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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0831.PDF
Walley Kahn in the Weihe circling over Kent in the T.42's thermal. The authors with the T.42 after their flight (Irving on the left). ObservationsThe technique employed (Lome doing all the flying, while I read maps and did the sums, as below) certainly seemed very satisfactoryfrom the back-seat point of view, since each person could really concentrate on the job in hand. Never having paired in this fashionbefore, this flight represented something of an experiment for me, and no doubt one could be more useful with further practice. The dutiesof the back-seat man were: (1) Map reading and navigation. (2) Noting times, places, cloudbase heights and height-time plots of each thermal.At one-minute intervals the pilot was told the height gained in the previous minute. (3) Assisting the pilot in choosing further clouds.This was probably of little direct use, since Lome is far better at this sort of thing than I am, but it may be that an ill-informed secondopinion provides some stimulus. (4) Looking for fields when low. Similar remarks apply as in (3). (5) Providing food, drink and othercomforts. F. G. I. Random Comments There can be only a few days in each year on which it is possibleto make a Channel crossing and we were therefore lucky to have had this opportunity. However, if we had thought about it in advance,we would have been better prepared and would have taken more suitable equipment. * * * The wind over England was westerly with a little north in it (290 degabout 20 m.p.h.); over the Continent the direction was slightly south of west and a little stronger. It seems that the best chance of continuing on the other side occurs under conditions of this kind. * * • The goal chosen, Aachen, was a sensible one and with a little morecunning it would have been possible to have reached it. However, it might have been better to have chosen a more northerly goal (e.g.,Arnhem), as on both this occasion and on the day five years previously when I went to Brussels in the Weihe, there was an exceptionally goodline of cloud stretching along the North Sea shore. * * * The crewing technique which we used was that which my wife andI had evolved last year. I am not going to say that this is the best, since it is the only one which I have really tried; but it certainlyseems to work, and I am convinced that, provided one has a competent partner, one can put up a better performance than one would byoneself. * * * For a flight of more than two or three hours' duration comfortassumes great importance. Everyone knows this: why is it that no one in the whole world has ever built a glider which has a seat atthe correct angle with a sensible built-in cushion of adequate depth? * * * The T.42 Eagle has a rather square look in comparison with somegliders, and one is therefore inclined to think that its performance must be somewhat mediocre. Although its actual gliding performancehas not yet been measured, enough soaring has been done to show that it is very good indeed. L. W. FAIREYS APPOINT HELICOPTER TEST PILOTS TNDICATIVE of the progress of Fairey helicopter development ••- is the news that the company has recently appointed two heli- copter test pilots to its flight staff. One of them is S/L. W. R. Gellatly, A.F.C., who is to act as senior helicopter test pilot under the direction of the chief test pilot, G/C. R. G. Slade. A New Zealander, S/L. Gellatly served during the war with the R.N.Z.A.F., flying light bombers and general reconnaissance air- craft. Permanently commissioned in the R.A.F. in 1947, he was chief ground instructor at 231 O.C.U. from 1947-48, and flight commander of No. 139 Squadron in 1948-50. In that year he took the E.T.P.S. course at Farnborough and was then posted to the A. and A.E.E., Boscombe Down, as Helicopter Flight com- mander. He completed a course at the R.A.F. Staff College in April this year. S/L. Gellatly has 51 types—including 12 rotating-wing air- craft—in his logbook, and he is a council member of the Heli- copter Association. He was pilot to the Duke of Edinburgh for the first royal helicopter flights, which were in Germany in March 1953. The second new recruit is Lt-Cdr. J. G. P. Morton, R.N., who is on loan to the company from the Admiralty. Entering naval service in 1943, he received his flying training with the U.S. Navy under the Towers Scheme and was commissioned in March 1944. After service in a number of carrier squadrons he was posted in 1949 to No. 705 (Helicopter) Squadron at Gosport S/L. W. R. Gellatly and (right), Lt-Cdr. J. G. P. Morton. and thereafter held a number of appointments concerned with helicopter flying; he was at Boscombe Down from June 1952 to March 1954. His last appointment, which he completed last February, was in the Ship's Flight of H.M.S. Centaur. He has flown some 50 types of aircraft, 18 of them helicopters.
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