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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0720.PDF
X y'\ & FLIGHT MAY 8TH, 1947 FROM 80 h.p. TO 6,480 h.p. : Capt. H. A. Brown in irontof his 80 h.p. Gnome Avro at Redcar in 1918, and at the controls of a Lancaster during the war, " BROWN, like many a young man of his generation, could not wait for the Royal Flying Corps to be expanded in 1914, in case the war should end before he could take part in the fighting in France. (The 1914-18 war was very popular; we were a rich country and had a three power navy in those days.) Although a man of Kent, he joined the London Scottish after obtain- ing release from his indentures as an apprentice at Gwynnes and, having iought on various sectors of the Western Front, including the battle of Loos, and having seen the slaughter on the Somme, he transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service and was sent to Vendome to be taught to fly. where Lt. Carr (now Air Marshal Sir C. R. Carr, K.B.E., C.B., D.F.C., A.F.C., Retd.) was one of the instructors. His ab initio training was on a wing-warping, 45 h.p. Caudron biplane, which in his opinion required much more judgment for handling than present-day aircraft. It had practically no speed range, stalling speed was within a tew m.p.h. of top speed, and the nose had to be stuffed well down before one dared to close the throttle. Sam never went on air operations, but, directly after learning to fly, was posted as an instructor to No. 2 School of Special Flying at Redcar. This school was run on the Gosport modtel to the principles laid down by Col. Smith- Barry. Major McMinnies (for many years public rela- tions officer of Armstrong Siddeleys) commanded the school, and when the Armistice came in 1918 he and Brown went into a huddle to find the means of earning a peace- time living. Post-War Project Joyridmg with Mono Avros converted into three-seaters appealed to them, and McMinnies went to see the late John Lord, then managing director of Avros, and put the project before him. In passing, it is interesting to recall the part played by John Lord in the original establish- ment of Avros. In 1909 young A. V. Roe wanted finan- cial aid to help him carry on experiments with his self- made 9 h.p. triplane John Lord supplied this money out of profits derived from manufacturing " Bullseye " braces, and that is why the first Avro aircraft ever to fly was called the " Bullseye." The joyriding idea was taken up by Avros in a big way, and McMinnies and Brown, and a number of other pilots from Redcar, started up at Blackpool, where a part of the sands was allotted to them a? a landing ground, lt is Britain's Test Pil< No. 22. Capt. H. A. Brown, 01 Captain H. A. Brown made all the first flights on prototype aircraft from the Tutor of 1929 right u the Avro Lincoln. He is now forbidden by his do; to do any more piloting because of excess blood jsress but he still flies as a passenger. said that in the first season alone some £10,000 was taken at this seaside resort. Next year Brown, in partnership with Moxon, started up on his own at Rhyl, but the big profits had by then gone out of joyriding and only by virtue of John Lord forgoing all rent for the aircraft did the,two pilots make ends meet at all. Sam's next venture, which lasted from 1920 to 1926, was in Barcelona supervising the training of Spanish naval air service pilots. One of his pupils was F/L. Duran, who later flew as navigator to General Franco's brother when he crossed the South Atlantic in a Dornier Wai in 1926. Duran's end was curious. He was leading a flight of Mar- tinsydes in a naval review when a collision occurred. Duran, in his disabled aircraft, nosedived vertically into the sea, narrowly missing a non-rigid airship also flying in the review. The remainder of the story is almost un- believable. One of the airship officers dived from his gondola into the sea and was able to pick Duran from the wreckage under the water On reaching the surface, how- ever, Duran died. At the end of 1926 Neville Stack gave up his job as instructor to the Lancashire Aero Club, and Brown camt home to take on the job. This brought him into even closer touch with Avros, who were then busy turning out their famous 504 trainers with Lynx engines The late Bert Hinkler, who was then Avro's test pilot, spent most of his time at the Hamble works, and lo save him endless travelling Brown started to do the production test-flying at
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