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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 1514.PDF
3 August 1951 155 THE BIENNE RALLY Two Weeks Abroad with an Auster : Visits to France, Germany, Switzerland. WE cleared Customs at Luton on our outward journey, reachedCap Gris Nez in about an hour, and flew down the French coast to.Le Touquet in hazy sunshine. We had tea at the airportbut found that we could go on farther and, indeed, preferred to do so, as this is a somewhat over-populated spot which our typeof private owner usually tries to avoid. We decided to stay at Dieppe which, the map showed, had asmall airfield three miles from the town and looked more of an honest-to-goodness commercial set-up. It was a grass airfieldwith a small hangar under construction and a friendly airport manager (known as the 'chief pilot'). Neville Rogers in "ItemWillies" was accompanying us, and we parked the two Austers for the night by the farmhouse which served as the airport office.. The 'chief pilot' kindly installed us in his own house, an attrac- tive country inn known as I'Auberge de la Maison Blanche. A mealwas ready as soon as we had washed and the welcome large bowl oipotage gave us another homely introduction to the good food ofFrance. After supper we walked in the well-kept garden and saw how our host spent his time when not attending to visiting aircraft.I can strongly recommend this place to anyone who wants to spend a pleasant evening with country food and wine. In the morning, our host refused to accept any recompense forthe use of his car, and the official fee for landing and overnight parking was about one shilling. We reached Deauville at the appointed time and enjoyed thehospitality and efficient organization which is always found there. After Deauville we had a full four days to fill in before the Swissrally, so we elected to go to Paris. For Austers, this meant landing at Toussus-le-Noble, which entails a rather long journey to thecity. However, we availed ourselves of a handy 'bus service to adjacent Versailles, which enabled us to see one of the 'musts' ofParis; from there a good electric train service runs to the Gare des Invalides. Paris was celebrating its 2,oooth anniversary and beingwarm and gay, offered a pleasant way of spending three spare days. From Toussus, we set off on Thursday afternoon, having selectedin the A.T.C. office, and been cleared for, the airfield at Luxeuil. This was a little farther than we had intended, but we were makingfor the Belfort Gap and Chaumont was temporarily out of action. This, like some of our mid-winter experiences in France, provedanother case of inadequate briefing. We arrived over the Luxeuil airfield at the end of a long run and saw that the landing 'T' wasthe wrong way round. There was only one runway so we landed elsewhere on the grass to avoid deliberately landing against theindicated direction. There was no sign of life, except among the few French Air Force types, who ignored us completely. Thecivil flying club was deserted, and we discovered from a boy that this was the chief pilot's day off and we could not obtain fuel orany other service. Having very little in our tanks, we put the two Austers in the open hangar among the club's aircraft and decidedthat we had to spend the night at Luxeuil whether we liked it or not. We felt that the airfield information sheet which we had beenshown at Toussus might have included one vital piece of informa- tion—"No service on Thursdays." The Quest for Fuel Next morning the airfield was fully operational but the managerregretted that he could not spare us any petrol. There was of course nothing else that we needed except fuel. This was anothercase where the club's allocation was insufficient for their own requirements, but when we said we were absolutely strandedunless we got some, we were given enough to take us to the next airfield. Basle-Mulhouse was Veached in time for lunch and there thep-P. tanker met and serviced us as soon as we parked. This international airport, on the borders of France, Germany andSwitzerland, provides meals, Customs and all necessary services. It only remained for us to work out as carefully as possible ourtime of flight to Bienne to enable us to arrive at the allotted time over the stop-watch team at Bozingen airfield. The Royal AeroClub had suggested that we should follow the low ground to Alien, to the south-east of Basle, and then follow the south-westerly valley through Solothurn to our objective. Each partici- pant had to arrive at his own specified time; ours was 3.15 p.m.Jne only difficulty was to set our watches, and the best we could ui at Basle-Mulhouse was to watch the electric repeater-clockslumping the minutes, or go by the second hand on the A.T.C. ofhcer's wrist watch. The route was a good one, and we used up the two or threeminutes which we had in hand by circling well out of sight of our destination. We thought it would be unfair to fly over the airfield So that private owners and club members who were unable to attend the Swiss Internationa! Rally last month will learn of a few of the moments they missed, and also to give a general idea of what fun is to be had at these Continental meetings we reproduce the accompanying extracts from an account of the event sent to us by a pilot who took part. He is GjC. R. A. McMurtrie, D.S.O., D.F.C., who, accompanied by his wife, set out on a fortnight's jaunt in his own Auster, taking in visits to Deauville, Paris and the Bienne Rally. first, and we were about half a minute early as we found the fieldwas rather further north-west of the town than we had previously thought. A watch error added to this and we were almost a minute beforeour appointed time over the circle. We did not do what one of our Belgian colleagues was seen to do a little later : he throttled back totry and stretch his run in to use up a few seconds and his Ercoupe just fell out of the sky, to become a complete write-off in the middleof the airfield. The occupants, fortunately, were unhurt. By a most precise piece of navigation, G. Linnell in his Gemini, navi-gated by B. W. Miller, arrived only 1.6 sec from their appointed time. We were struck by the clean and modern appearance of thepicturesque town of Bienne, cradled between two ridges of hills at the head of a small lake. It is, of course, a bi-lingual town, hencethe dual name of Bienne (French) and Bid its German-language equivalent. Results of the Rally On Saturday morning, our programme called for a start at 0830 hr.We were driven to two watch factories and later travelled on the funicular railway to Macelin on the hill-top overlooking the town.As soon as they could get us down the funicular again, we were whisked off to the lakeside where our seats were booked on thepaddle-boat for the island of St. Pierre. This—the main and busiest day of the rally—ended in a happy mood with dancing onthe fore-deck. Sunday, July 8th, was another fine, warm day. At 0930 theprecision landing competition started. It was after this that the Bonanza belonging to the Swiss club was taken off by a member,with three ladies as passengers, and the tank ran dry. The pilot attempted to turn back to the airfield from two or three hundredfeet, stalled, and dived into the ground between the airfield and the town. This tragic accident, which was followed by a fire, took thelives of these four Swiss friends and marred the rally. The results of the arrival and landing competitions wereannounced at the final official banquet in the evening. First was a Swiss, M. Stocklin (of Zug), who flew a Miles Whitney Straight.G. Linnell and J. Rice, both from Great Britain were second and third, respectively. The prizes, very excellent Swiss watches, wereawarded to these competitors; and the remainder (25 in all, received "place" awards) were permitted to select their watches in order ofmerit. The prize for elegance went to A. J. • Linnell's Messenger,G-AKER. The remaining guests, both pilots and passengers, also received watches. On Tuesday morning we flew by Basle, up the Rhine to Stras-bourg, then through Alsace-Lorraine, via Saarbrucken, and across the Moselle to Luxemburg. This took us two and a half hoursfrom Bienne, but we then wasted half an hour searching for an air- field which, on my R.A.F. war-time map, was marked in the wrongplace. We had seen the new construction going on at the airfield to the east of the town, and in the end this turned out to be ourdestination. A very fine airport is being made here and the main runway already takes DC-4S on regular Flying Tiger services. Next day, after making a detour to avoid the Ardenne forestsand high ground, we reached Lille, where we found the Customs and refuelling facilities quick and efficient. We were just clearedby 6 p.m. when the Customs finished work, and so took a walk into the adjacent village for a meal, and to buy some wine and olive oil.We had to wait a short while for a thunderstorm to pass before setting out to Lympne, which we eventually managed to reachbefore dark. Unfortunately, we had to pay duty on our watches, but this wasa trivial price for the hospitality and generosity which we had received abroad. We are certainly looking forward to the nexttime.
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