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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0725.PDF
MAY 8TH, 1947 She spent almost her entire time in begging a flight. In vain was it pointed out to her that it would be a terrible thing if the machine crashed with an inexplicable civilian inside. She insisted that she was insured by her Ministry for every risk and would not "listen to reason. The argument got even as far as the edge ot the airfield, where the glider stood tethered-to an aged biplane. It seemed that she had won the day. Then, gazing up at a cloudless sky, beneath which not a blade of grass so much as shivered, the pilot saved the situation. Without a flicker of an eye- lid he announced, "I will not take off in weather like this," and, turning on his heel, was jWhen a few lucky civilians were eventually &; the fun began in earnest. One man, told to FLIGHT . . . begging a flight. gone. . . . taught to aviate two hundred feet below the cloud base, first dis- appeared from view and was next seen flying his Oxford well below the level of the control tower. Called before the interested CO. the pilot explained in injured tones that " the clouds were down to two hundred fivt, any- way.' Finally, there was the story of a ""civilian pilot who was flying in a twin-engined air- craft with a Service instructor. The instruc- tor suddenly said, "I'm going to cut one motor and you are to go through the drill of checking on it and trying to start it again." The port engine duly died—whereupon our civilian pilot, wearing his broadest smile and mumbling something about the petrol feed, proceeded calmly to turn off the cock for the starboard engine. "INSIDER." CANADA NOT FORGOTTEN XTEGOTIATIONS between the British and CanadianJ-~ Admiralties and Hawker Aircraft have resulted in an agreement for the supply of Hawker Sea Fury X fighters tothe Royal Canadian Navy, who will thus receive them no later than will the Royal Navy. ENGINE EXCHANGE _SERVICE BLACKBURN AIRCRAFT LTD. are inaugurating an engineexchange service which will be of particular value to club and aircraft operators wishing to maintain the revenue-earningcapacity of their aircraft. The owner of an engine which is .falling due for complete overhaul may, by prior arrangement,fly his aircraft to the Blackburn works at Brough, and have a fully reconditioned and modified engine installed for a fixedprice. It is expected that under normal circumstances it should be possible, in the case of a single-engined aircraft, for themachine to be cleared the same day. The scheme is limited at the moment to the Cirrus Minor Series II, 160 h.p., and theCirrus Major Series III, 145-155 h.p. MADRID RALLY RESULTING from a suggestion made at the F.A.I, confer-ence held in September, 1946, by the Duke of Almodarvar del Rio, President of the Federacion Aeronautica Nacional deEspana, the Madrid air rally took place from April i8th-22nd. : . The organization left nothing to be desired and gratefulthanks for hospitality must go to the President and Secretary General of the Federacion Aeronautica Nacional de Espana,the Presidents of the Madrid and Barcelona Aero Clubs, the British Air Attache in Madrid, and the Intava and Shell-Mexcompanies. Througnout the four days of the rally visitors enjoyed enter-tainment on a lavish scale in which bull-fights and banquets vied for popularity. From Britain 19 aircraft and 52 peopleattended the rally, and the only mishap occurred to a Vega Gull which damaged its undercarriage on landing at Zaragozaon the way out. LATEST BRITISH TRICYCLE : The prototype Cunliffe-Owen Concordia, whichcame out for its first airing last week-end The registration indicates a limited licence to fly until a full C. of A. is obtained. SCOTTISH ACCIDENT REPORTT HE official report on the accident to the Scottish AirwaysRapide which crashed seven miles north of Renfrew Air- port on September 27th last year, has just beeti publisMted. The aircraft was flown by Capt. F. Stephens, who, with theradio operator and six passengers, was killed. The circum- stances were that the aircraft arrived in the vicinity of Ren-frew at 12.59 hr when the cloud base was 4/iotli at 1,oooft and 10/ioth at 1,200ft, with intermittent drizzle and visibilityat two miles. A series of QDMs was given and after losing height the aircraft passed over the airfield at about1,500ft. Six QDMs were passed in the next 2 minutes as the aircraft flew away on a north-westerly track. At 13.23 hra "wait" was given and acknowledged. This was occasioned by a call from another aircraft, G-ADAJ, to the effect th.ithis petrol was running out. The message had been sent without the pilot's authority. On receipt of the messageRenfrew gave G-ADAJ immediate priority and a series of homing bearings was passed to that aircraft. Nothing further was heard from G-AFFF, which was foundlater to have crashed into Craigton Hill, Milngavie. Capt. Stephens, who was 27, had a "B" licence extendedto include D.H.89 aircraft, on which he had flown 45 hours as captain. The report states that it is the general practice for the radiooperator of one aircraft to keep the pilot informed of bearings being sent to another. It is almost certain, therefore, thatQDMs for G-ADAJ were verbally communicated to the pilot oi G-AFFF. The known track of G-AFFF shortly before it crashedbears a marked similarity to that of G-ADAJ in its approach to Renfrew, which suggests that the pilot of the crashed air-craft may have been flying on QDMs being passed to G-ADAJ. The radio operator could not have been confused as lie wasnot working his key and had acknowledged the " wait." The conclusion of the Chief Inspector of Accidents is thatevidence strongly suggested that, following a break in the series of QDMs, the captain, as a result of a misunderstanding,accepted as a resumption of his own a series of bearings for another aircraft. The captain of G-ADAJ cannot be consideredblameless for not cancelling the message. ADMIRALTY POST LAPSES VICE-ADML. SIR IMHLIi' VIAN, 53.has been appointed Deputy Chief of the Naval Stall (Air), lie will continueas Fifth Sea Lord, an appointment which he has held since last July. The separate appointment of DeputyChief of Naval Staff, formerly held by Kear-Adml. R. D. Oliver, has nowlapsed. Vice-Adml. Vian has assumed the additional duties of the lapsed ap-pointment in so far as they affect the Naval Air Service. The remaining dutieshave been vested in Rear-Adml. G. N. Oliver, Assistant Chief of Naval Staff. SPIT FLIES ATLANTIC AS we go to press we are pleased torecord that Capt. Storey (see page 420) readied Natal. Flying r>'<= n ••'-«from Dakar to Natal, the 1 ' across the South Atlantic8 hr. 40 min.
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