Lancaster Bunkered
Last Friday, January 22nd, an Avro Lancaster of the M.o.S. was force-landed on a golf course near Nottingham, after suffering total loss of power while approaching to land at Hucknall. The aircraft, which was returning to the Rolls-Royce airfield after a routine instrument testing flight first "lost" its port engines at about 500ft, followed by those on the starboard side; the pilot, W/C. J. H. Heyworth, skillfully put the aircraft down "in the rough", though he hit a tree in the process, suffering an injured hand. Three Rolls-Royce technicians who were on board, J. Dye, M. Costello, and W. D. Edmenson, were unhurt.
John Harvey Heyworth is, of course, Rolls-Royce's chief test pilot. He had returned to active flying only a month previously, after spending over three months convalescing from injuries he received in the crash of a Bristol Sycamore helicopter at Farnborough last autumn, in which he was a passenger. He is now rapidly recovering from this latest incident and hopes to resume active flying shortly.
A New French Fighter
On February 6th and March 20th last year we published photographs of the Arsenal 1.301 delta-wing glider, which was used to provide experimental data on a series of high-speed wings and control systems. Air-launched from a Dakota or Languedoc, this glider employed wings of very low thickness/ chord ratio and a variety of tail configurations.
It was an open secret that the work was intended to assist the design of a small, transonic fighter. This fighter has now been completed by the private firm SFECMAS - successors to Arsenal - and is a machine of absorbing interest. Styled SFECMAS 1402 Gerfaut, it is the first of several deltas now being developed by the French company. Unlike M. Jean Galtier's earlier Arsenal fighters, the 1402 is remarkably small and bears a faint resemblance to the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin parasite of 1947.
Postal Command
Two Shackletons of Coastal Command flew from R.A.F. station Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, on January 20th in order to drop 1,200 plastic envelopes into the Atlantic. The flight was the first of a series, sponsored by the National Institute of Oceanography, in connection with the mapping of the flow of currents that carry ships' waste oil to our shores. Finders of the envelopes will receive a half-crown reward on returning them.
Source: Flight International
