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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 1548.PDF
702 FLIGHT WINGS AND WAVES BY I —and Hardly a Wheel: a Marine-aircraft Odyssey (Above) A Short Sealand of Vestlandske Luftfartselskap (West Norway Ai mountains as a background. The photograph on the left was taken from t at Kristionsund, on the route from THE controversy which surrounds the future use of marine aircraft seems always to take place in an atmosphere of great seriousness from which emerge ponderous quotations of costs and pay loads; and many of those who cast their vote in favour of flying-boats are, one suspects, timorous of letting it be known that their decision may have been influenced simply by the fun that they have had in such aircraft. The approach of the present writers is frankly frivolous; we enter the controversy heavily on die side of the 'boats simply because we experience die greatest pleasure in flying in them. The impressions which follow may help to explain why people get so frantic at die thought of marine aircraft being choked out of existence. Once upon a time an aeroplane that floats was a common sight and a fairly common experience; now they seem to be found only in remote places, so that it is something of an adventure even to make die initial journey to their bases. We have had to travel to the Shetland Islands to catch a tame Sunderland, to Northern Norway to snare a Ju52/3m seaplane, and to Western Norway to find a Sealand and a Seabee, both of which had been seen at home but which were elusive when we tried to fly in mem. We'll take you to die Sheuands first. Perhaps it was the island mists, with their attendant rainbows, which lent an air of unreality to our expedition and gave the impression mat we were characters (from one of those post-war "Passing so close to houses that one is conscious of one's own impertin ence"—a final approach to Bergen's seaplane harbour at iandviken. films) making a sentimental journey to the scene of past glories. The stage was apdy set. A deserted base; derelict hangars rattling in a half-gale; crumpled, rusty barbed wire; a concrete path, cracked and moss-strewn, leading to H.Q., itself bleak and abandoned; and in die distance a forsaken jetty tumbling into the water. Any minute now we would hear, against the nostalgic whimper of a barrack-room ballad, the roar of an engine starting into life. The tottering buildings would pull themselves upright, the mosses would peel back, exposing neat pathways, and brisk blue-clad figures would people the now-lively landscape. But die film, it seemed, had broken down. Certainly brisk lads appeared, burly in duffle-coats, and the roar of a Twin Wasp could be heard above die howling wind; but all me inanimate objects which had toppled or sagged held fast to their decrepitude—and that was uiat. Turning away from diese dreary remnants we looked out to wards die north-west to find a more contemporary scene. Against a back-cloth of hills—which included, ironically, die highest in Shetland—four white Coastal Command Sunderlands rode at their moorings. We embarked in one of diem and, after die usual flying-boat preliminaries, we roared down die Voe, climbed away, turned steeply over the base and flew across the green islands and golden inlets of the Shetlands. Thence we started on the long and some times monotonous search of the sea, which was now dark and turbulent and inhospitable to surfacing submarines. We flew in curious suspension just below squally clouds, them selves suspended in a light sky. Rainstorms pierced the sea in isolated pools and nudged the 'boat a little roughly as it flew through them. A touch of gaiety, inappropriate to a grimly war like operation, was added by rainbows that popped up now and then, some complete, flamboyant circles and some just shreds of coloured vapour. We saw a varied collection of shipping taking a heavy beating in me swell. Each had to be inspected closely, identified, "attacked" if necessary or passed as friendly; then back to patrol and search until long after the light of day had disappeared westward. The interior of the Sunderland at night has some of the qualities of a stage magician's apparatus. Standing on the solid-metal floor of the flight deck one forgets that there is more around one than this small and rather cosy windowed shell; then, startlingly, a yawning gulf opens at one's feet. Out of it a head appears, followed by a body which rises like a rather solid phantom, to disappear again behind a curtain. You turn, and from above a pair of legs swing down; again the floor dissolves, and the figure sinks. Shortly after, die smell of soup, not sulphur, rises to restore your sense of proportion. The long patrol over, the Sunderland was turned towards base, lighthouse beams flashed out at varied intervals across the dark sea, the cliffed edges of the islands slid back under die bows, a
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