insulation. Theonly drawback is that extra ground insulation, which might be obtained from a reindeer or caribou skin, mustbe provided if the bag is going to lie on ice. Even better ground insulation should be given by a layerof air, and we were lucky in obtaining the assistance of the Balloon Development Unit at Cardington to designand manufacture for us a supply of pneumatic rubber mattresses at short notice. The mattresses could beinflated by the dinghy bellows, and they were attached to the sleeping-bag by the simple expedient of sewingan auxiliary canvas envelope on to the lower surface. In this way we got a bag which had good insula-tion properties and which was very comfortable to sleep
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