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Aviation History
1978
1978 - 0786.PDF
1460 FLIGHT International, 13 Mar 1978 bored and lonely that I wondered if I could conceivably hold out. Even reaching the half-way time seemed a difficult goal. Single-handed round-the- world sailing must be a singularly solitary affair. But as the day wore on that began to change. First, the air started to become rather thermic— always an uncomfortable feeling in a balloon—and I found myself travel ling steadily below a cumulus street in comparative calm. After a while the cloud cover became more and more complete, with a comfortable base of about 3,000ft. By now I had been flying for about five hours. It will sound laughable to pilots of other aircraft, but it was only after five hours, as I approached Corby, that I first thought of sitting down. I always stand to pilot a balloon —I just didn't realise that the Sport ing Code does not prohibit sitting! So, approaching Corby, I sat on an up turned empty and could just see the outside world, but only just. With the huge chimneys of Corby ironworks as a landmark, I had no danger of get ting lost and sat eating an apple, raisins and cheese and drinking a pint of water—as far as possible relaxing while still glancing at the altimeter and listening to the variometer. The wind now started to pick up. If the first half of the flight had been dull, the second half was certainly the reverse. I flew up the east coast, pas sing from one MATZ controller to another and seeing a succession of Fly into Old Warden with Aopa AN informal fly-in has been arranged on Sunday May 14 for members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Asso ciation. Host will be the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden, Beds, and there are no landing fees or admission charges for Aopa members. The Asso ciation will have its own publicity/ information marquee, and there will be trade displays by Eagle Aircraft Services, Rogers Aviation and Self-Fly Europe. Scheduled for 2.30 p.m. is the first annual general meeting of the Vintage and Classic Aeroplane Asso ciation, formed to represent the main tenance interests of owners of Austers, Moths, Chipmunks and other vintage aircraft with similar mainte nance problems. The idea behind the VCAA first arose a year ago at a similar fly-in (see Private Flight for June 4, 1977). VCAA now includes technical repre sentatives of the Auster Pilot Club, de Havilland Moth Club and Chipmunk Club. The Shuttleworth Collection's museum and restaurant will be open as usual, and visitors are welcome to fly from the airfield all day. Enquiries should be addressed to Carolyn Evans at Aopa, telephone 01-834 5631, or the Shuttleworth Collection on 076727 288. huge runways. Although the workload increased, by now I was increasingly confident that I had enough fuel to complete the journey. Cottesmore had no activity but Barkestone Heath and Cranwell were busy with light traffic. They could not have been more helpful. As I passed directly over the main building at Cranwell I was start ing to get tired. With excellent land marks I did not make much effort about navigation, content just to sit in the basket watching the altimeter. Cranwell seemed to be moving as it got larger and clearer, and then smaller and fainter in the haze. North of Cranwell I was amazed that a helicopter from ITN TV not only knew I was up but could find me. I spent a pleasant fifteen minutes with him for company. Anxious moments After the helicopter had departed came the worst moment of the flight. By now I felt that the goal might really be reached. Although apparently clear-headed, I was no doubt tired after more than seven hours. Since I was now completely confident I had enough fuel to finish the flight I was judging time to go on fuel remaining. Suddenly it seemed everything was wrong, and that I had an hour longer to go than I thought. After ten hours in the air and at last becoming confident of success, I was overwhelmed by the feeling of dis appointment. I checked and rechecked 7.27 plus llhr 16min and each time came to the same dreadful conclusion. It sounds foolish afterwards, but at the time this setback seemed like the end of the world. All that had happened was that a full fuel con tainer was hidden below an empty. By now I was passing Waddington, whose controller I don't think appre ciated the nature of the flight. I was certa'nly tired, and he must have thought me very stupid as I asked for the simplest instructions to be re peated. However, my spirits were re vived on seeing Lincoln Cathedral to the left and, soon, RAF Scampton. Pas sing through the stub of the MATZ, I Fournier back in business FRENCH light-aircraft manufacturer Fournier, which went out of business last year with 40 orders for the RF6B trainer outstanding, has been bought by Paris marine equipment specialist Rene Caillet. A new company called Fournier Aviation has been formed, and Rene Fournier has merged his own design office with it. Production of the RF6B will now continue, and development of the RF9 powered glider will resume. The prototype is going to Istres for official flight tests, having flown 50hr to date. Rene Fournier, who cannot yet hold an executive post in the new company, is acting as consultant. was sent up to 3,000ft by the controller. This was just below cloudbase, very cold, humid and uncomfortable. Those nearly discarded clothes now earned their keep. My discomfort was re warded when, in the distance, run way lights appeared and from the opposite direction a magnificent Vulcan, landing lights on, slid slowly past only a few hundred feet below, noiseless against the sound of the burner. I was now able to descend to 1,000ft and call Humberside. I had come much further than expected and was at the edge of my up-to-date air maps, although I had plenty of topographical maps. I had to ask embarrassingly simple questions about the positions of controlled airspace. Luckily, Humberside had no movements and very much entered into the spirit of the trip, for right up to the last minute success teetered on a knife edge. I now definitely had enough fuel to make the record time, but might reach the bank of the Humber too soon. To make matters worse I would have to cross built-up Hull as well as the river, and I was sure the fuel would not stretch to that. After a discussion with Humberside about how easy it was to get the Coastguard out, I tried to put pessimism out of my mind and simply fly as low as possible to get below the wind. I even whipped out my calculator and double checked, to discover that I had to fly 40sec longer than I thought if the required one per cent improvement on the old record was to be achieved. As I approached, Humberside reported having me in sight, but even with a compass bearing I could not see them until they turned on their runway lights. The field appeared at arm's length. From then on my chances became tighter and tighter. The ITN heli copter was on its way back, and the Humberside Satco provided a unique form of terminal guidance. From his VHF-equipped car below me, he re ported how many miles I had to run to the shore. Everywhere people were counting minutes and miles. I could now see the Humber and the partly completed suspension bridge. I didn't seriously contemplate landing in the water, cold and exhausted, but would I just miss the record? I turned off the kerosene burner and flew on in strange silence between blasts of the propane, able to cross two or three fields and choosing the last large easy field before the river. I touched down just four minutes out side the required time, setting a new record of llhr 20min 24sec. compared with the previous record of llhr lOmin. I would like to thank everyone in volved, especially my ground crew, the Heathrow forecasters, dozens of military controllers in the east of England, everyone at Humberside Air port and Fisons' Agrochemical Division.
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