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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0388.PDF
246 FLIGHT filtrated with "Flight" Photographs) CANBERRA ACROSS R.A.F. Crew Delivers English Electric Jet Bomber to America last entry on the departures '___ - — - Aldergrove on the morning of February 21st was prosaic enough: it concerned a Hastings routed for St. Eval. But around lunch- time a sergeant took a stick of chalk and added, on the line below, an inscription signifying "Canberra airborne 1243, E.T.A. Gander 1656". He thereby wrote the opening sen- tence on a new page of Service history. The flight, by an English Electric Canberra B.2 tactical bomber, with Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets, was the first direct Atlantic crossing by a jet-propelled aircraft without refuelling. As the world now knows, the distance of 2,100 miles was covered in an elapsed time of 4 hr 37 min. Our own account may well begin on the afternoon of February 19th, when, chilled to numbness, we were huddled at the head of one of the Aldergrove runways, awaiting the Canberra. After delays she was at last signalled as having left the makers' airfield at Warton, Lanes. The sight of her scudding across the massing clouds, with the late afternoon sun glinting on her black and grey surfaces, was counted worth the long deep freeze. After two low runs at a modest 400 m.p.h., she touched down in the gentle manner of her type and taxied in. The airfield rabbits were as wonder- struck as the station personnel and visitors : though well used to the differing notes of Merlins and Hercules, two frightened pairs of bunnies bolted panic-stricken and nearly collided head-on as the Avons revved up for a last tremendous surge of thrust. Something new had arrived. On the tarmac were the Governor of Northern Ireland, Earl Granville; Sir Robert Gransden, representing the Prime Minister; and the station commander, G/C. S. L. Blunt. From the hatch on the Canberra's starboard side there The crew: (left to right) F/L A. J. R. Robson, D.F.C. (signaller), S/L A. £. Callard, D.F.C. (captain and pilot), FjL E. A. J. Haskett (navigator). emerged, after a due period of extrication, the crew—all three from the Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establish- ment, Boscombe Down. They were S/L. A. E. Callard, D.F.C., captain and pilot (joined R.A.F. 1940, Canada- trained, sometime intruder pilot); F/L. E. A. J. Haskett, navigator (former clerk-accountant, and navigator with 4 Group, Bomber Command); and F/L. A. J. R. Robson, D.F.C., signaller (trained as a "Wop/AG", operational with Bomber and Transport Commands, and present captain of Boscombe Down's baseball team). The Canberra (on the charge of the Ministry of Supply and not, as reported, the R.A.F.) was serial-numbered WD932 and carried wing-tip and bomb-bay auxiliary tanks, the capacity of which was the object of conjecture on all sides. Neatly stencilled characters marked the position of a camera hatch. One noted the latest cockpit-fairing and revised rudder-form, but nothing appeared abnormal until, from head-on, a hole some six inches across was seen in the starboard leading edge. Someone's assurance that this was a cabin-air intake could not be accepted: certainly its edges did not bespeak English Electric finish. The station C.T.O. approached, inserted his hand, and distastefully withdrew major and minor components of a seagull. The presence of the remains were soon explained to us by S/L. Callard himself. About three minutes after leaving Warton, in showery weather, he saw a flock of gulls ahead. The Canberra was then clocking about 350 kt. Had the birds, as he put it, pressed on, and not behaved stupidly, all would The aircraft: With the nosewheels almost retracted and main wheels coming up, the Canberra 5.2 is seen on her departure for Gander. The light-coloured strips on the fuselage are the customary inscriptions, giving various warnings and marking the positions of equipment.
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