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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0655.PDF
FLIGHT, 17 May 1957 659 THE NEW R.A.F. "No Need for Pessimism" the Keynote at Pathfinders" Annual Dinner FLINCIPAL guests at the annual dinner of the PathfinderAssociation, held at the Dorchester Hotel, London, lastweek, were the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Mr. C I Orr-Ewing, O.B.E., M.P., and the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff,Air Marshal Sir Geoffrey Tuttle, K.B.E., C.B., D.F.C. The president, A. Cdre. J. M. Birkin, C.B., D.S.O., O.B.E., D.F.C.,A.F.C., was able to report favourably on the circumstances of the Association. In proposing "The Royal Air Force" in a humorousand well received speech, he said that the current position of the Service might be likened to that of Irish politics—it was desperatebut not serious. He thought that people had taken an unduly pessimistic view in the light of the recent changes. Replying, Sir Geoffrey Tuttle said that the re-alignment wasnot a sudden shock. Many of the changes—no new fighters, no supersonic bomber—followed the decisions made earlier this yearby the Air Council. He went on to point out that only a small portion of the Air Force had ever flown, and that to reduce thissmall number by a further small proportion would not affect many people. The Service would still use aircraft and engines, and thebulk of its manpower would be unaffected. There would be plenty of flying for the next ten years and the result of the reductionin flying strength would be a raising of the standards: it would be difficult for a man to get in as a pilot, and there would beplenty of room for those good enough to meet the new high standards. The Air Marshal went on to say that though there would beno Pathfinder Force in the future, "Pathfinder qualities" were needed still. In discussing the reduction in fighter strength, peopleoverlooked the fact that Bomber Command would get bigger and bigger. We had to go on finding ways of preventing war, and in some roles there would be unmanned methods of delivery. Trans-port and Coastal Commands, also, would continue. Airmen developed three-dimensional minds and it was important to con-tinue to think in these terms, because the role of the Air Force was unaltered whether an individual flew or not. The health of the guests was entertainingly proposed by Mr.Kenneth Wolstenholme, D.F.C., and Mr. Orr-Ewing replied. After some lighter remarks he said that a new chapter was start-ing in the R.A.F., but there was something still to be learned from P.F.F. principles. All men were not equally able or experi-enced, so it was better to concentrate, and lead the less able and less experienced. This was one lesson; the second was that onecould not provide the whole of a massive Air Force with the latest gadgets and equipment, so one should concentrate the bestmen and the best equipment. There would never be mass bomber raids again, but today one bomber packed the punch of the wholefront line of the Air Force of the last war; so each of the bombers we did have must be the best and the best manned. The thirdlesson was that the P.F.F. used "the guts, brains and operational experience of the best crews and teamed them up with the finestscientific brains"; the keynote of the future in the R.A.F. would be the teaming-up of the General Duties and Technical branches. Mr. Orr-Ewing went on to stress that though "Guided weaponswill nibble at only one command in the next five years," all the rest of the commands would expand. Defence could not be leftsolely to electronics while they could be jammed. Perhaps the only kind of war we should have to face for years to come wouldbe the cold war, and this would need pilots on and on for years. If our deterrent policies were effective, there would even be severaldecades of pilots in the R.A.F. FOR THE BOOKSHELF "Best Foot Forward," by Colin Hodgkinson. Odhams Press, Ltd., Long Acre, London, W.C.2. Illustrated. Price 18s. TN 1939, as a midshipman accepted for the Fleet Air Arm, Colin-*- Hodgkinson was doing his sea training. To all appearances a typically hearty rugger-playing, boxing, tankard-emptying six-footer, he was yet curiously introspective: so much so that as he began his flying training he found himself doubting whether hewanted to fly at all, and admitting to "a lack of confidence in my ability to control machines." As tuition at Gravesend progressed, he met his particular betenoire—instrument flying. As soon as the hood was drawn over the pupil's cockpit in the Tiger Moth "I lost my wits completely.... My faculties were frozen in the fuzzy panic of claustrophobia." His instructor was worried : "It won't do, old boy. We'll have toget this buttoned up." It was during the buttoning-up process—an extra session underthe hood—that Hodgkinson's aircraft collided with another and spun in from 500ft. He awoke in hospital to find himself minushis right leg; and after long agonizing months his left was amputated also. During this time he read about Douglas Bader: "It seemedas if he loved the air; I hated it. ... If Bader could fly, I told myself, so could Hodgkinson. By a process of counter-irritationI worked myself into a state of arrogance. The air owed me a living. It had made me in my own eyes less than a man. I wouldmake it the instrument of my becoming one. I loathed it; I would make it serve me." There followed "tin legs" at Roehampton, a facial operationby Sir Archibald Mclndoe at East Grinstead, and invaliding out; then a long spell of string-pulling that at last got him back intothe F.A.A. and, eventually, into a cockpit. Recoiling from being relegated to "dragging a drogue throughthe sad skies of St. Merryn," he achieved a transfer to the R.A.F., and eventually to a Spitfire squadron, No. 610, under the greatJohnnie Johnson, then to No. 611, at Biggin Hill, with Spitfire 9s. The succeeding chapters of Mr. Hodgkinson's book containtaut and vivid descriptions of fighter, escort and ground-attack operations. Yet, after a hundred sorties and several victories hestill regarded flying as an enemy in its own right; and when he was on a lone met. flight over France it struck at him again, this time inthe shape of an oxygen failure at 31,000ft. Once more he awoke in hospital, this time as a prisoner of war. There followed other hospitals; prison camps; repatriation;more string-pulling; and eventually, for this unquenchable spirit, a fighter-leader course at C.F.E. just as the war was ending. Then demobilization, and "idleness and boredom that induced me toexplore the shifting, twilight world of spivvery." Finally, back to the old enemy for week-ends—as a pilot in No. 604 Squadron,R.Aux.A.F.—and eventually to a rewarding job and a happy marriage. Particularly in the early chapters there is what strikes one as anunnecessary lack of reticence about matters concerning the author's parental family; but some of these allusions are admit-tedly relevant in that they explain his complex personality and contradictory attitude to flying and fighting. Altogether, a highlyreadable autobiography. "Aircraft of the Royal Air Force 1918-57," by Owen Thetford,Putnam and Co., Ltd., 42 Great Russell Street, London, W.C.I. Illustrated. Price £2 10s. CONSIDERED as a general view of 1918-57 R.A.F. equipment,Mr. Thetford's book is a welcome and attractive accession to the aeronautical library. But as a detailed study for the enthusiastor specialist it has frequent deficiencies and inaccuracies, and hardly makes good its claim to be an encyclopaedia (not, at least, inthe sense that J. M. Bruce's articles are encyclopaedic). It is, as we say, an attractive volume, page-size 5|in X 81in,printed on 528 glossy pages, with nearly 200 three-view line draw- ings and considerably more than that number of high-qualityphotographs, including some hitherto unpublished. Every type of machine which has operated in normal R.A.F. service is dealt with;and for good measure there are special record-breakers which have borne R.A.F. roundels, such as the Fairey Long Range monoplanesand the various Schneider Cup seaplanes. Especially valuable are the notes concerning quantities built and squadrons equipped. Almost immediately on opening the book, however, the fas-tidious reader receives a minor shock on beholding Mr. L. E. Bradford's drawing of an alleged "Siskin III." The most super-ficial comparison with adjacent photographs will show that, in respect of fuselage design especially, this mark of Siskin wasa very different aeroplane from the Mk IIIA, which the artist appears to have taken as the basis of his drawing. His renderingof a Vimy with geared Jupiters may have stemmed from a similar error in adapting an existing drawing; and there are several draw-ings of similar dubiety. Some of Mr. Thetford's statements, too, are either questionable or positively incorrect (e.g., that theGamecock was the last fighter of wooden construction to serve with the R.A.F.). Nevertheless, we welcome his book as onewhich, its frequent defects notwithstanding, will give a great deal of pleasure and a considerable amount of factual information.
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