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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 1627.PDF
720 FLIGHT ARTISTRY AT STAVERTON C.F.S. Pilots Show Their Skill for R.A.F.A. THE air display held at Staverton on Saturday by the Gloucester and Cheltenham branches of the Royal Air Forces Association, in aid of the R.A.F. Benevolent Fund and their own funds, was so admirably organized that it would have been the cruellest luck had the weather interfered. As it happened, a lowering sky lifted as the programme began, the showers ceased, and soon there was sunlight, with the fugitive storm-clouds painting an unforgettable backcloth to the Cotswold scene. The earlier rain probably kept a good many people away; even so, the committee were gratified at the size of the crowd. We remember few displays which have presented such consistently polished flying, but perhaps that was to be expected, for nearly all the pilots were from the Central Flying School. Lt. J. A. Winterbotham, R.N. (on attachment to C.F.S.), set the I keynote with Harvard aerobatics, which included a long inverted climb and an eight-point roll so precise that it somehow suggested the presence of invisible ratchet-teeth. F/O. D. G. Slade followed with a Meteor 7, ending with a stately flaps-down progress, low and slow, along the front of the enclosure; F/L. P. Thomas, from South Cerney, showed that the Provost, thanks in part to its fuel-injection Leonides, is as happy on its back as right way up; F/L. W. C. Kendall threw a T.ll Vampire round the sky, the Goblin's familiar squeal adding effectiveness to manoeuvres that included an unusually tight inverted turn and a flaps-down fly-past less than 20ft above the runway; and F/L. C. Bartlett offered some delightful helicoptery, endowing a camouflaged Dragonfly with the playfulness of a Disney animal. By 3.49 p.m. (not 3.50—such timing was typical of the slickly run programme) cloud-base had lifted sufficiently to give a C.F.S. Meteor 7 foursome all the sky they needed, and the pilots— F/L. R. G. Price (leader), F/L. J. R. Douche, F/O. C. Bart, F/L. C. H. Lazenby—made most spectacular use of it. Early on (we learned subsequently) a large bird struck and damaged Price's windscreen; but no one would have suspected that the leader was flying under such a handicap. Towed aloft by an R.A.F. Auster 5, a Sedbergh from 92 Gliding School, Colerne (F/O. Hobkick) executed the finger-twirling loops of which only a sailplane is capable; A. J. Harrison—an ex-pupil of "Dumbo" Willans' academy—stepped out of an Auster at 1,500ft and succeeded in alighting neatly on one of the few parts of Staverton's surface not encumbered by factories or (as on this occasion) agricultural-show marquees; and F/L.s Ware and Cockburn from Bristol University Air Squadron capably performed the time-honoured instructor-and-pupil act. The next item was something quite out of the ordinary: the one and only Gloster Gladiator, G-AMRK (Bristol Mercury), which, as we recorded last week, its original builders have acquired from Mr. V. H. Bellamy. Gloster's Geoff Worrall flew it very prettily indeed, and the biplane fighter's nimbleness must have been an eye-opener to the jet-educated lads of today. For us, it brought on a severe attack of pre-1939 nostalgia. Also unconventional was the next turn, contributed by Dakota G-AMZE, which is a very smart M.o.S.-owned aircraft operated by Smiths Aircraft Instruments and stuffed full of experimental approach and blind-landing equipment. A fortnight before, its yawmeter-probe had been struck off by lightning, but it had sprouted a new one fully four feet long. R. A. Palmer's demon stration, wholly asymmetric, included turns "towards" the dead engine. Feathering now seemed fashionable, for the aircraft which followed, a Shackleton of No. 206 Sqn., Coastal Command, arrived on the power of its four Griffons; then, in successive passes, the pilot cut one each time, finally making his exit on one only. Lt-Cdr. Mike Lithgow in a Swift was unavoidably an absentee, but the crowd had the "Farnborough thrill" they wanted when W/C. Dicky Martin, Gloster's chief test pilot, thundered over from Brockworth in the fourth prototype Javelin, its Sapphires (on one run) trailing black smoke against the now lowering storm- clouds. Martin's brief but exhilarating demonstration made a magnificent finale, and then the rain-curtain fell. Of this generally praiseworthy show, we cannot forbear to add a special word in appreciation of the extraordinarily informative commentary by Mr. J. Bennett. When he retires from the post of C.F.I, at Staverton he might consider starting a school for air-display announcers. Non-stop variety programme: Reading downwards, these "Flight" photographs show Geoff Worrall cavorting prettily in the one-and-only Gladiator; F/L C. Bartlett putting a Dragonfly into one of several improbable attitudes; S/L. Dicky Martin providing the top-of-the-bill act with the kinked-leading-edge Javelin; and a Coastal Command Shackleton MR. 1 coming down-wind and down-sun.
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