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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0801.PDF
26 March 1954 355 ]ET GYRODYNE: Seen on an early test flight from Fairey's White Waltham airfield is the tip-jet Gyrodyne, which figures in a news item on page 377. The pilot is Mr. J. N. Dennis. M.o.S. Appointments T HE Ministry of Supply announces the appointment of Dr. J. W. Drinkwater, O.B.E., D.Phil.(Oxon), B.Sc, Wh.Sc, A.M.I.Mech.E., as Director of Engine Research and Develop ment; he succeeds Mr. R. H. Weir, B.Sc., F.R.Ae.S., who recently became Principal Director. Born in 1910, Dr. Drinkwater was apprenticed in locomotive engineering, and from 1931 to 1934 was at Manchester University; thereafter he held various university posts as a lecturer in engineering. From 1938 to 1944 he was at the R.A.E., where he carried out research on fuel systems for high-altitude flight, on exhaust- flame suppression, and on air craft fire-prevention. During the later war years, at M.A.P., he worked on fuels and lubricants, and in 1946 was appointed Assistant Director of Engine Research at M.o.S. Recognition of his work by learned societies has included the award of the Ackroyd Stuart Prize by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1938 and of the George Taylor Gold Medal by the R.Ae.S. in 1948. Other M.o.S. appointments notified last week affect depart- Dr. J. W. Drinkwater. ments concerned with defence electronics and with signals. Col. J. D. Haigh becomes Director of Electronics Research and Development (Defence), with the rank of Brigadier. He served in the same directorate (under its previous tide of Telecommuni cations R. and D.) from 1946 to 1950. After a return to War Office duties he was posted, in October last, to the Armament Design Establishment, Fort Halstead, for work on fuze design. Mr. H. W. Forshaw, O.B.E., has been appointed to succeed Dr. G. W. Sutton as Chief Superintendent, Signals Research and Development Establishment, Christchurch. Dr. Sutton is leaving the public service at the end of the month. Mr. Forshaw has been Assistant Director, Electronics Research and Development (Defence), since 1947. i i MUTT" SUMMERS HIS great circle of friends, encompassing all sections of the industry, will have learned with sorrow of the death of Capt. Joseph ("Mutt") Summers, C.B.E., on March 16th, after a short illness. He was 50 years of age. Summers, who will always be remembered as one of Britain's greatest test pilots, was granted a short-service commission in the R.A.F. at the age of 21, and learned to fly on Avro 504s and Sopwith Snipes at No. 2 F.T.S. He passed out from Digby in 1924 and was posted to No. 29 Fighter Squadron, equipped with Snipes and later with Grebes. After six months he was transferred to the single- seater flight at Martlesham Heath, where he helped to test, among other types, the Game cock, Bulldog, Hornbill and Avenger. He remained in his post at Martlesham until May, 1929, and the following month joined Vickers Aviation, Ltd., as chief test pilot. A year later he became chief test pilot to the Supermarine Works, and in that capacity flew the first Spitfire. Cabt Summers In all, he made 54 first flights y ' in prototypes and his grand total of types was about 366. Hardly surprisingly, Summers had many close calls, as, for instance, when the first dual Grebe, on which he was conducting tests, spun flat to within 150ft of the ground, coming out completely stalled with full engine. In a terminal velocity dive on the Hawfinch a fuselage bay collapsed at about t.v. speed; the anchorage for the Sutton harness was in the tail and this pulled him back and nearly broke his neck. While testing the first Bulldog he spun down from 10,000ft to 2,000ft, having tried to abandon the machine at 4,000ft. He had released his harness and was on the centre section when the machine stopped rotating and went into a dive, enabling him to regain control by pushing the stick with his foot. Thereupon he climbed back into the cockpit and landed. Again, in a terminal velocity dive in the Vireo, he was looking into the cockpit when the main windscreen collapsed; thus, instead of hitting his face and forehead, it caught him a glancing blow on the top of the head. Later, when the tail of the Vickers M.l/30 torpedo/bomber collapsed at 280 m.p.h., and complete structural failure followed, Summers, together with flight engineer John Radcliffe, abandoned the aircraft. His most dramatic escape was in 1945, when structural failure in a Warwick applied full rudder at 3,000ft over St. George's Hill, Weybridge. Summers had no alternative but to crash-land the machine. Putting on full top engine he-proceeded towards the ground in a side-slip at the rate of nearly 2,000ft a minute. He selected an avenue of trees, with a ploughed field at the end, on which to land. When the aircraft had come to rest flames were beginning to emerge from both engine air intakes. Fortunately some farm labourers had time to get into the fuselage and extricate Summers and his flight engineer, Mr. Green, before a major fire started. "Mutt" numbered among his "firsts" the first flight of a pure- jet civil aircraft (Nene-Viking) on April 6th, 1948; first flight of civil turboprop airliner, (Vickers Viscount) July 16th, 1948; initial flight of Britain's first four-jet bomber (Vickers Valiant) May 18th, 1951. From Mr. George Edwards comes this appreciation of his old colleague: — "He was essentially an individualist. His early days of test flying were those of personal assessment, the qualitative rather than the quantitative analysis. Mutt's approach to test flying was much more in sympathy with the knee-pad than with the complicated automatic observers which nowadays are an indispensable part of test flying. He vigorously defended the feel of an aeroplane as measured by his hand or by the seat of his pants, and I believe was always suspicious of the more scientific approach. "He had extraordinarily quick reactions. His ability to extract him self from a tight corner was the result of a powerful blend of experience, judgment and reaction. To those who designed the aeroplanes he tested he was a tower of strength. He gave confidence by his approach to a new aircraft and was warm and unstinting in his praise of its virtues. Equally valuable were his expressive and pointed comments about its vices. One learned never to regard his criticism or advice lightly. In a world of science and instrumentation his judgment and horsesense often threw an unscientific but accurate light on some dark problem. "He has been described as Britain's greatest test pilot. This could well be true, for his famous contemporaries of the pre-war years ceased active test-flying with the war's ending. Mutt had added many further prototype flights between 1945 and 1951 to his already formidable list. "As a man he possessed great personal courage and charm of manner. As so often happens with a man of his character, he was passionately fond of children. A test pilot's wife has no easy job. Those who knew Mutt and Dulcie Summers and their children knew the joy his family was to him, and how much the loyalty and devotion of his wife supported him during his career. When he became a grandfather, and endured some pretty merciless leg-pulling as a result, he was so proud and happy. "Now many of us have lost a friend, and British aviation, in an age when mediocrity is a danger, has lost a vigorous personality. Above all things, Mutt devoted that vigour, and his gift for detailed and commonsense analysis of an aeroplane, to the benefit of the R.A.F. For him the testing of a military aeroplane was a trust undertaken on behalf of all those who were afterwards to fly it. He was conscientious even above the average, but in a new machine he was representing numbers of unknown squadron pilots. This was, in a way, a self- dedication to a Service for which he had great affection."
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