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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 1219.PDF
WSJ \ Fairey Flycatchers of the type which figures largely in S/L. Bunn's reminiscences, break formation with a " Prince of Wales feathers.' which had to be changed because of this exuberant but sometimes misguided devotion to duty. Once on the lift, which had barely finished its ascent, the warning bell rang, and down it went again. The lift- well was protected by safety rails, which shot up from the deck as the lift began, to drop. It was the duty of the fitter and rigger to "go down with their aircraft," and on one occasion my opposite number was a little tardy. As he sprinted for the lift his position coincided at one point with the rising safety wire, which he failed to clear; and he caught up with the lift-^oa his head and shoulder—some six feet down. As we formed what was known as '' slip flight,'' take-off was nearly as hazardous as landing-on. Slip flight used the lower flying-off deck, about 60 feet of tapering runway in the bows, upon which the forward upper hangar opened by means of huge doors like lock gates, opened and closed by the use of tackles (which the Navy pronounces " taykles") and elbow-grease. The leading two aircraft, the first usually the flight commander's, took up position in the centre of the deck just outside the hangar, nose to tail, and had special strops attached to a slip gear anchored to the deck. The remaining four aircraft stayed in the hangar, and all six ran up engines where they were. The noise and buffetting of the slipstreams of six airscrews attached to engines running full out in that confined space, closed at the after end by a fire screen, can better be imagined than described. The leading aircraft revved up on its slip- strop, the toggle was released by hand from the deck, and the aircraft shot forward, followed by the second slip air- craft. As the slip-gear did not always work first time, delay was possible, and recriminations both from cockpit and bridge followed. The four aircraft in the hangar quite simply taxied to the centre of the hangar and took off from there. None really attained flying speed before it reached the bows, so each dropped out of sight immediately it left the deck. Some, I believe, even "wet their wheels," but all invariably managed to make height and flying speed eventually. As aircraft were taking-off overhead from the flight deck proper at the same time, the whole scheme can only be categorized as apparently "dicey," but as no accidents actually occurred, it could not have been as perilous as it seemed. Unhampered as we were by such refining devices as accelerators, catapults, arrester cables, wheel brakes, fold- ing wings, et al, flying in Fleet Air Arm in those " far-off, half-forgotten days'' might appear to be almost ideal in its simplicity. However, even the most sanguine could not dilate upon the perfect co-operation between R.N. and R.A.F. Responsibilities might officially be divided, but this never encouraged the "press-ganged" R.A.F. to per- form Naval evolutions in any but the most deliberately ham-handed manner. While it might not be deliberate, it certainly seemed diabolic that the Naval salvage party would always dump a salvaged aircraft upside down on the deck, when dismantling technique by the R.A.F. required it to be right side up. Again, the Navy was responsible for ditched aircraft, and the handling parties had a naive belief that the 35 cwt cable lead-strop to the centre-section main hoisting strops was of sufficient strength to support a water-logged aircraft without the bother of transferring to the main hoist. The strop invariably and inevitably snapped just as the centre-section (which, by virtue of the weight of the engine, floated the length of the fuselage below water) broke surface, thus permitting the centre- section to seek its own level once more, and ensuring that the strop was now accessible only to a diving party. After trying to hoist the aircraft by the tail-skid and tailplane, each of which, in the event, was obviously not stressed for this purpose, the mutilated carcase would then be left derelict for ramming and sinking by the destroyer, a job which is not always as easy as it sounds. Naval routine, methods, accommodation (especially) and discipline did not go down at all well with the R.A.F., and this distaste was not tempered by the knowledge that one commission usually led to another, if you lasted long enough—"once Fleet Air Ann, always Fleet Air Arm." The Records Office apparently took the (to them) reasonable view that once an airman had received the initial inocula- tion and become inured by two-and-a-half years' association with the Navy, he was just the man to do another two-and- a-half years. The sole, somewhat doubtful, consolation was that a commission was equivalent to an overseas tour; but many an airman would have preferred three years " out in the blue " rather.than one commission on it. We^ were fortunate in having an R.A.F. flight com- mander, and still more fortunate in that he was F/L A M ("Hoppy") Wray, M.C., D.F.C., A.F.C. (later Air Com- modore), a fighter pilot whose logbook was like a poem to read. On looking back in the light of events, I feel that the Royal Navy had no great cause to like us, and that feelings were mutual. Relief on both sides was probably equal when the unnatural affiliation was at last severed. A Flycatcher during an exuberant low-level attack at one ofthe Hendon R.A.F. Displays in the early nineteen-thirties.
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