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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0733.PDF
FLIGHT, 27 May 1955 MARS TO JAVELIN . . . 731 and manoeuvrability are of an exceptional order for a machine of the class. Though it has met with its full share of teething troubles and has cost the lives of two test pilots, the Javelin, as shortly to be delivered in numbers to the R.A.F., stands now as an achievement of exceptional merit and one which will endow the Service with defensive powers of a matchless order. Javelin Development It was officially announced in March this year that a new all-weather fighter is being developed from the Javelin, and it has been reported in the American Press that this will be powered by Bristol Olympus turbojets. (Right) Javelin FAW.l (fourth prototype). (Below) Javelin FAW.l (first production machine). .-t-..;. :AW.l (first prototype). Photographed at Gloster s Maretan Valence airfield last September with an early-production Javelin FAW.l are, left to right: E. S. Greenwood (Gloster publicity manager); R. W. Walker (technical director); Col. A. L. Haley (U.S. Assistant Air Attache); Col Tucker, U.S.A.F.; W. Downing (production manager); Brig. Gen. H. S. Jones; Brig. Gen. J. J. O'Hara; Maj.-Gen. J. Spry, U.S.A.F.; H. Burroughes (director); P. G. Crabbe (managing director); Hon. Roger Lewis (Assistant Secretary of the U.S.A.F. (Materiel)); Lt.-Gen. D. L. Putt, U.S.A.F.; E. W. Shambrook (director and company secretary); D. Lovelock (M.o.S.); R. F. G. Corse (sales manager); Col. D. W. Graham, U.S.A.F.; and A. Cdre. Silyn Roberts, director of R.A.F. aircraft research and development, M.o.S. PART HI: FRIENDS IN THE GLOSTER FAMILY A. Cdre. A. H. Wheeler's Memories of Grebe, Gladiator and E.28/39 PILOTS who have flown a considerable variety of Serviceaircraft over the last 30 years or so may endorse my recollec-tion of the Gloster Gladiator as the most perfect aerobatic aeroplane of them all. To this thought one may add another, though without in any way detracting from the Gloster designer's achievement: namely, that anyone who built an aeroplane at that time to that specification had an opportunity which did not exist before and, probably, will never exist again. Before the Gladiator was built, engine power had always been just a little too low to give the aerobatic pilot that small reserve which would enable him to perform any manoeuvre of the Joop- and-roll family while yet remaining confident of not losing height; with the Gladiator he could be sure of gaining it throughout his performance. After the Gladiator, engine power did indeed in- crease enormously, but the result was that cantilever monoplane construction became inevitable, and wing loading was also in- creased. I think most people will agree that the monoplane with high wing loading never gave one the same confidence in aero- batics as did the lightly loaded biplane. There must have been other aircraft which were contemporaries of the Gladiator and which had the same characteristics; but per- sonally, I never flew one. One is, of course, inclined to be biased towards any aircraft on which one has done a lot of flying, and this may apply to the Gladiator in my own case. One happened to come my way in 1943 when I was at Farnborough and bv devious means I managed to retain it all through 1944 when I had an Airborne Forces station and the alternative to flying a Gladiator was a Stirling or a Tiger Moth. The Stirling was for the serious business of Airborne operations of all kinds—and a vrry fine craft it was for that purpose; the Tiger was all the Air Force could spare as a communication aircraft for station com- manders. It was a most attractive little aeroplane to fly, but cold and draughty, and it certainly did not have the reserve of engine power of the Gladiator. It is possible, therefore, that this period prejudiced me in favour of the last of the high-powered biplanes. Another feature of the Gladiator—and one which may largely have been a virtue of the times—was that it was extremely easy to loop or roll. The very early aeroplanes of the twenties always seemed to me to need a certain amount of care and skill when one wanted to do an aerobatic involving the use of a lot of aileron, whereas a loop was easy. As engine power and wing loading in- creased the loop seemed to need much more care, but a roll or any manoeuvre by aileron was very easy indeed. The Gladiator was fortunate in coming at that particular design-period when it was possible to make both manoeuvres easy on the same aeroplane. If the Gladiator could be criticized at all, one might say that, flying it, one was perhaps conscious of beginning to lose that sense of being actually part of the machine. Fighters had by then started to get big. In the Gloster range one had to go back as far as the Grebe to find that sense of being part of the aeroplane —the feeling that one could lean to one side and tilt it like a bicycle. But, if my memory is correct, the Grebe had only 365 h.p. Though I had had only one flight in one—a met. climb to 20,000ft —I well recall that lack of reserve of power as we approached the top of the climb, and more particularly because it was beginning to get dark on earth below. At that time the pilot certainly felt very much one with the aeroplane—and very much alone. But the Grebe was a delightful little aircraft to handle and even in the growing dusk on a first flight it gave one a sense of confidence
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