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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 2415.PDF
RACE DA SHOREHAM SHOREHAM-BY-SEA lived up to its bright, breezy name on Saturday, producing fine weather for the last event in the 1954 air-racing calendar—the Goodyear Trophy Race —and the supporting features. The main event was won narrowly by Miss Freydis Leaf, whose Hawk Major not only brought her victory in the race but also in the 1954 British Air Racing Championship. Hers was a popular win, and a fair reward for a season of keen and consistent sportsmanship. The pre-race scene was unusually quiet. By Friday after noon most of the competing aircraft were paraded for handi- cappers' inspection, including the all-white Sparrowjet, which was prevented by starting trouble from competing for the King's Cup. A peep inside the Sparrowjet's neat bubble canopy was rewarded by the discovery that its placarded "never-exceed" speed is 250 m.p.h.; 200 m.p.h. is given as the normal cruising speed, and the stall occurs at perhaps the lowest speed of any fixed-wing jet aircraft—52 m.p.h. Its owner, Fred Dunkerley, entered both the Sparrowjet and his familiar Cirrus-Gemini for the Goodyear Trophy, flying one in each heat. His Mew Gull, also painted all white, now sports a new, domed canopy offering much improved visibility to its pilot—on this occasion, P. Clifford. There were nine starters in the first heat and eight in the second, each heat consisting—as did the final—of four laps of a 15-mile quadrilateral circuit. Nearly 23 minutes separated the first and last staners in heat one—L. Atherton's Piper Cub and the Mew Gull. Not until the Cub had completed more than two laps was the sleek Mew, looking every inch a racer, per mitted to speed off in pursuit of the field. Meanwhile, there had been no significant developments, though Freydis Leafs Hawk Major, third away, appeared to fee gaining on A. J. Spiller's Messenger. The blue Gipsy-Gemini of Nat Somers took off only 29 seconds after Dunkerley's Cirrus model and caught up with it at the end of the first lap. Very soon after wards Dunkerley dropped out with suspected lack of oil pressure in one engine. Miss Leaf romped away with this heat, with Spiller and Somers well back in second and third places. The handicapping seemed less than fair to the Mew, which just secured a place in the final by doming in sixth behind G. C. Marler (Falcon) and A. S. Painae (Proctor). Scratch man in the second/heat was J. M. Donald (Tiger Moth); Dunkerley was back marker in the Sparrowjet with a 17 min 24 sec handicap. By the end of Dunkerley's second lap there had been only one change in position: "Tim" Wood's Messenger had passed .the?' similar but slightly slower aircraft of E. W. Westbrook. HeAvas unable to catch the Tiger Moth, however, which won th# heat quite comfortably. Ron Paine moved up from seventh to third place in his Hawk Speed Six, and was followed in by Walter Bowles, the Sparrowjet, and D. and D. W. Phillips (Pr0ctor). We were sorry to see that Capt. Jan Christie of S.A.S. w*s unable to secure a place in the final with his Globe SwiffLN-BDE. One feels that a pilot who flies from as far afield ay Stockholm to take part in British air racing merits a less discouraging handicap. The six fastest aircraft in each heat made up the field for the final, which wa* delayed while frantic efforts were made— successfully—to replace a burst tyre on the Sparrowjet. Donald's Tiger Moth started at scratch, and the Mew Gull was back marker, taking off 18 min 3 sec later. An interesting feature of the start was that the Sparrowjet received a more favourable handicap (17 min 54 sec) than its piston-engined stablemate. At first this concession seemed to be justified; the Mew over hauled the Soarrowjet on take-off, and quickly established a 400 yd lead. For most of the race the two were neck and neck. Lap-by-lap progress gave little clue as to the outcome of the event. The first aircraft to appear was Donald's Tiger Moth, with Spiller's Messenger maintaining second place behind it. I #43^ *>" Perhaps the most attractive entrants in the Goodyear Race were the Mew Gull, with its new canopy (left), and the Sparrowjet (top, right). Both averaged over 200 m.p.h. Above, Freydis Leaf's victorious Hawk Major takes off to win the Goodyear Trophy. ^Flight" photographs But Miss Leaf's Hawk Major came up fast on the home stretch, and nosed ahead to win. A short pause, and then the rest of the field swept overhead in a tight bunch. The Mew Gull, alas, was last but one, despite Clifford's spirited handling and an average speed of 205 m.p.h. The Sparrowjet took seventh place at 210 m.p.h. A rousing finale was provided by the five "Throttle Benders" who took part in the Southern Aero Club Invitation Race. On this very short round-the-airfield course, the competitors were visible the whole time, which is ideal for the spectator. The race was restricted to experienced pilots and the 200 m.p.h.- plus duel between the Mew and the Sparrow was most exciting. The Mew, starting scratch, had picked up its handicap on the take-off and scatter alone, due to its greater acceleration, but it had just about lost it again to the jet by the end of the first lap. Somers seemed in his element as he peeled his Gemini steeply off each short straight leg on to the next, managing to keep ahead of the scratch fiien and finally overhauling the rest to dive over the line in fifst place. The supporting air-disjplay items were few in number but of first-rate quality. The capabilities of the Westland-Sikorsky S.51 helicopter were demonstrated at suitable intervals by the Evening News, Silver City Airways and H.M.S. Peregrine (R.N.A.S. Ford). Major "Dumbo" Willans of the G.Q. Para chute Co., performed a ten-second free fall before making use of the new, highly controllable "blank-gore" canopy developed by his firm for the recent World Parachuting Championships. In the Auster Aircraft company's latest demonstration Aiglet, test pilot Ranald Porteous ran through a complete "Farnborough" programme, including a particularly indescribable flick roll at the top of a loop (if his now-famous "avalanche" can be so denned). Loud clapping expressed the delight of the crowd. Another aerobatic classic was the Meteor 8 demonstration by S/L. Max Scannel, who extracted the last ounce of thrust from his Derwent 8 s and a surprising amount of condensation from the seemingly dry, sunny air. PI. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pilot Miss F. Leaf J. M. Donald A. J. Spiller H. Wood J. N. Somers G. C. Marier GOODYEAR TROPHY RACE Aircraft Hawk'Maj. G-ACYO Tiger Moth G-AIVW Messenger G-AKIN M«ssenger G-AKBO Gemini G-AKDC Falcon G-ADTD Speed (m.p.h.) 139.5 105.5 129.5 131.5 172 166.5 Start Pos'n 4 1 2 3 9 8 i Handicap min. sec. j 08 27 ] 00 00 06 30 07 14 13 54 13 15 \ PI. 1 2 3 4 5 SOUTHERN AERO CLUB Pilot J. N. Somers G. C. Marler F. Dunkerley W. P. Bowles R. R. Paine Aircraft Gemini G-AKDC Falcon G-ADTD Sparrowiet G-ADNL Gemini G-AKDK Hawk Spd. Six G-ADGP INVITATION RACE Speed (m.p.h.) 158.5 153 185.5 131 166.5 Start Pos'n 3 2 5 1 4 Handier min. sec. ; 2 11 1 45 3 58 ! o 00 ; 3 11 |
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