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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 0828.PDF
MAY 5TH, 1949 FLIGHT 541 ROBERT SMITH-BARRY Death of a Pioneer Recalls the Foundations of Service Flying Training FEW of the younger generation in. the Royal Air Forcewill have known, even by name, Robert Smith-Barry.They may have heard vaguely of "The Gosport School of Flying," but that is about all. Yet flying training in theR.A.F. to-day is based entirely upon, and is not so very different from, the system which heintroduced in 1917, when flying in- structors had been in the habit oiadmonishing their pupils not to do certain things which would surely getthem into trouble. Smith-Barry changed all that and formulated thepolicy that instructors should en- courage their pupils to get into awk-ward situations, having first shown them how to get out of them. Col. R. R. Smith-Barry, whosedeath in Durban was reported last week, learnt to fly at the Bristolschool on Salisbury Plain in 1912, when Henri Jullerot was chief in-structor there. Afterwards he joined the Royal Flying Corps, and uponthe outbreak of war in August, 1914, he went to France as a 2nd Lieutenant with No. 5 Squadron, which was commandedby Major J. F. A. Higgins, D.S.O., of the Royal Artillery. On August 18th Smith-Barry, piloting a B.E.8, crashed nearPeronne, his observer, Cpi. Geard being killed but Smith- Barry escaping with injuries. After that he served at homeas an instructor and as a night-flying pilot when the Zeppelin raids started. In April, 1916, he joined the then newly formed No. 60Fighter Squadron as a Flight Commander, and in July of the same year he took command of No. 60. The experience whichSmith-Barry gained in France stood him in good stead when he was given command of No. 1 Reserve Squadron at Gosportin December, 1916. He had come to realize that just to be able to fly an aircraft in a fairly straightforward way, whichwas all most of the pilots had been taught before being sent to the front, was not enough, and that in air fighting a pilot oughtto be able to throw his machine about. The spin is now a relatively mild manoeuvre, but in those Col. R. R. Smith-Barry. days its nature was not understood, and it was one of thedangers against which pupils were warned by their instructors. The first recorded instance oi an K.F.C. pilot coming safely outof a spin was that of Majoi J. A. (now Sir Adrian) Chamier, who iu 1916 found himself spinning out of a cloud and, remem-bering the case of Lieut. Parke, R.N. in the Military Trials on Salisbury Plain in 1912, "did everything wrong" with hiscontrols and stopped the spin. No doubt Chamier recounted his experience at R.F.C. messes, but it was not until a Capt.R. Balcombe-Brown, a New Zealand pilot, called at No. 60 Squadron in France that any serious notice was taken. When Smith-Barry neard that this pilot claimed to be ableto start and stop a spin at will, he refused to believe it until he had seen it done, and had done it himself. That may besaid to have been the real beginning of the " Gosport System," and Major-General J. M. Salmond (now Sir John Salmond)gave Smith-Barry a free hand.to develop his theories. Many other evolutions were introduced at Gosport, including thesideslip landing which, when it was first demonstrated in France by British pilots arriving there, was misinterpreted asa narrow escape from death! For many years after the first world war Col. Smith-Barrydisappeared from Service aviation, but he flew his own small aircraft, and in 1938, when Capt. Duncan Davies, one of hisformer pupils, organized a Gosport reunion at Brooklands, Smith-Barry arrived in his Puss Moth and made everyone gaspby holding it seemingly stationary in the air. He had not lost his old skill, even if he had grown a long beard. The next time Flight saw Smith-Barry was early in thesecond world war, when the Editor called on him at a flat in London. Smith-Barry had shaved off his grey beard andlooked a young man. He gave as the reason that he was hoping to persuade the Air Ministry to let him start a hugeflying-training establishment in North Africa, and did not want to look like Noah! That scheme did not materialize,although flying-training establishments were later formed in Rhodesia and Canada. With the death of Robert Smith-Barry British aviation haslost yet another link with the earliest days of flying and a very colourful personality. Grief over his death will be felt notonly by a his former pupils but by many others who had the good fortune to know him. MINIATURE UNDERCARRIAGE-INDICATOR A NEW undercarriage-position indicator is announced byDowty Equipment, Ltd. In appearance and operation the new instrument is essentially similar to the familiarstandard pattern, but detail improvements have been incor- porated while size and weight have been reduced. The newindicator conforms in size to the S.A.E. standard for miniature dashboard instruments, and is suitable either for back or frontmounting. The weight is 0.5 lb as compared with 1.0 lb for the standard type. COLOUR IN MACHINERY A FOLDING card embodying samples of the colours recom-mended by the British Colour Council for machinery finishes, indentification of piping and other services, and use in the safety-colour code, has recently been issued by the Council from their headquarters at 13, Portman Square, London, W.i. At the same time it is advocated that a national, if not" an international, standard should be adopted. It is also suggested, very sensibly, that the various special colours should be used sparingly, otherwise they will lose their value. APPRENTICE EXCHANGE SCHEME TWO well-known firms in the industry, Saunders-Roe, Ltd.,and Dowty Equipment, Ltd., are co-operating in a scheme which, in our view, might profitably be copied by other con- cerns. They are to exchange apprentices for periods of sixteen weeks in order that the young employees may see something of a different yet related sphere of manufacture. Each company has prepared a course which will give the apprentices an additional training in a specialized type of work which they would not acquire at the parent firms. This will give the one contingent some idea of the work entailed in the design and construction of the ancillary equipment incor- porated in an aircraft and the other an insight into the design and construction of aircraft in which his firm's products play an important part. 13 0 AVIATION FUEL SUPPLIES IN the "Airport Transport Equipment" section of lastweek's issue, a paragraph dealing with the activities of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., Ltd., was, by a printing error, headed with the name of another company. To make the position clear, it should be pointed out that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. markets aviation products overseas through the medium of the B.P. aviation service. Within the United Kingdom marketing is conducted through Shell-Mex and B.P., Ltd., a joint subsidiary of the Anglo-Iranian and Royal Dutch-Shell groups of companies. ... . ' - ,.-. ... ._-_-, IMPORTS AND EXPORTS FIGURES given in the Trade and Navigation Accounts forMarch, 1949, published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, show that during the month ten complete aircraft were imported at a value of £153,521. The total export value of aircraft, engines and aircraft parts amounted to £3,417,217, an increase of ^623,890 over the figures for February. Imports : Complete aircraft (number) Aircraft parts (value) Tstals Exports : Complete aircraft (number) Aircraft engines (number) Rubber tyres (number) ... Other items (value) Totals ... Quantities Mar. 1949 10 10 128 % 1,698 1,922 Jan.— Mar. 1948 18 18 301 349 4,926 5,576 Jan.— Mar. 1949 28 28 325 358 5,161 5,844 Value Mar. 1949 • £ 153,521 622,792 776,313 2,358,849 299,811 21.448 737,109 3,417,217 Jan.— Mar. 1949 £ 424,269 1,652,722 2,076,991 5,993,577 847,794 81.445 2.453.451 9,376,267
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