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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 1576.PDF
684 FLIGHT Anson Mk 12 (communication aircraft with deep fuselage). Anson Mk 18C (civil aircrew trainer for the Indian Government). ANNIE IS A LADY . Even before K6152 had made her first flight, Messrs. Dobson and Chadwick had submitted proposals for using the Anson as a trainer; but their scheme did not come to fruition until 1939, when orders for 1,500 Anson I trainers were placed with the company. It is, of course, as a trainer that the Anson is best known to pilots of the present generation, though it had an important and dangerous, if brief, operational career. In July, 1940, for example, a Coastal Command Anson on reconnaissance shot down a Messerschmitt no. Though 150 m.p.h. or so slower than the Me, the audacious "Annie" intervened when its pilot discovered four of the German fighters machine-gunning British trawlers off the South Coast. Thereupon, the ill-fated no left the trawlers and came in for a beam attack. But the Anson's gunner was made of stout stuff and held his fire until the formidable zerstorer was well within range. Then he sent it flaming into the sea. It may be remarked that, whereas the Messerschmitt was armed with two cannon and five machine guns, the Anson had a single fixed forward-firing machine gun and a second gun in the turret. Another Anson displayed similar temerity by intervening in a melee wherein it accounted for an He 115 twin-engined seaplane and an He 111 bomber. On December 18th, 1939, the agreement to launch the vast Commonwealth Air Training Plan was signed, and the Anson was chosen as one of the standard training aircraft. It was proposed to turn out 20,800 aircrew a year from 154 stations, and the Ansons which were collected for the task were a mixed bunch of Avro-built airframes with either Jacobs or Wright engines (these became the Mks 3 and 4), Canadian-built Anson 2s (the first of which flew in August, 1941), and later versions, designated Mks 5 and 6, which were also built in Canada. As production gained momentum all Anson Is were converted for armament and navigational training. The characteristics of the various marks are set out in an accompanying table, but we may refer particularly to the Anson 10, which, with its strengthened floor and without the gun turret, was developed for passenger and freight work. This mark flew at a gross weight of 9,450 lb and is particularly associated with the Air Transport Auxiliary, with which organization Ansons logged nearly ten million miles flying. (Top, left) The aircraft as described in the original proposal to Imperial Airways (August, 1933). (Top, right) The Avro 652A design submitted to the Air Ministry on May 19th, 1934. (Bottom, left) First prototype 652A with Cheetah IX engines and modified rudder. (Bottom, right) Projected seaplane version of the 652A (August, 1936). Only eight fatalities occurred with the type and an A.T.A. official has said of it, "Its characteristics were so free of vice and its engines so reliable that it produced an accident rate which, it is believed, has not been bettered in full commercial work." An A.T.A. pilot writes : "At least once-—during the 1940 days—I have been aboard an Anson with as many as 13 other guinea-pigs and their parachutes." Despite the weight penalty imposed by the tubular-steel fuselage construction, Avros were determined to develop the Anson as a post-war passenger and freight-carrying aircraft, and this they successfully accomplished by installing more powerful Cheetahs, driving v.p. airscrews, by increasing the headroom in the fuselage and installing all-metal wings and tailplane. These more modern machines fly at a gross weight of 10,400 lb, and, together with hundreds of earlier marks, continue in service the world over. Mostly they serve for transport and training, but one is never surprised to hear of some new odd job which has fallen to the Annie's lot. Locust-killing, police work in Australia, and supply-ferrying in Canada are routine commitments, and many Ansons work as "hacks" at the various experimental establish ments where they are engaged on trials of a more or less secret nature. Anson Mk 11 (ambulance version) showing entrance for stretcher. Avro chief test pilot J. H. Orrell completes his report on WJS61.
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