FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1949
1949 - 0023.PDF
January 6th, 1949 FLIGHT Rush Job to Siiigapore Transporting the Palestine Police Force by Yorks and Skymaster to Malaya By CAPTAIN DAVID BRICE, A.R.Ae.S. ONE moment no one was thinking much about theFar East, and the next moment a telephone bellrang, and there we were, committed to fly thePalestine Police Force, some four hundred strong, to Singa- pore—and in a hurry. Our norrnal schedule for previous flights had been in the neighbourhood of eight days, but with aircraft heavily committed elsewhere, this was too long. Moreover, Sky- masters with thirty-six seats were not going to be of much value'in such a mass exodus, so there were modifications to be carried out before we even started. We converted a Skymaster from thirty-six seats to fifty- three, and with two Yorks already equipped with forty seats, we were ready to go in a very short space of time. Then arose the matter of schedules. With the Yorks we had to take it a bit easy, because of their limited crew quarters and lack of sleeping accommodation, but we did contrive to position a slip-crew at Karachi, in itself no mean feat for a charter company, and this speeded things up a bit. With the Skymaster, however, we had a more ambitious idea. We decided to plan the flight non-stop there and back, except for refuelling stops, which would mean an overall time of just over four days. At first glance this looked formidable and even impos- sible, but, like most problems, there were ways around, and we did achieve a figure of 91 hours' flying out of no witht the same aircraft, and with the same crew. And, more- over, we did so, not once, but four times with, of course, a crew change at home base. Our idea was not new, but it worked. We carried a double crew and provided sufficient beds for the off-duty crew to sleep whilst their opposite numbers worked. Each crew consisted of a captain, a radio operator, a navigator, and these worked only one sector before being relieved. A first officer, flight engineer and steward worked with both crews, but shared two beds between them, and usually spent about half the flight time of each sector of! duty. We carried five beds. To help the steward as much as possible we arranged hot meals on the ground at every refuelling stop, and lunch boxes were to be found under every seat after take-off. Crockery and cutlery were cut down to a minimum, although we still retained our bar box. We decided that the senior captain was to retain control of the flight as an overall operation, but that otherwise each captain should be in supreme charge of the aircraft over the sectors which it was agreed that he should operate. This would be so irrespective of what happened. Special dispensation was received from the Air Registra- tion Board to extend the Check I, which would normally have been required at some stage during the flight to enable the aircraft to return to base before overhaul; this being, of course, contingent on the aircraft remaining serviceable throughout the flight. So much for the broad outline of the operation, which had not proved too difficult to work out. All we now had to do was to work out a schedule in detail, and this proved to be much more difficult than one might imagine. To begin with, night flying was prohibited over Syria and Iraq because of the state of war which existed there. The monsoon season was at its height in Burma and India, with its consequent deterrent effect on night operations. Tengah Airport, at Singapore, was not available for night flying, except to scheduled airlines, and no alternative airfield could be used. Rangoon was unfit for heavy aircraft. Negombo, in Ceylon, was only available for scheduled air- lines. Special permission had to be obtained for a -flight from Karachi to Calcutta unless one was an airline, and there was some doubt as to whether we would qualify. In fact, there were a lot of snags, and once again the fact was forced upon us that unless one is fortunate enough to be a chosen instrument benefiting from Governmental reciprocal agreements, international air transport is, at best, a heck of a problem, and at worst a pain in the neck. In the end we managed to work out a schedule which went straight through to Singapore, bar refuelling stops, with the exception of a ten-hour stop at Bangkok to await the daylight at Singapore. Briefly, we were to leave London at 12.00Z on the first day, arrive Singapore at 23.00Z on the third day, spend an hour and a half there, and arrive back at London Airport at 04.05Z on the fifth day. On August 18th, then, we started off on one of these trips, and arrived at London from Dunsfold at 09.35Z. Visa trouble held us up to begin with, and eventually one police- man without an Iraqi visa had to be left behind. As a result, we were one hour twenty-five minutes late on take-off. With feelings of a none too auspicious beginning, we took off on the first leg to Malta. I and my crew were operating this sector, whilst Bill Ferries and his crew were soon in bed, trying very hard to sleep and enjoy their unaccus- tomed-leisure, "but without much success, since it was only early afternoon. Cruising Characteristics At 9,500ft we set course for Marseilles, and at the top end of our cruise contro] scale our Skymaster carried its 61 bodies along very smoothly at 180 knots, for a consump- tion of 160 Imperial gallons per hour. Later, as we burnt off some of our fuel load, and our all-up weight came below the 60,000 lb mark, we could expect a much lower con- sumption of about 135 gallons/hour, with a T.A.S. of 165 knots. All of which is evidence of a good commercial aircraft, considering its large and roomy fuselage. Lake Marignane went by on schedule after a flight in continuous cloud and rain over the Massif Central, and then we altered course for Malta by way of Sardinia and Sicily. Every two hours we moved the supercharger controls from the low to the high position to exercise the blowers and prevent sludging, but otherwise our engines required little attention. By the time we were over Sardinia it was dark, but we could still discern the black mass of a large thunderstorm over Corsica, which occasionally illuminated the mountains with vivid flashes. Ahead, other flashes gave promise of more storms over Sicily. Our frozen food dinner of chicken saute tasted none the less delicious for this, and with a few minor alterations of course, to avoid the blackest bits of sky, we soon had Malta Homer on the VHF for a reassuring verbal QDM. Soon after this, the city lights of Valetta could be seen, and then the red pundit at Luqa Airport drew our attention to the runway lights. Our schedule called for a one-hour stop at Malta, which was just sufficient for refuelling, met. briefing, traffic docu- mentation and a quick plate of eggs and bacon. All our ground handling was being carried out by B.O.A.C. or their agents, with the exception of the flight documentation, which was being carried out by the First Officer. This included load and trim sheets, passenger lists, manifests, etc., and necessitated a lot of work. We " cut" motors at 20.10Z, seven and a quarter hours
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
