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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0724.PDF
422 FLIGHT MAY 8TH, 1947 DIM TYPES-and their habits Some Back-chat About the Backroom Boys in M.A.P. Days . mumbling " good night " IN any large organization you are bound to find DimTypes. The larger the organization, the greater theirnumbers—and the more impossible for the Powers to weed them out. So it is casting little reflection on the now- dissolved Ministry of Aircraft Production when recalling that in its labyrinth of back rooms—where civilians served the Services — there existed quite some of the dimmest of these Types. Now that full tri- bute has been paid, officially and un- officially, to the in- dispensable w o r 1 achieved during the war by the Back- Room Boys, there can be no harm in recounting a few humorous inci-* dents, which bright- ened our existence and by featuring in which the Dim Types responsible can be said almost to have justified their own existence. There was, for instance, the very Senior Technical Officer, whose Homburg-hatted presence used to pass into a remote, mysterious back room rather late every morning and to re-appear, mumbling "good night," conspicuously early in the afternoon. For a while this arresting presence jvas accepted as being something from one of the better motor- car showrooms, now doing highly secret research on behalf of a grateful Air Force. Then the figure was forgotten, merging as it did into the background of our humdrum days, along with the man in the shabby biue uniform who sat silently in a little box at the main entrance and the bald-headed, very superior High Officials who came so often to inspect but not to interrogate us. But one afternoon the Presence actu- ally sat down beside a junior and posed a question : " Tell me," he asked, twirling an index fin- ger around in little circles " what is an ' in-line engine ? ' I thought all aircraft engines were circular." Equally strange was the head of an editorial department which vetted one's Air Publications. A bright junior had brought to him the drawing of a later-type Spitfire ; in this two men were shown holding down the tail while the engine was being run up. Quite rightly the junior pointed out that this tail-squatting had long been forbidden in the Service, since there was a risk that the men might be blown off, or even, in due course, actu- ally feken off. "Why," queried the Senior Editor, "has this been forbid- den? " " Because of the slipstream, sir," replied the junior. For a long time the S.E. studied the picture. Finally, "I can't see this slipstream. Where exactly does - Made a large paper figure. What is an in-line engine ? it go? " Wouldn't Farnborough like to know that. There was a feeling in all back rooms that Service personnel did not always understand civilians—and vice versa. This did not apply to a certain head of branch who had in his care some restless R.A.F. officers. These officers presently grew tired of promises of additional staff which went unfulfilled and decided to draw more vigorous atten- tion to their feelings. They accordingly made a large paper figure of a pilot officer, with eyes tight shut, and cigarej^ dangling from the corner of his mouth, and set this in one of the vacant chairs before an open A.P. The newcomer was an immediate success. But one morning it was observed that one of his paper ears had gone. And it was not long before this ear came back, addressed to the officer in charge of the room. Across it, over the initials of the head of branch, was the comment: " Penalty for sleeping on duty." Less happy was the case of another civilian, who boasted that he would apply for the services of R.A.F. personnel rather than see his department short-staffed. An imposing number of A.C.is duly arrived, and were found quarters which were normally occupied by the back-room boys, who were then away on duty-visits., All went well for a while, but our civilian was much 6?nbarrassed when, at the end of the week the a i r c r a f tm e n came to him with complaints that their laundry had not been collected and '' please could they have travel warrants to go home for their week-end leave? " Flying was the cause of a lot of em- barrassment. There was the very earnest civil servant, of the permanent variety, who was fed up with the fact that he never seemed to get into the air. He aired this griev- ance once too often—to the CO. of a Fleet Air Arm Station—on a day of considerable mist and other contribu- tions to poor flying conditions. Calling for a pilot, the CO. instructed him to take the visitor to his base—and to his base he was taken, in bowler hat and rolled umbrella, back-seated in a Barracuda, at nought feet, with a series of seemingly suicidal hedge-hops. Time-Saving by Air. On another occasion someone else who had never flow before was about to leave to catch his train when he wasp heard bemoaning the fact that he would not get home until late afternoon A kindly Polish test pilot, with a happy disregard for regulations, volunteered to fly him. Friends assured him that he would be by his own fireside in under two hours. It was nearly so. Alas, just as our civilian had spotted his rooftop from the air his pilot discovered that the undercart would not come down. By dumb show he explained to his guest that they must re- turn to his home airfield where they would at least have the services of a fire tender and ambulance, and where the aircraft could be mended without awkward questions. So -our now horrified passenger was taken back and, al- though the undercarriage did, in fact, come down, it was then too late to make the journey by train and nothing would have induced him to get into another aircraft;—even if he had been able satisfactorily to explain, to thoroughly outraged authoritv, his presence in the first. There was, too, the bright young thing wtio went to obtain some radio information from a firm making gliders. . . Laundry had not been collected.
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