Mazzy 1026 and others about to solo ponder the conditions only 90 years ago.
Earlier posts have described Del's first flight which was also his solo and then his flight test for his Brevet/Licence. Page 20.
Now here is Del's first flight in the first successful aircraft to be constructed in Australia.
Wednesday 18th July 1914, another momentous day in Delfosse Badgery's life. It should also have been recorded as one of the most significant days in Australian aviation achievements in that new science. The event was not widely publicised.
Most of the blame for this event passing almost unnoticed must be born by Del. He did not seek acclaim or publicity of his achievements, his entire concern then was the worry of his dwindling finances and how he could eke out enough money to keep his aims on course now that he had committed himself 100% to a career in this infantile phenomenon - aviation.
The morning frosts and mists over the Sutton Forest fields gradually disappeared as the sun rose higher in a bright cerulean sky. The Yabsley brothers, blacksmiths who had assisted with the construction, arrived with a local photographer from Moss Vale, to find Del and Sam completing their final checks of the Caudron. Once again they looked over each of the rigging wires and turnbuckles. Again they surveyed the appearance of the wings, longerons and tailplane setting. They had none of the modern devices to check rigging angles with complete accuracy - a quarter of a degree of dissimilarity in the attachment of wings, one to the other or the most imperceptible twist in a wing could cause large forces of an out-of-trim condition once in the air. Again, they could not check the weight and balance, they did not know with accuracy where the centre of gravity was located. They had balanced the aeroplane on a beam under the lower longeron and that gave a rough indication that all was well - but they could not be absolutely sure! The wings would flex and change their angles to the airflow as each piece of wood accepted its first flight load, so the forces could vary along each wing, particularly at the 'trailing edge' where the thin ribs maintained the contour of the wing. Only the first test flight could tell them how successful their efforts had been to produce another successful Caudron.
The main problem was the initial setting of the tailplane angle, for on this depended the amount of down force that the tail would produce to balance the other forces of the aeroplane - the lift of the wings opposing the total weight, the thrust of the propeller acting against the immense drag of all those struts, wires and wings, not to mention the nacelle with Del, the pilot, sitting with half his body stuck out in the oil spattered slipstream.
The paddock they were going to use was relatively flat and about half a mile long, roughly the same length as Hendon. They had walked over it many times, mattock in hand, knocking down the largest grass hillocks, and filling in the holes and dips, so that now it was acceptably smooth and firm. Windsocks had not yet been 'invented'.
During their talk together on the previous evening Del had agreed not to try to make a full circuit flight at the first attempt; just a gentle lift-off the ground to cheek the balance and then to come to a stop for a talk about how it felt no matter how perfect the controls seemed when in the air for this first brief occasion. It was to be a 'straight' as his old friend Frank Goodden at Hendon would have called it.
Del, Sam, the Yabsleys and a couple of other eager helpers pushed the Caudron out from the 'hangar' as Rebecca, Ethel, the two children and several locals who had somehow 'got the word' by bush telegraph stood around watching. The air was quite tense with excitement, here was the culmination of three and a half months of hectic work, a quite incredible achievement when looked at, even to-day. Almost unaided and without any form of power tools, the two of them had made a complete aeroplane. The quality of their handwork was evidenced later by the time it existed as Australia's first truly successful aeroplane. For, in retrospect, that is what the Caudron was. It wasn't the first aeroplane to be made in Australia, there had been Duigan and Marshall, who had built and left the ground for a few brief seconds or minutes in their creations and then they had crashed to finally give up their efforts. There had been Houdini, Hart, Hawker and now Guillaux who had flown successfully - but they were all in aeroplanes made in either England or France and imported for the occasion, and some had also crashed.
But this aeroplane was different. It was "Made in Australia". True, it was of French design and built mainly with foreign materials and parts, but never-the-less it was to prove to be the first really successful aeroplane to set the scene for the 'Australian made' aircraft, and Delfosse was the sole pilot to control and guide it through many, many successful hours of flight.
Del and Sam posed beside their creation for the photographer. Sam remarked "Best photograph it now, it might not be in one piece for much longer". Meant as the joke it was, for they both had complete faith in their creation and in Del's ability to safely return it unscathed, the tensions were such that Ethel burst into tears of apprehension and, together with the children, retreated to the sanctuary of the house, which event Mary, one of the children, vividly remembered in the 1990s.
An apprehensive Del stubbed out his last cigarette, then donning his leather flying jacket, gloves, helmet and goggles he climbed into the cockpit. Soon the Anzani engine was rumbling away as Del let it warm up at a fast idle. Then with the enthusiastic help of the bystanders hanging on to the longerons to restrain it, he ran the engine up to full throttle for a final check. She ran quite smoothly, emitting its usual haze of blue smoke. A quick smile and wave to his friends and a 'she's right' thumbs up to Sam, Del started to taxi out over the grass and cattle tracks near the paddock's corner dam. Lining up down the field, he once more tested the joy stick and rudder bar over their full range of movement, then slowly opened the throttle. The Caudron gathered speed and finally, with Del using considerable forward force on the joy stick, the tail came up as the aeroplane sped over the bumpy ground. A check of the wing warping, Del felt the wings respond correctly, and then it was time to close the throttle as he neared the far boundary fence. Del now knew that the tail plane setting was not correct, he had had to push the stick forward harder than normal to raise the tail. He decided to still fly his 'straight' back to the anxiously waiting group in the far distance, to check just how much the setting needed readjustment. Opening the throttle firmly and quickly, he soon had flying speed and relaxing the stick pressure, the Caudron left the ground for the first time into its natural element. Del eased the throttle down as he flew along 3 or 4 feet above the ground. A quick waggle of the wings confirmed the feel of the stick - she flew a bit left wing low, and Del closed the throttle to land safely.
As he switched off back in front of Newbury hangar, joyous shouts and whoops proclaimed the end of Del's first flight if it could be so called. The onlookers were disappointed. They had expected to see the Caudron soar away into the clear blue sky but to Del and Sam it was a moment of triumphant success. They now knew they had backed a winner, only a couple of minor adjustments were needed.
Del described the amount of force he had to apply to the controls. Sam now knew almost precisely the amount of adjustments to be effected, he had made dozens of such trim changes to Ewan's aeroplanes. The front spar of the tailplane was moved up about one inch on its curved adjustment plate and re-locked in position as Sam marked it with a scriber for future reference. He would make a final setting later to enable the aeroplane to fly 'hands off' in stable flight at normal cruising engine revs and speed. As there were no trimming controls available to Del in the cockpit, in all other regimes of flight he would have to hold a slight pressure on the stick at all times to make the Caudron climb or descend.
The adjustment to wings was a different problem: the wing warping cables had to be re-tensioned in order to correct the tendency to roll to the left. This procedure took about an hour of discussion and fiddling. Meantime one of the locals had been watching from an overlooking hillside on the nearby property of Judge Owen. From his viewpoint looking down on the paddock, it seemed to him that the aeroplane had not left the ground. Had he been more observant, he would have noticed the aeroplane and its shadow on the ground part company, but as this was the first flying machine he had ever seen or heard he really was not entitled to rush in to Moss Vale and spread the word that "the Badgery aeroplane did not leave the ground. I told you so, it's just one big furphy; that thing will never fly". But Del and Sam knew better; in fact it was most successful.
The trim adjustments complete, Del got back into the cockpit, started up and the flew another 'straight' to the far end of the paddock. Satisfied this time that the controls now felt satisfactory, he opened up to full throttle for his first real take-off. The Caudron quickly leapt into the air and passed over Sam, Bill and the others at about one hundred feet up, but as he waved over the cockpit side, Del could not hear the shouts of joy and encouragement from the excited little group. As he made his first turn for his circuit of the paddock, he felt the engine lose a little power as one spark plug cut out. The engine started to vibrate, and that worsened as a second plug gave up the ghost about two minutes later as he flew downwind in the opposite direction to that of his take-off. Del knew he had real problems now, the engine power was failing and he started to slowly lose height. He thought of making a forced landing in one of Marshall's paddocks close by, but the sight of dozens of ring-barked dead trees and stumps assured disaster if he pursued that idea, so he pressed on, hoping frantically that the engine would continue to give him enough life and power to regain Newbury.
Del's only instinctive thought now was that somehow he had to get himself and the Caudron back on the ground undamaged. He knew only too well how much his and Sam's future depended on this machine. He had to succeed, somehow. The Caudron just hung in the air as it passed over Sir Norman Kater's house roof at bare chimney height but as Del cleared the final ridge he then knew he could volplane in successfully for his landing. He did that safely and with an immense feeling of relief he taxied in towards the waiting group, the engine barely running with an irregular beat.
Thus ended the first real flight of his aeroplane and what was the longest six or seven minutes Del could ever remember. As soon as the initial congratulations and back slapping were over, he and Sam got down to looking for the cause of their near disaster. The faulty plugs were instantly located by Sam by consequence of long experience - he put his hand on the two lower cylinder heads - they were stone cold. Unscrewing the plugs his suspicions were confirmed, both were covered in unburnt oil and 'gunk' from the cylinder walls. It was exactly this trouble that within a few years caused aero-engine designers to duplicate the entire ignition system and have two spark plugs in each cylinder so that, apart from extraordinary circumstances of both plugs becoming defective together, power would always be produced by each cylinder, barring a mechanical failure of a major component.
Subsequent flights to many parts of Australia considerably enhanced Del's experience and permitted many Ausies to see their first aircraft.