18-Wheeler
31st May 2003, 02:27
This is the story of Captain P G Taylor, who is the very guy that climbed out onto the struts of the Southern Cross to transfer oil from engine to engine. It's his story, and this is from a chapter in his book of that time of his flying career.
I decided to post it because of Wirraways mention of it in another thread.
I have a read of it every now and then to remind me just what men of iron will can do when they have to to.
I'll have to break it up into a few sections as it too long for one post.
---------------------------------------------------------
Very soon after I returned to Australia a proposal came up for another trans-Tasman flight, this time with two aircraft carrying a special mail, to commemorate the Jubilee of Their Majestics King George V and Queen Mary, in May of 1935. Jack Percival, who had been in the Southern Cross on the Gerringong Beach - New Plymouth flight in January 1933 (when I was learning to navigate the aeroplane), conceived and planned this Jubilee Mail flight, which was designed also to create further public interest in the inauguration of a regular mail and passenger service between Australia and New Zealand.
It was intended to be the last trans-Tasman flight of the gallant but ageing Southern Cross - and it was.
Kingsford Smith, of course, was taking the Cross; and I was invited to go in command of the second aircraft, Faith in Australia, Charles Ulm's modified Fokker, in which he also had made a number of pioneer Tasman crossings and other flights. The trustees of his estate had made the aircraft available for this special commemorative mail.
On the day of departure we flew both aircraft to the Royal Australian Air Force Aerodrome at Richmond for the night takeoff, estimating daylight landings at New Plymouth.
Soon after our arrival at Richmond it was revealed that Kingsford Smith's navigator was ill and could not go on the flight. A period of high drama, typical of such situations prevailed for several hours. Eventually it was decided to take only the Southern Cross, with Smithy as commander, John Stannage as radio officer, and myself as navigator and relief pilot.
I could hardly have been more apprehensive about this turn of events. While supervising the work on my own aircraft, I could not help noticing that the day before departure one of the engines of the Southern Cross, lying dismantled in pieces on the hanger floor, was being assembled by John Stannage, an incredibly good radio operator and technician, and by Jack Percival, a first class correspondent on the flight, and the man who had conceived and very efficiently organised the whole project; but neither was an engineer. Kingsford Smith had a way of making such situations work out perfectly well in practice, but from the moment I realised I was not taking Ulm's aircraft and was committed to travel in an aeroplane one engine of which had been assembled in circumstances which absolutely horrified me, I could see little future in the whole thing.
I was a little touchy about situations like this because not very long ago, I had escaped from another unpromising affair, on the very brink of what was intended to be a trans-Atlantic flight.
I was navigator of Ulm's Faith in Australia on an attempted round-the-world flight which, after various structural failures in the engines, had reached Ireland, westbound from Australia.
The aeroplane was standing on Portmarnock Beach being fuelled to full tanks for the Atlantic crossing. On the record of the engines from Australia such a crossing was quite theoretical, and in any realistic view of an attempt to make it there were few redeeming features.
I was in the aeroplane, in that mental state of acceptance one has to develop in wars for psychological survival, and holding the fuel hose to top up the last few gallons of the last cabin tank when, with a fearful scrunching noise, the undercarriage collapsed and the aeroplane fell down on the sand. I could not have been more relieved, because here was an escape, at least temporarily, from engine failure and the Atlantic.
By further good fortune, the Atlantic westerlies had set in by the time the aeroplane had been repaired, and we couldn't make the westbound crossing. Instead, after complete overhaul of the engines, we flew continuously, except for replacing some pistons at Calcutta and being bogged in soft ground at Surabaya, for six days and seventeen hours eastwards, thus making a record flight back to Australia; cruising speed 80 knots.
But, to return to the Southern Cross, I unloaded all my gear from the Faith of Australia, set myself up in business in the aeroplane, and was as ready to go as a navigator with any imagination could be in such circumstances. But I had to admit to myself as we prepared to take off that there was something about this aeroplane - something good inhabiting it - which made me feel that, for no reason I could put my finger on, the Southern Cross would not fail us.
As midnight approached Kingsford Smith started the motors. I took my take off position in the starboard pilot's seat and listened to the tearing snarl as each engine ran up to full throttle, and their shattering blast came through the open sides of the cockpit. Very heavily overloaded with fuel, and now with all the mail, and some freight, she taxied slowly out for take off; and into position for the longest run on the aerodrome. There she faced the night with a steady bellowing roar and slowly moved away.
There was the familiar thunderous stress as she fought her way to speed for flight, and near the end of the aerodrome the change came with relief, from earth to air; from all doubts and confusion, to an aircraft, airborne and passing into the quiet intimacy of the night where the sound of the motors and the airstream becomes an unnoticed accompaniment to living.
The night was clear and bright as the Southern Cross moved across the light-studded land north of Sydney with a steady purpose in her flight. Soon the coast of Australia came in below and we passed out into the Tasman night. I went below to take back bearings for departure on the North Head and Macquirie Light. Both stayed bright on the horizon till we were far out from the land, but an hour from Richmond the last flicker disappeared with the world we had left.
The Cross was alone, a thing apart from land or sea, steady and sure in space, having no connection in my mind with an aircraft of whose engines had been strewn in pieces on the floor of a hangar only a few hours before.
A hundred miles out we ran under a layer of scattered cloud which built up as we flew into the east. As this suggested some southerly weather I went below to let go a flare and check the drift.
The first was a dud. No light showed upon the sea. I let go another, and waited for the point of light to show in the darkness down behind the tail. Far back in the night it seemed to leap up out of the sea in flame then fade to a glowing point of light moving away astern and to the south.
I reckoned eight degrees of port drift, gave John Stannage the course and dead-reckoned position for transmission, and went forward to give Kingsford Smith the new course to steer. The cloud had shut in to scattered showers of rain and Smithy was flying her on instruments, holding three thousand feet of height above the sea. It was too soon yet with the still heavy overload to think of making height for the westerly.
At about five o'clock I took over to give him a spell from the flying and he went below to see about some wireless messages to Sydney. Between the blind regions of the rain showers it was just possible now to see a faint horizon over the nose of the aircraft, and from the pilot's seat I could see the flame-heated exhaust manifold glowing brightly out over the centre motor.
Lifting my eyes occasionally from the flight instruments to take in the early morning weather as signs of light came into the east, I saw nothing unusual in the red glow of the exhaust ring. All my senses were in harmony with the sound, the sight, and the touch of the aircraft and the air, and I sat relaxed and happy, flying into the dawn.
But suddenly I was alerted to a change. Just one small spot on the top of the exhaust manifold on the starboard side of the centre motor was glowing with a lighter, brighter colour than all the other visible part of the exhaust ring. I looked quickly to the manifolds on the other motors. The glow was steady and clean, with no light spots on the metal. With all the warning signals up, I flew the aircraft instinctively, concentrating on the exhaust of the centre engine. The unusual light was there, and could not be denied. But since nothing could be done about it I kept a close watch on it and began to take in the now visible weather effects upon the navigation. I wanted to pick up the wind force and direction from the appearance of the sea, since there would be little, if any, variation at our altitude, below the cloud base.
As the light breeze increased, the surface of the sea showed a strong breeze from a little west of south, almost dead abeam. I signalled back to Smithy that I needed to go aft for a drift sight. But at the same moment the importance of any normal working of the aircraft was cancelled by unmistakable signs on the manifold. The welded edge of the rear of the pipe had split, and through it the exhaust was blowing in a flickering slit of light from the trailing edge. Even as I watched. the blow of the flaming exhaust was gradually forcing open the crack bursting open the whole top of the manifold.
At that moment Kingsford Smith returned to the cockpit and took over so I could go aft for the drift sight. But when he settled at the controls I drew his attention to the state of the centre manifold. We both sat fascinated but without comment, watching the rapidly disintegrating pipe, till in a few moments the whole top section was blasted out by the flame, flicked away in the airstream and was gone.
Instantly the most terrific vibration shook the aircraft as though some giant, invisible hand had reached out to shake the life out of her. Mentally, my hand flew to the throttles, but Smithy was flying the Cross and his hand was there. He drew off the starboard throttle and we both looked out to the motor. It leapt and struggled in its mounting as though it had gone mad and was trying to wrench itself out of the aeroplane.
Through the fuselage a sickly, pulsating wobble shook the Southern Cross as the slowing blade lashed the air: and as we finally saw the blades as they came to rest, one stuck out towards us in a broken, splintered wood; a jagged stump, like a lightning stricken tree.
Smithy held up the cross with two engines at full throttle, but she started to sink towards the sea. A few words passed between us and he turned her away and headed her back for Australia. As an approximate course I clapped 285 degrees on the compass to keep the wind no worse than abeam and to give us the best speed towards the nearest land. It seemed quite theoretical, to be heading for land more than five hundred miles away when at full throttle the altimeter was steadily sinking down from the level of three thousand feet.
Weight. That was the thing. Somehow we would have to get rid of weight. Smithy was fully occupied holding the Cross up to the best altitude for flight, and holding every possible inch of he falling height; but we were obviously destined for the sea within less than half an hour. I shouted across to Smithy, "Have to dump some weight. Shall I go ahead?"
His voice came back in the snarling roar of the extended motors, "Anything except the mail."
I slipped below to the cabin, passed the word to Stannage to dump everything except the mail, and then turned on the dump valve of the main fuel tank. How much to dump? That would have to be worked out immediately before too much drained away.
We had been in the air nearly seven hours, Say seven hours at thirty gallons an hour; 210 gallons gone; 390 gallons left.
I went to the chart and estimated out position and distance out; from Australia - 590 miles. Nearly half the distance to New Zealand: but best g for Australia. Weather and head winds the New Zealand end. Say, six hundred miles to the Australian coast. Speed, with the nearly stalling aircraft, about sixty-five. Wind abeam. Make good her airspeed. Reckon it at sixty. Six hundred miles at sixty. Ten hours.
Ten hours on two motors! Best not think too much about that. I remembered the rate of flow of the dump valve, and turned off the cock till I got it all sorted out. A glance up into the cockpit to the altimeter. About two thousand feet now.
Ten hours at 28 gallons an hour on two engines. She'd use that, taking out all that power: 280 gallons. Say three hundred. We must keep at least three hundred gallons.
It may appear very risky to have left only enough fuel to reach the coast with so narrow a margin, but this was a risk which had to be accepted against the certainty of descent into the sea. I knew the aircraft would sink within a few minutes. We had no dingy, nor even life jackets, in the Cross. So the picture was clear. The mail had to be kept until the very last emergency. So we had to dump fuel.
I reckoned up the amount in the top tanks, unscrewed the filler cap of the cabin tank and dipped it with the measuring stick. We could let go more fuel. So I turned on the dump valve again and kept a watch on the decreasing fuel level, with the dip stick.
Finally, leaving a little more than the total of three hundred gallons, I turned off the valve and checked the altimeter. She was down to five hundred feet now, but holding the height: so I left it at that. The few extra gallons would not put her in the sea now. Luggage, tools, freight, and all the articles not essential to flight had gone out into the Tasman Sea. Only the mail remained; the bags lashed down in the cabin behind the big tank.
I went up front, to tell Smithy about the fuel, and to let him know everything that had gone overboard.
There, it was as I had expected. He was settled down, but extended; holding the Cross in the air: and his aircraft, feeling the master touch, leaning heavily on the air, staggering but flying. He held her with the wheel, feeling just where her strength lay; using that, and not overburdening her weakness. He felt her through his hands and feet, and the seat in which he at, trying for support from the slowed-up airstream: and he laid her wing upon it at exactly the right angle, the only angle at which she could fly and maintain height.
Down in the cabin again, I went back to John Stannage and his radio. We exchanged some humour now in the fact that we were not immediately going down in the sea. This reprieve brought with it a delicious lightheartedness that was in strong contrast to the threatened disintegration of our world only a short time ago. The aeroplane now was not shaking itself to pieces; it was not losing height; and that was enough. We really felt quite lighthearted, and did not yet choose to look into the future at all.
Stannage had been in contact with Sydney, reported the broken propeller and the precarious situation of the aircraft; and had given our position, course, and speed. Our clear objective now was to reach land: not Sydney airport, but Australia. The nearest land was at Port Stevens, where the coast bends out to the north-east at Stepens Point. There was little difference in the distance; but by laying off north of the track to Sydney we could bring the wind more abeam and make a better speed. I gave Smithy a compass course for Seal Rocks, 120 miles north of Sydney, and when he straightened the Cross up on this course the wind was slightly better than abeam.
Up there in the cockpit the two throttle levers were still right forward, taking all the power the two remaining engines could give. There was a drastic finality about the sight of those throttle levers, proclaiming the fact that we had no reserve and were just maintaining height at three hundred feet. But the old motors of the Cross were snarling defiance at the ocean in the harsh, blaring crackle of their exhausts. We were afloat in the air, even though precariously, and flying: and we did not think too much about how long the engines would keep going, dragging a dead motor and propeller on the starboard side, a still heavy load, and a wing obliged to meet the air at an attitude of great resistance to fly at all. But we hoped they would last till the reduction of weight as they burned down the fuel would allow us to ease them down from continuous maximum power.
As we made some distance westward the showers of rain passed, and through the broken cloud shafts of sunlight brought life to the dull grey world of the ocean. The sun was nearly abeam to the north on a bearing suitable for a position line to check the track of the aircraft. There was too much turbulence for accurate results with the bubble sextant; so, to give me the natural sea horizon, Smithy eased the Cross down to a few feet above the sea and I was able to get a good set of sights. Worked, and laid down on the chart, the resulting position line showed us to be making good the track for Seal rocks.
Over the radio from Sydney we learned now of the action being taken for our rescue. The pilot vessel, Captain Cook, had left to intercept our track; H.M.S. Sussex would be underway in three hours; and Faith in Australia would leave as soon as a suitable pilot could be found for her. All this warmed our hearts considerably and was in principle very reassuring, but to stay in the air and reach land was not only the clear objective for survival, but we were now to have ambitions for return to Sydney airport and a normal landing. It was not long before we were back on the single objective of survival, for the aircraft and ourselves.
For some time I had noticed a steady stream of blue smoke in the exhaust of the port engine. There wasn't much: but it was there, coming away in a continuous streak and very visible in the clear air. It was obvious that this engine was burning oil. There were no quantity gauges on the oil tanks, each situated inside the cowling behind its engine, and therefore no way to measure the amount of oil remaining in the tank. It was assessed from the known consumption of the engine, and normally there was a big margin of oil beyond the range of the fuel. Each tank held eleven gallons of oil and normal consumption was less than a quart an hour. Now, with the evidence of this ominous blue stream from the port exhaust, my imagination saw right into a tank with not enough oil to reach Australia. Suppose the engine was burning a gallon an hour. An old engine, wide in the clearances, being thrashed to death at maximum power: it could be burning a gallon an hour; and we had been in the air now for nearly eleven hours. Even allowing for more normal consumption over the first seven hours, at high cruising power, the outlook was not good.
I thought around this problem a good deal, and it kept coming back at me. Eventually I tried to accept this blue smoke and hope that I was wrong about the consumption; but the oil pressure gauge of the port engine now had a fatal fascination for me, and my eyes were never long away from it. I said nothing about it to Smithy or John, because talk could not improve the situation, and in the remote event that they had not noticed it there was no point in passing on such depressing possibilities in a situation already loaded with sinister implications. But the confidence and relaxation which I was beginning to experience as the Cross continued to stay in the air and put more of the Tasman Sea behind her were completely ruined by this infernal blue stream of oil smoke, since even the most optimistic wishful thinking could not admit the remotest possibility of the aircraft remaining in the air on one engine. The sea was again the final abyss, and the Cross our world hanging precariously above it.
Earlier in the situation I had attempted to cut off the ends of the starboard propeller blades with a hacksaw. I though that if I could trim off the shattered blade, and cut the other to the same length, we might even get some thrust from it using some throttle with the engine.
One of Smithy's problems in flying the aircraft was to prevent the airstream turning the broken propeller; for immediately it started to turn, the unbalanced forces of the blades set up the most appalling vibration which soon would have started the disintegration of the aircraft. Any increase in airspeed above the absolute minimum for flight would set this propeller windmilling and Smithy would have to haul the Cross up to almost stalling speed to stop it, and then very carefully ease her down again to the very narrow margin between stalling and windmilling the propeller. This was a terrific strain for a pilot and I had tried to eliminate it by trimming the blades to a more balanced condition.
To attempt this operation I had gone partly out into the airstream from the open side of the pilot's cabin; but the blast of air, and the fact that the propeller would turn every time I tried to work on it with the hacksaw, finally convinced me that there was no future in this idea, and I just slumped back into the cabin, exhausted and frustrated.
But now, with the evidence of the blue smoke trail continuously before me, I began to think of some way to improve our situation. It was quite uncomplicated, really. If the port motor used all its oil the engine would be destroyed. With the centre motor alone we be in the sea within a few minutes. There the aircraft would sink, and if we happened to survive the ditching with a fixed undercarriage aircraft, we would stay afloat just as long as could go on swimming in a rough sea without life jackets. There was a strong incentive to do something about oil for the port engine.
I began to speculate about the possibility if somehow getting oil from the tank in the cowl behind the useless starboard engine. There should be at least nine gallons of oil there. If some way could be devised to get this oil, and somehow transfer it to the tank of the port engine, we should have enough oil to keep the port motor going to reach the coast.
Every way I looked at it there was obviously no straightforward way to make this oil transfer, since each engine was a complete unit of its own, with no lines or pipes interconnected. The outboard engines were isolated alone, far out in the airstream under the wing.
After developing every line of though without any tangible result, it wasn't long before I reached the alarming conclusion that the only way to do this oil transfer was to go out there and get the oil from the starboard side and go out again to put it into the tank on the port side. With the results of the propeller trimming episode fresh in my mind this final conclusion was a very unattractive prospect, but rather than live with defeat in my mind, and what I now believed was the certainty of being forced down in the ocean, I let this idea of going out in the airstream to the engines support my morale, which was in need of some hopeful outlook at this time. As the idea gained some momentum I found myself starting to work out the details of some practical plan. In the beginning it seemed entirely theoretical, like thinking of flying to the Moon (not so theoretical now) ; but as the plan developed in my mind it began to seem less impossible, and as we flew on low over the ocean I began to see it as something that was at least positive thinking, which freed me from a dumb acceptance of ending up in the bleak and threatening Tasman Sea.
The outboard engine nacelle could not be reached directly from the open side of the pilot's cabin; but out from the fuselage below this window a streamlined horizontal steel tube extended to the frame of the engine mounting. It was part of the lateral bracing system for the engine and the undercarriage leg, and was quite strong. I wondered whether I could get out the side window of the pilot's cabin, stand on this strut in the airstream with my shoulders against the leading edge of the wing, and somehow move out sideways and reach the engine. If I could do that, and hold on out there, I could unclip the side cowl, perhaps reach the drain plug of the oil tank, undo it, and drain out some oil in some sort of container. Then, if I could get back along the strut and into the cabin again, it would mean going out the other side, unscrewing the oil tank filler cap, and pouring in the oil I had collected from the starboard tank. Apparent impossibilities came back at me from this plan - the force of the slipstream, the precariousness of trying to stand on the strut, how could I collect the oil while somehow holding on out in the blast of air? How could I get back with the oil? Then there was the other side.
Impossible. The whole thing.
Then the alternative stared me in the face - the sea.
It had to be possible, somehow; if the port engine burned up all its oil. When was the time to attempt this oil transfer? Now: or when we had evidence of the port engine failing?
I looked again at the outboard engines; away out from the fuselage, at the engine of the strut: and I weighed up the chances, both ways. The chance of being blown off the strut or the engine mounting, seemed infinitely greater than all my theories of running out of oil. After all, the engines were still roaring away at full throttle, and the only evidence of possible failure was the trail of blue smoke in the port exhaust. Perhaps I was putting it off, staying in the relative safety of the cabin: but I decided it wasn't worth it; unless the oil pressure began to fail.
The wind now had come more into the east, so, with some favourable component in its direction, we decided to alter course for Sydney. I gave Smithy the new course to steer and passed to John Stannage the necessary information for transmission. For five hours Smithy had been flying the Cross in her disabled condition, concentrating for every moment of that time on keeping her in the air. He had lived and felt with his aircraft every effort of her struggle for survival. Knowing his feelings about the Southern Cross I rather diffidently suggested that I take over to give him a spell, and try to keep her in the air. He hesitated for a moment; then let me take her.
Immediately I laid my feet to the rudder bar and took the wheel in my hands, I realised the narrow margin by which the two remaining engines were holding her in flight. For a few moments I was lost in my endeavour to react to the needs of the aircraft, but gradually I began to pick up the sensitive signals, and finally to anticipate them and so hold her in level flight a few hundred feet above the sea.
As I became more accustomed to the feel of the aircraft I was able to relax a little, and my eyes set off the habitual round of the gauges on the instrument panel. The port oil pressure gauge, the danger point in my mind, was holding steady at 63 pounds to the square inch. Pressure of the centre motor was approximately the same. The needle of the starboard lay flat at zero on the gauge. The motors sounded healthy and I began almost to feel that the most critical situation was passing, as the engines burned down the weight of fuel. We were even able to ease the throttles very slightly back from maximum power and still maintain three hundred feet. But my eyes continued regularly on the round of the gauges, and I saw in my mind from the starboard seat the blue smoke trail from the exhaust of the port engine. Apart from its numerical reading, I had noticed a small sport on the face of the port oil pressure gauge, exactly where the needle was pointing. Each time I looked I had mentally checked the holding of the pressure by the needle against this mark.
Now, when I looked again, my eyes rooted to the gauge and my whole body froze into a rigid warning. The needle was flickering, and as it wavered about the mark on the dial it was gradually falling below that mark. The oil pressure was definitely falling. No need now to be frozen with doubt and anticipation. The port engine was obviously close to the end of its lubricating oil; close to the end of its life as an engine.
Feeling a dull and futile hostility, I attracted Smithy's attention and pointed to the gauge. A hardness came into his expression as he took over his aircraft from me. He throttled back the port motor, gave it several bursts, and then opened it to full power again. The pressure was down to slightly below sixty pounds. We looked at each other across the cockpit with an exchange of expression which obviously agreed, "Well, it won't be long now."
I went below to the cabin, let Stannage know the situation; and he immediately transmitted the signals. "Port motor only last quater of an hour. Please stand by for exact position."
I then worked up and handed him the estimated position, which he transmitted, "latitude 3408'S, longitude 154030'E". When I went up to the cockpit again the pressure was down to 35 pounds, and Smithy was taking off his heavy flying boots.
Suddenly all reasoning, fear and emotion of any sort left me, and were replaced by clear feelings of elation; an obsession which listened to the promptings of nothing but itself "Get the oil from the starboard tank. Go out and get it.:
I slipped below to the cabin, took of my shoes, belted up my coat tightly, unlashed some light line from the mailbags, and went back to the cockpit. Smithy was sitting there flying the Southern Cross, preparing himself to put her down in the sea. I shouted at him, "Going to have a stab at getting some oil."
He shook his head and tried to stop me, but when he saw my determination he accepted it, and while we still had the port engine he tried to gain a little height.
It amuses me now to remember that I lashed the mailbag line around my waist and made fast the other end in the cockpit. It would have snapped with the slightest jerk, but it had a good moral effect at the time. Then I stood up on the starboard pilot's seat and put one leg over the side, feeling for the streamlined tube to the motor. the airstream grabbed my leg and for a moment a wave of futility swept over me. But it passed and again I was driven by the single purpose of oil for the port engine.
I finally got my right foot on the strut, held fast to the edge of the cockpit with both hands and managed to get my other foot out, and hang on in the airstream. The blast from the centre motor screamed round my ears and pushed with a numb, relentless force against my body. A wave of sudden panic surged within me and I felt the utter madness of attempting to move anywhere but back to the cockpit; if I could get back. I stood on the strut, with my shoulders braced against the rounded leading edge of the wing, with a screaming hurricane threatening to blow my eyes out if I looked straight ahead. Then the panic passed and I felt no sense of height nor any particular fear of the precariousness of my position: only again the obsession to reach the tank behind the motor.
I braced my shoulders against the wing and tried to wrap my toes around the strut; let go my right hand from the fuselage and edged my feet along till at the full extent of my left arm to the cockpit edge I found that I could not reach the engine by reaching out with my right. I was horrified to discover that there was a short distance in the middle of the crossing to the engine where I would have no handhold and would have to move on out with only my feet on the strut and the back of my neck against the wing.
Momentarily, again, there was a sense of defeat. It seemed almost certain that I would never make it, but just be blown off the aircraft and fall into the sea. Then I though, well I'm going into the sea anyhow, so it's better to take a chance on reaching the engine. I braced my neck well against the wing, got a firm footing on the strut, and very carefully let go my handhold on the cockpit. There was an immediate impulse to make a desperate rush and grab at the engine mount; but I resisted that, and thoroughly steadied myself into the position without any handhold. Then I carefully moved sideways towards the engine. Those few seconds seemed an eternity and the distance infinite, but I reached the engine mount, and clung to it with both hands. Then the worst feeling of panic of the whole operation swept over me - that of being isolated out there clinging to the engine with no way back but another horrifying foot-and-neck crossing of the strut.
But there was no time for panic. Smithy and John were making signs to me that the oil pressure was dangerously low and I knew something had to be done about it immediately. I hung on with one hand, and with the other tried to get the side cowl pin out so I could reach the oil tank. With maddening deliberation the pin resisted my efforts to undo it, but somehow my fingers dislodged it. The other pins came away quite easily and I wrenched out the side cowl and let it go in the airstream. Under the tank I located the brass drain plug.
I made signs to Stannage for a spanner, but he had anticipated this and by colossal luck had found a shifting spanner which we kept on for dismantling the hand pump on the cabin fuel tank. I moved back as far as I could along the strut while still holding on with one hand; and with the other reached out to meet Stannage's hand with the spanner. The combined lengths or our arms saved me another passage without handhold. I slid back to the engine, got the spanner adjusted to the drain plug and eased it back till I could undo it with my fingers. Then I needed something for the oil.
Again John Stannage was ready. I saw he had some sort of metal container (which I afterwards found was that of a thermos flask he had for coffee). By the same process as we exchanged the spanner, I got the flask and quickly had it under the drain plug. To do this I had to hook one arm through the tubular engine mount, hold the flask in that hand and unscrew the drain plug with the other while sitting astride the strut. It was not particularly difficult really, but the airstream blew the oil away as soon as it came out of the plug hole. But I wangled the container up to the drain hole, got it full of oil, and put the drain plug to a finger tight position. We could not afford to waste oil, with some hours ahead and the hungry port engine.
Now I had to get this container of oil back to Stannage. This we accomplished in the same way as passing the spanner and the container. After collecting and passing back to Stannage several containers of oil I had then to make the full return crossing to the cabin. I was fairly exhausted by that time so I care less about the risk of the neck-and-foot crossing, an finally reached the cabin just about all in.
Stannage had been pouring the oil into a small leather suitcase which he kept for his radio gadgets and, again luckily, it did not break. But the oil pressure was down to 15 pounds.
For a few minutes I simply could not move, or do anything but try to regain my breath. But that gauge got me on my feet again, and I climbed round Smithy in the port seat and tried to get my foot over the side for the passage out to the port engine. The howling blast of both slipstreams, centre and port engine, hurled me back against the bulkhead and left me gasping and cursing in futile desperation.
Angry and frustrated by this setback, I looked out across the gap to the failing engine, still obsessed with the one idea of getting there. I forced my leg over the side and pushed with every ounce of my strength; yelled and cursed at the roaring flood of air; but was beaten back to the cockpit; stunned an defeated. Then I saw Smithy's hand go forward to the throttles and push them wide open again. He couldn't let her pick up speed to start an attempt to climb because it would have started the broken propeller windmilling. So he immediately hauled her back and willed and lifted her for height. He looked across at me as I still waited, gasping and hostile against the bulkhead; and I understood his intention.
At about seven hundred feet he shutdown the port engine, leaving her flying at full throttle on one, and immediately starting to lose height. But this was my opportunity to reach the port engine, with its propeller now just whistling round without the blast of its powered slipstream. I went over the side and found that I could force a passage against the blast from only the centre motor, as I had done on the other side. I reached the engine just as Smithy shouted at me to hold on. I draped myself over the cowl against the V-struts and lay as flat as I could with my head behind the exhaust ring. The engine opened up again with a shattering roar, and looking down from my strange situation on the streamlined cowl section behind the engine I saw the grey surface of the Tasman only a few feet below me. The Southern Cross, flying only on one engine, had lost almost all the height as I was making the crossing to the engine. I lay on the cowl, not caring about anything but the temporary relief of not struggling against the airstream, and hang on with the breath being sucked out of my body, behind the roaring exhaust. I remember feeling something pressing against my ribs hurting terrifically, but it didn't seem to matter. There was only hanging on, and breathing, to consider.
Having gained a few hundred feet of height Smithy shut down the engine again. I had my back to the cockpit but it was obvious what he was doing to make it possible to transfer the oil. Relieved again of the worst airstream, I struggled up and attacked the cowl over the oil tank filler cap. It came away easily and I bent it back and was able to unscrew the cap.
Stannage was ready. He dipped a flask of oil from the case, I moved back along the strut and we both reached out till I took the flask from him and moved back to the engine. We lost a lot of oil as it was sucked out of the flask by the airstream, but there was still more than half left as I reached the motor again and held the tin against my body. I climbed up into position over the oil tank, cupped my hand round the opening to avoid losing more oil, squeezed in the top of the flask and poured the oil into the tank. I looked back to the cockpit waiting for the reaction, but with just the ghastly thought now that it might not be a shortage of oil in the tank, but a failing oil pump or a blockage in the system. But in a few moments there was great shouting and waving from the cockpit, and John Stannage held out both his hands with thumbs up.
Pressure! Oil pressure back on the gauge. It worked!
But Smithy signalled again to hold on. We were almost in the sea. I flung myself own on the cowl again and the motor came in with a booming roar. I could see the surface of the ocean skimming by a few feet below: then I buried my head from the torrent of air an waited for more height and a chance to transfer the rest of the oil in the suitcase. As I lay there jammed against the struts I felt a magnificent exhilaration and a reckless enjoyment or our success which made me want to stand up and laugh and shout at the roaring mass of air that tore at everything around me. In my mind I could see the pointer on the gauge rise up and register the pressure in the oil system. Then the pressure of the strut against my ribs began to rush my body so that I began to feel that I could not hold on any longer. The ocean seemed to be moving faster: then faster, and sinking further away. A strange ease and resignation came over me. Nothing seemed to matter. It was all some fantasy in a strange retreating background from which I was floating away.
Then a sharp stab of fear hit me and I realised I was letting go, and I felt again the choking numbness in my body, but something telling me to hold on. Just hold on; to fight the unconsciousness into which I was slipping away.
Suddenly the roar of the engine ceased and I realised that Smithy had throttled back and I had to get more oil. It shocked me back into action and I lifted myself from the cowling and turned to move out reach for the oil.
In a few minutes Stannage and I had transferred all the oil in the case, about a gallon: but some had been sucked away in the airstream. Then Smithy's shout came again and I had to lie over the cowl again and hear the blast of the exhaust a few inches from my ear. But I was past caring now, and there was the exhilaration of knowing we could keep the Cross in the air. When he had a few hundred feet of height he shut down the engine again and I safely made the passage on the strut back into the aircraft. My eyes went to the pressure gauge and I saw the needle at 63 pounds. Then I just lay back on the big fuel tank in the cabin and let go.
Stannage was again in touch by radio and informed Sydney that we were still in the air. That contact with the world by radio seemed at first to give us some physical connection with Australia, and therefore some basis of security: but one quickly realised that the signals coming in through the wireless set were the faint sounds of a world with which we had no connection, and only impressed upon us the vast solitude or our surroundings.
Fascinated by the oil pressure gauge, my eyes kept coming back to it for a reading, and I started to work out how long it would be before the oil transfer would have to be done again, and how many times it would have to be done in the distance we were still out from Sydney. Because I had lost so much oil in the airstream, only a little over half a gallon actually reached the tank. The engine had burned eleven gallons in twelve hours: so about half an hour seemed like the limit of her endurance on the half gallon of oil.
I checked the speed, time, and distance made good, and estimated that the aircraft was still two hundred miles east of Sydney. We went over all the possible alternatives to this method of transferring oil, and were forced back to the original conclusion that there was no other way to do it. We either kept on getting the oil or we lost the port motor and went into the sea.
In about half an hour I was horrified to see the oil gauge starting to flicker again. Till I actually saw it happening I had stayed in a kind of neutral state of mind, accepting the respite, and not really facing the fact that I would have to do it again. Now it stared me in the face. I made an effort to throw off all thought, and just act.
Again I reached the starboard engine, collected the oil, went out the other side, and finally completed the second transfer without incident. But I found that this time, to keep the aircraft out of the sea, Smithy had to tell John Stannage to dump the mail. It was a bitter experience for him, but it had to be done to keep the Cross in the air, because now the port engine was occasionally misfiring and showing signs of packing up. Full throttle for more than a very few minutes brought ominous bangs from the exhaust.
And so we flew on, making the oil transfer about each half hour, throttling back the port engine to cool it off, and losing height: then bringing it up again and trying to gain a few feet on the altimeter
About 120 miles from Sydney we sighted the smoke of a ship on the horizon, and later flew over her. (We later learned that she was a small New Zealand vessel, Port Waikato.) Smithy spoke of putting the Cross down in the sea alongside this vessel, to give us a chance of being picked up: But I knew he was thinking this way so that I would not have to risk any more oil transfers. Strangely enough, I had gained confidence in being able to go through this act without slipping or being blown off the aeroplane, and I felt quite exhilarated at the possibility of reaching Sydney and landing on Mascot airport in good shape. It was typical of Kingsford Smith that he was prepared to lose his aircraft rather than let me risk any more oil transfers; but I felt very sure of myself now, and prepared to go on getting the oil than deliberately to land in the sea with a 'wheels down' aircraft. Had we ditched the Southern Cross, Kingsford Smith's chance of coming out of it from the pilot's seat would have been small. Stannage and I might have possibly made it, but it had no appeal for me an after a short discussion it was decided to proceed for Sydney.
Our real problem now was the port engine. Smithy had to cool it off by reducing power and each time he throttled it back we began to lose height, with the centre motor still blasting away at full throttle. There was little point in worrying about the oil left in its tank. There was just no way of reaching it.
About three o'clock in the afternoon, while Smithy and I were both up in the pilot's cabin, we saw a low, purple streak on the western horizon. John Stannage came up, and our eyes never left this vision till we positively identified it as the coast of Australia. The sight of land impressed upon us the truly disabled condition of the Cross; but in nearly forty years of life it was one of the best sights I had ever seen. Now that we had actually seen the land it seemed infinitely far away; the aircraft seemed barely to be moving, and unlikely ever to reach it.
The intervals between the choking spasms of the port motor were closing upon us, and Smithy was forced to throttle it back every few minutes to prevent its complete collapse. Then it would cool off and gather strength for another burst, and respond again to the throttle, to keep us out of the sea. But the Cross had burned down most of her fuel now and was flying light, and gradually the land grew up out of the sea till we were able to identify the higher land off the port bow as the hills behind Bulli. The desolation of the sea began to be more distant, though it still lay only a few feet below us; and the world we had left in the night only fifteen hours before began to creep back into my mind as a possible reality.
About thirty miles off the coast the engine was calling for oil again and it was obvious that at 60 knots we could not reach the land. Smithy was against my making this last passage for oil and again was prepared to put his aircraft in the sea, since rescue, if we got out of the ditching, was almost certain now. With a wry smile he accepted my suggestion that we do the oil change and go right on in. We were quite close to the land when the pressure gauge settled again on sixty-three pounds. I watched the yellow sands of Cronulla Beach come in and pass under the aircraft as Smithy coaxed its last effort from the banging port engine.
With a perfect approach, he brought her in over the threshold of the airport and feathered her on to the ground. He turned the Cross from her last ocean flight, and brought her to rest by the hanger.
The engine which had kept going at full throttle was the one which had been strewn in pieces on the floor of the hangar and assembled mainly by John Stannage and Jack Percival
I decided to post it because of Wirraways mention of it in another thread.
I have a read of it every now and then to remind me just what men of iron will can do when they have to to.
I'll have to break it up into a few sections as it too long for one post.
---------------------------------------------------------
Very soon after I returned to Australia a proposal came up for another trans-Tasman flight, this time with two aircraft carrying a special mail, to commemorate the Jubilee of Their Majestics King George V and Queen Mary, in May of 1935. Jack Percival, who had been in the Southern Cross on the Gerringong Beach - New Plymouth flight in January 1933 (when I was learning to navigate the aeroplane), conceived and planned this Jubilee Mail flight, which was designed also to create further public interest in the inauguration of a regular mail and passenger service between Australia and New Zealand.
It was intended to be the last trans-Tasman flight of the gallant but ageing Southern Cross - and it was.
Kingsford Smith, of course, was taking the Cross; and I was invited to go in command of the second aircraft, Faith in Australia, Charles Ulm's modified Fokker, in which he also had made a number of pioneer Tasman crossings and other flights. The trustees of his estate had made the aircraft available for this special commemorative mail.
On the day of departure we flew both aircraft to the Royal Australian Air Force Aerodrome at Richmond for the night takeoff, estimating daylight landings at New Plymouth.
Soon after our arrival at Richmond it was revealed that Kingsford Smith's navigator was ill and could not go on the flight. A period of high drama, typical of such situations prevailed for several hours. Eventually it was decided to take only the Southern Cross, with Smithy as commander, John Stannage as radio officer, and myself as navigator and relief pilot.
I could hardly have been more apprehensive about this turn of events. While supervising the work on my own aircraft, I could not help noticing that the day before departure one of the engines of the Southern Cross, lying dismantled in pieces on the hanger floor, was being assembled by John Stannage, an incredibly good radio operator and technician, and by Jack Percival, a first class correspondent on the flight, and the man who had conceived and very efficiently organised the whole project; but neither was an engineer. Kingsford Smith had a way of making such situations work out perfectly well in practice, but from the moment I realised I was not taking Ulm's aircraft and was committed to travel in an aeroplane one engine of which had been assembled in circumstances which absolutely horrified me, I could see little future in the whole thing.
I was a little touchy about situations like this because not very long ago, I had escaped from another unpromising affair, on the very brink of what was intended to be a trans-Atlantic flight.
I was navigator of Ulm's Faith in Australia on an attempted round-the-world flight which, after various structural failures in the engines, had reached Ireland, westbound from Australia.
The aeroplane was standing on Portmarnock Beach being fuelled to full tanks for the Atlantic crossing. On the record of the engines from Australia such a crossing was quite theoretical, and in any realistic view of an attempt to make it there were few redeeming features.
I was in the aeroplane, in that mental state of acceptance one has to develop in wars for psychological survival, and holding the fuel hose to top up the last few gallons of the last cabin tank when, with a fearful scrunching noise, the undercarriage collapsed and the aeroplane fell down on the sand. I could not have been more relieved, because here was an escape, at least temporarily, from engine failure and the Atlantic.
By further good fortune, the Atlantic westerlies had set in by the time the aeroplane had been repaired, and we couldn't make the westbound crossing. Instead, after complete overhaul of the engines, we flew continuously, except for replacing some pistons at Calcutta and being bogged in soft ground at Surabaya, for six days and seventeen hours eastwards, thus making a record flight back to Australia; cruising speed 80 knots.
But, to return to the Southern Cross, I unloaded all my gear from the Faith of Australia, set myself up in business in the aeroplane, and was as ready to go as a navigator with any imagination could be in such circumstances. But I had to admit to myself as we prepared to take off that there was something about this aeroplane - something good inhabiting it - which made me feel that, for no reason I could put my finger on, the Southern Cross would not fail us.
As midnight approached Kingsford Smith started the motors. I took my take off position in the starboard pilot's seat and listened to the tearing snarl as each engine ran up to full throttle, and their shattering blast came through the open sides of the cockpit. Very heavily overloaded with fuel, and now with all the mail, and some freight, she taxied slowly out for take off; and into position for the longest run on the aerodrome. There she faced the night with a steady bellowing roar and slowly moved away.
There was the familiar thunderous stress as she fought her way to speed for flight, and near the end of the aerodrome the change came with relief, from earth to air; from all doubts and confusion, to an aircraft, airborne and passing into the quiet intimacy of the night where the sound of the motors and the airstream becomes an unnoticed accompaniment to living.
The night was clear and bright as the Southern Cross moved across the light-studded land north of Sydney with a steady purpose in her flight. Soon the coast of Australia came in below and we passed out into the Tasman night. I went below to take back bearings for departure on the North Head and Macquirie Light. Both stayed bright on the horizon till we were far out from the land, but an hour from Richmond the last flicker disappeared with the world we had left.
The Cross was alone, a thing apart from land or sea, steady and sure in space, having no connection in my mind with an aircraft of whose engines had been strewn in pieces on the floor of a hangar only a few hours before.
A hundred miles out we ran under a layer of scattered cloud which built up as we flew into the east. As this suggested some southerly weather I went below to let go a flare and check the drift.
The first was a dud. No light showed upon the sea. I let go another, and waited for the point of light to show in the darkness down behind the tail. Far back in the night it seemed to leap up out of the sea in flame then fade to a glowing point of light moving away astern and to the south.
I reckoned eight degrees of port drift, gave John Stannage the course and dead-reckoned position for transmission, and went forward to give Kingsford Smith the new course to steer. The cloud had shut in to scattered showers of rain and Smithy was flying her on instruments, holding three thousand feet of height above the sea. It was too soon yet with the still heavy overload to think of making height for the westerly.
At about five o'clock I took over to give him a spell from the flying and he went below to see about some wireless messages to Sydney. Between the blind regions of the rain showers it was just possible now to see a faint horizon over the nose of the aircraft, and from the pilot's seat I could see the flame-heated exhaust manifold glowing brightly out over the centre motor.
Lifting my eyes occasionally from the flight instruments to take in the early morning weather as signs of light came into the east, I saw nothing unusual in the red glow of the exhaust ring. All my senses were in harmony with the sound, the sight, and the touch of the aircraft and the air, and I sat relaxed and happy, flying into the dawn.
But suddenly I was alerted to a change. Just one small spot on the top of the exhaust manifold on the starboard side of the centre motor was glowing with a lighter, brighter colour than all the other visible part of the exhaust ring. I looked quickly to the manifolds on the other motors. The glow was steady and clean, with no light spots on the metal. With all the warning signals up, I flew the aircraft instinctively, concentrating on the exhaust of the centre engine. The unusual light was there, and could not be denied. But since nothing could be done about it I kept a close watch on it and began to take in the now visible weather effects upon the navigation. I wanted to pick up the wind force and direction from the appearance of the sea, since there would be little, if any, variation at our altitude, below the cloud base.
As the light breeze increased, the surface of the sea showed a strong breeze from a little west of south, almost dead abeam. I signalled back to Smithy that I needed to go aft for a drift sight. But at the same moment the importance of any normal working of the aircraft was cancelled by unmistakable signs on the manifold. The welded edge of the rear of the pipe had split, and through it the exhaust was blowing in a flickering slit of light from the trailing edge. Even as I watched. the blow of the flaming exhaust was gradually forcing open the crack bursting open the whole top of the manifold.
At that moment Kingsford Smith returned to the cockpit and took over so I could go aft for the drift sight. But when he settled at the controls I drew his attention to the state of the centre manifold. We both sat fascinated but without comment, watching the rapidly disintegrating pipe, till in a few moments the whole top section was blasted out by the flame, flicked away in the airstream and was gone.
Instantly the most terrific vibration shook the aircraft as though some giant, invisible hand had reached out to shake the life out of her. Mentally, my hand flew to the throttles, but Smithy was flying the Cross and his hand was there. He drew off the starboard throttle and we both looked out to the motor. It leapt and struggled in its mounting as though it had gone mad and was trying to wrench itself out of the aeroplane.
Through the fuselage a sickly, pulsating wobble shook the Southern Cross as the slowing blade lashed the air: and as we finally saw the blades as they came to rest, one stuck out towards us in a broken, splintered wood; a jagged stump, like a lightning stricken tree.
Smithy held up the cross with two engines at full throttle, but she started to sink towards the sea. A few words passed between us and he turned her away and headed her back for Australia. As an approximate course I clapped 285 degrees on the compass to keep the wind no worse than abeam and to give us the best speed towards the nearest land. It seemed quite theoretical, to be heading for land more than five hundred miles away when at full throttle the altimeter was steadily sinking down from the level of three thousand feet.
Weight. That was the thing. Somehow we would have to get rid of weight. Smithy was fully occupied holding the Cross up to the best altitude for flight, and holding every possible inch of he falling height; but we were obviously destined for the sea within less than half an hour. I shouted across to Smithy, "Have to dump some weight. Shall I go ahead?"
His voice came back in the snarling roar of the extended motors, "Anything except the mail."
I slipped below to the cabin, passed the word to Stannage to dump everything except the mail, and then turned on the dump valve of the main fuel tank. How much to dump? That would have to be worked out immediately before too much drained away.
We had been in the air nearly seven hours, Say seven hours at thirty gallons an hour; 210 gallons gone; 390 gallons left.
I went to the chart and estimated out position and distance out; from Australia - 590 miles. Nearly half the distance to New Zealand: but best g for Australia. Weather and head winds the New Zealand end. Say, six hundred miles to the Australian coast. Speed, with the nearly stalling aircraft, about sixty-five. Wind abeam. Make good her airspeed. Reckon it at sixty. Six hundred miles at sixty. Ten hours.
Ten hours on two motors! Best not think too much about that. I remembered the rate of flow of the dump valve, and turned off the cock till I got it all sorted out. A glance up into the cockpit to the altimeter. About two thousand feet now.
Ten hours at 28 gallons an hour on two engines. She'd use that, taking out all that power: 280 gallons. Say three hundred. We must keep at least three hundred gallons.
It may appear very risky to have left only enough fuel to reach the coast with so narrow a margin, but this was a risk which had to be accepted against the certainty of descent into the sea. I knew the aircraft would sink within a few minutes. We had no dingy, nor even life jackets, in the Cross. So the picture was clear. The mail had to be kept until the very last emergency. So we had to dump fuel.
I reckoned up the amount in the top tanks, unscrewed the filler cap of the cabin tank and dipped it with the measuring stick. We could let go more fuel. So I turned on the dump valve again and kept a watch on the decreasing fuel level, with the dip stick.
Finally, leaving a little more than the total of three hundred gallons, I turned off the valve and checked the altimeter. She was down to five hundred feet now, but holding the height: so I left it at that. The few extra gallons would not put her in the sea now. Luggage, tools, freight, and all the articles not essential to flight had gone out into the Tasman Sea. Only the mail remained; the bags lashed down in the cabin behind the big tank.
I went up front, to tell Smithy about the fuel, and to let him know everything that had gone overboard.
There, it was as I had expected. He was settled down, but extended; holding the Cross in the air: and his aircraft, feeling the master touch, leaning heavily on the air, staggering but flying. He held her with the wheel, feeling just where her strength lay; using that, and not overburdening her weakness. He felt her through his hands and feet, and the seat in which he at, trying for support from the slowed-up airstream: and he laid her wing upon it at exactly the right angle, the only angle at which she could fly and maintain height.
Down in the cabin again, I went back to John Stannage and his radio. We exchanged some humour now in the fact that we were not immediately going down in the sea. This reprieve brought with it a delicious lightheartedness that was in strong contrast to the threatened disintegration of our world only a short time ago. The aeroplane now was not shaking itself to pieces; it was not losing height; and that was enough. We really felt quite lighthearted, and did not yet choose to look into the future at all.
Stannage had been in contact with Sydney, reported the broken propeller and the precarious situation of the aircraft; and had given our position, course, and speed. Our clear objective now was to reach land: not Sydney airport, but Australia. The nearest land was at Port Stevens, where the coast bends out to the north-east at Stepens Point. There was little difference in the distance; but by laying off north of the track to Sydney we could bring the wind more abeam and make a better speed. I gave Smithy a compass course for Seal Rocks, 120 miles north of Sydney, and when he straightened the Cross up on this course the wind was slightly better than abeam.
Up there in the cockpit the two throttle levers were still right forward, taking all the power the two remaining engines could give. There was a drastic finality about the sight of those throttle levers, proclaiming the fact that we had no reserve and were just maintaining height at three hundred feet. But the old motors of the Cross were snarling defiance at the ocean in the harsh, blaring crackle of their exhausts. We were afloat in the air, even though precariously, and flying: and we did not think too much about how long the engines would keep going, dragging a dead motor and propeller on the starboard side, a still heavy load, and a wing obliged to meet the air at an attitude of great resistance to fly at all. But we hoped they would last till the reduction of weight as they burned down the fuel would allow us to ease them down from continuous maximum power.
As we made some distance westward the showers of rain passed, and through the broken cloud shafts of sunlight brought life to the dull grey world of the ocean. The sun was nearly abeam to the north on a bearing suitable for a position line to check the track of the aircraft. There was too much turbulence for accurate results with the bubble sextant; so, to give me the natural sea horizon, Smithy eased the Cross down to a few feet above the sea and I was able to get a good set of sights. Worked, and laid down on the chart, the resulting position line showed us to be making good the track for Seal rocks.
Over the radio from Sydney we learned now of the action being taken for our rescue. The pilot vessel, Captain Cook, had left to intercept our track; H.M.S. Sussex would be underway in three hours; and Faith in Australia would leave as soon as a suitable pilot could be found for her. All this warmed our hearts considerably and was in principle very reassuring, but to stay in the air and reach land was not only the clear objective for survival, but we were now to have ambitions for return to Sydney airport and a normal landing. It was not long before we were back on the single objective of survival, for the aircraft and ourselves.
For some time I had noticed a steady stream of blue smoke in the exhaust of the port engine. There wasn't much: but it was there, coming away in a continuous streak and very visible in the clear air. It was obvious that this engine was burning oil. There were no quantity gauges on the oil tanks, each situated inside the cowling behind its engine, and therefore no way to measure the amount of oil remaining in the tank. It was assessed from the known consumption of the engine, and normally there was a big margin of oil beyond the range of the fuel. Each tank held eleven gallons of oil and normal consumption was less than a quart an hour. Now, with the evidence of this ominous blue stream from the port exhaust, my imagination saw right into a tank with not enough oil to reach Australia. Suppose the engine was burning a gallon an hour. An old engine, wide in the clearances, being thrashed to death at maximum power: it could be burning a gallon an hour; and we had been in the air now for nearly eleven hours. Even allowing for more normal consumption over the first seven hours, at high cruising power, the outlook was not good.
I thought around this problem a good deal, and it kept coming back at me. Eventually I tried to accept this blue smoke and hope that I was wrong about the consumption; but the oil pressure gauge of the port engine now had a fatal fascination for me, and my eyes were never long away from it. I said nothing about it to Smithy or John, because talk could not improve the situation, and in the remote event that they had not noticed it there was no point in passing on such depressing possibilities in a situation already loaded with sinister implications. But the confidence and relaxation which I was beginning to experience as the Cross continued to stay in the air and put more of the Tasman Sea behind her were completely ruined by this infernal blue stream of oil smoke, since even the most optimistic wishful thinking could not admit the remotest possibility of the aircraft remaining in the air on one engine. The sea was again the final abyss, and the Cross our world hanging precariously above it.
Earlier in the situation I had attempted to cut off the ends of the starboard propeller blades with a hacksaw. I though that if I could trim off the shattered blade, and cut the other to the same length, we might even get some thrust from it using some throttle with the engine.
One of Smithy's problems in flying the aircraft was to prevent the airstream turning the broken propeller; for immediately it started to turn, the unbalanced forces of the blades set up the most appalling vibration which soon would have started the disintegration of the aircraft. Any increase in airspeed above the absolute minimum for flight would set this propeller windmilling and Smithy would have to haul the Cross up to almost stalling speed to stop it, and then very carefully ease her down again to the very narrow margin between stalling and windmilling the propeller. This was a terrific strain for a pilot and I had tried to eliminate it by trimming the blades to a more balanced condition.
To attempt this operation I had gone partly out into the airstream from the open side of the pilot's cabin; but the blast of air, and the fact that the propeller would turn every time I tried to work on it with the hacksaw, finally convinced me that there was no future in this idea, and I just slumped back into the cabin, exhausted and frustrated.
But now, with the evidence of the blue smoke trail continuously before me, I began to think of some way to improve our situation. It was quite uncomplicated, really. If the port motor used all its oil the engine would be destroyed. With the centre motor alone we be in the sea within a few minutes. There the aircraft would sink, and if we happened to survive the ditching with a fixed undercarriage aircraft, we would stay afloat just as long as could go on swimming in a rough sea without life jackets. There was a strong incentive to do something about oil for the port engine.
I began to speculate about the possibility if somehow getting oil from the tank in the cowl behind the useless starboard engine. There should be at least nine gallons of oil there. If some way could be devised to get this oil, and somehow transfer it to the tank of the port engine, we should have enough oil to keep the port motor going to reach the coast.
Every way I looked at it there was obviously no straightforward way to make this oil transfer, since each engine was a complete unit of its own, with no lines or pipes interconnected. The outboard engines were isolated alone, far out in the airstream under the wing.
After developing every line of though without any tangible result, it wasn't long before I reached the alarming conclusion that the only way to do this oil transfer was to go out there and get the oil from the starboard side and go out again to put it into the tank on the port side. With the results of the propeller trimming episode fresh in my mind this final conclusion was a very unattractive prospect, but rather than live with defeat in my mind, and what I now believed was the certainty of being forced down in the ocean, I let this idea of going out in the airstream to the engines support my morale, which was in need of some hopeful outlook at this time. As the idea gained some momentum I found myself starting to work out the details of some practical plan. In the beginning it seemed entirely theoretical, like thinking of flying to the Moon (not so theoretical now) ; but as the plan developed in my mind it began to seem less impossible, and as we flew on low over the ocean I began to see it as something that was at least positive thinking, which freed me from a dumb acceptance of ending up in the bleak and threatening Tasman Sea.
The outboard engine nacelle could not be reached directly from the open side of the pilot's cabin; but out from the fuselage below this window a streamlined horizontal steel tube extended to the frame of the engine mounting. It was part of the lateral bracing system for the engine and the undercarriage leg, and was quite strong. I wondered whether I could get out the side window of the pilot's cabin, stand on this strut in the airstream with my shoulders against the leading edge of the wing, and somehow move out sideways and reach the engine. If I could do that, and hold on out there, I could unclip the side cowl, perhaps reach the drain plug of the oil tank, undo it, and drain out some oil in some sort of container. Then, if I could get back along the strut and into the cabin again, it would mean going out the other side, unscrewing the oil tank filler cap, and pouring in the oil I had collected from the starboard tank. Apparent impossibilities came back at me from this plan - the force of the slipstream, the precariousness of trying to stand on the strut, how could I collect the oil while somehow holding on out in the blast of air? How could I get back with the oil? Then there was the other side.
Impossible. The whole thing.
Then the alternative stared me in the face - the sea.
It had to be possible, somehow; if the port engine burned up all its oil. When was the time to attempt this oil transfer? Now: or when we had evidence of the port engine failing?
I looked again at the outboard engines; away out from the fuselage, at the engine of the strut: and I weighed up the chances, both ways. The chance of being blown off the strut or the engine mounting, seemed infinitely greater than all my theories of running out of oil. After all, the engines were still roaring away at full throttle, and the only evidence of possible failure was the trail of blue smoke in the port exhaust. Perhaps I was putting it off, staying in the relative safety of the cabin: but I decided it wasn't worth it; unless the oil pressure began to fail.
The wind now had come more into the east, so, with some favourable component in its direction, we decided to alter course for Sydney. I gave Smithy the new course to steer and passed to John Stannage the necessary information for transmission. For five hours Smithy had been flying the Cross in her disabled condition, concentrating for every moment of that time on keeping her in the air. He had lived and felt with his aircraft every effort of her struggle for survival. Knowing his feelings about the Southern Cross I rather diffidently suggested that I take over to give him a spell, and try to keep her in the air. He hesitated for a moment; then let me take her.
Immediately I laid my feet to the rudder bar and took the wheel in my hands, I realised the narrow margin by which the two remaining engines were holding her in flight. For a few moments I was lost in my endeavour to react to the needs of the aircraft, but gradually I began to pick up the sensitive signals, and finally to anticipate them and so hold her in level flight a few hundred feet above the sea.
As I became more accustomed to the feel of the aircraft I was able to relax a little, and my eyes set off the habitual round of the gauges on the instrument panel. The port oil pressure gauge, the danger point in my mind, was holding steady at 63 pounds to the square inch. Pressure of the centre motor was approximately the same. The needle of the starboard lay flat at zero on the gauge. The motors sounded healthy and I began almost to feel that the most critical situation was passing, as the engines burned down the weight of fuel. We were even able to ease the throttles very slightly back from maximum power and still maintain three hundred feet. But my eyes continued regularly on the round of the gauges, and I saw in my mind from the starboard seat the blue smoke trail from the exhaust of the port engine. Apart from its numerical reading, I had noticed a small sport on the face of the port oil pressure gauge, exactly where the needle was pointing. Each time I looked I had mentally checked the holding of the pressure by the needle against this mark.
Now, when I looked again, my eyes rooted to the gauge and my whole body froze into a rigid warning. The needle was flickering, and as it wavered about the mark on the dial it was gradually falling below that mark. The oil pressure was definitely falling. No need now to be frozen with doubt and anticipation. The port engine was obviously close to the end of its lubricating oil; close to the end of its life as an engine.
Feeling a dull and futile hostility, I attracted Smithy's attention and pointed to the gauge. A hardness came into his expression as he took over his aircraft from me. He throttled back the port motor, gave it several bursts, and then opened it to full power again. The pressure was down to slightly below sixty pounds. We looked at each other across the cockpit with an exchange of expression which obviously agreed, "Well, it won't be long now."
I went below to the cabin, let Stannage know the situation; and he immediately transmitted the signals. "Port motor only last quater of an hour. Please stand by for exact position."
I then worked up and handed him the estimated position, which he transmitted, "latitude 3408'S, longitude 154030'E". When I went up to the cockpit again the pressure was down to 35 pounds, and Smithy was taking off his heavy flying boots.
Suddenly all reasoning, fear and emotion of any sort left me, and were replaced by clear feelings of elation; an obsession which listened to the promptings of nothing but itself "Get the oil from the starboard tank. Go out and get it.:
I slipped below to the cabin, took of my shoes, belted up my coat tightly, unlashed some light line from the mailbags, and went back to the cockpit. Smithy was sitting there flying the Southern Cross, preparing himself to put her down in the sea. I shouted at him, "Going to have a stab at getting some oil."
He shook his head and tried to stop me, but when he saw my determination he accepted it, and while we still had the port engine he tried to gain a little height.
It amuses me now to remember that I lashed the mailbag line around my waist and made fast the other end in the cockpit. It would have snapped with the slightest jerk, but it had a good moral effect at the time. Then I stood up on the starboard pilot's seat and put one leg over the side, feeling for the streamlined tube to the motor. the airstream grabbed my leg and for a moment a wave of futility swept over me. But it passed and again I was driven by the single purpose of oil for the port engine.
I finally got my right foot on the strut, held fast to the edge of the cockpit with both hands and managed to get my other foot out, and hang on in the airstream. The blast from the centre motor screamed round my ears and pushed with a numb, relentless force against my body. A wave of sudden panic surged within me and I felt the utter madness of attempting to move anywhere but back to the cockpit; if I could get back. I stood on the strut, with my shoulders braced against the rounded leading edge of the wing, with a screaming hurricane threatening to blow my eyes out if I looked straight ahead. Then the panic passed and I felt no sense of height nor any particular fear of the precariousness of my position: only again the obsession to reach the tank behind the motor.
I braced my shoulders against the wing and tried to wrap my toes around the strut; let go my right hand from the fuselage and edged my feet along till at the full extent of my left arm to the cockpit edge I found that I could not reach the engine by reaching out with my right. I was horrified to discover that there was a short distance in the middle of the crossing to the engine where I would have no handhold and would have to move on out with only my feet on the strut and the back of my neck against the wing.
Momentarily, again, there was a sense of defeat. It seemed almost certain that I would never make it, but just be blown off the aircraft and fall into the sea. Then I though, well I'm going into the sea anyhow, so it's better to take a chance on reaching the engine. I braced my neck well against the wing, got a firm footing on the strut, and very carefully let go my handhold on the cockpit. There was an immediate impulse to make a desperate rush and grab at the engine mount; but I resisted that, and thoroughly steadied myself into the position without any handhold. Then I carefully moved sideways towards the engine. Those few seconds seemed an eternity and the distance infinite, but I reached the engine mount, and clung to it with both hands. Then the worst feeling of panic of the whole operation swept over me - that of being isolated out there clinging to the engine with no way back but another horrifying foot-and-neck crossing of the strut.
But there was no time for panic. Smithy and John were making signs to me that the oil pressure was dangerously low and I knew something had to be done about it immediately. I hung on with one hand, and with the other tried to get the side cowl pin out so I could reach the oil tank. With maddening deliberation the pin resisted my efforts to undo it, but somehow my fingers dislodged it. The other pins came away quite easily and I wrenched out the side cowl and let it go in the airstream. Under the tank I located the brass drain plug.
I made signs to Stannage for a spanner, but he had anticipated this and by colossal luck had found a shifting spanner which we kept on for dismantling the hand pump on the cabin fuel tank. I moved back as far as I could along the strut while still holding on with one hand; and with the other reached out to meet Stannage's hand with the spanner. The combined lengths or our arms saved me another passage without handhold. I slid back to the engine, got the spanner adjusted to the drain plug and eased it back till I could undo it with my fingers. Then I needed something for the oil.
Again John Stannage was ready. I saw he had some sort of metal container (which I afterwards found was that of a thermos flask he had for coffee). By the same process as we exchanged the spanner, I got the flask and quickly had it under the drain plug. To do this I had to hook one arm through the tubular engine mount, hold the flask in that hand and unscrew the drain plug with the other while sitting astride the strut. It was not particularly difficult really, but the airstream blew the oil away as soon as it came out of the plug hole. But I wangled the container up to the drain hole, got it full of oil, and put the drain plug to a finger tight position. We could not afford to waste oil, with some hours ahead and the hungry port engine.
Now I had to get this container of oil back to Stannage. This we accomplished in the same way as passing the spanner and the container. After collecting and passing back to Stannage several containers of oil I had then to make the full return crossing to the cabin. I was fairly exhausted by that time so I care less about the risk of the neck-and-foot crossing, an finally reached the cabin just about all in.
Stannage had been pouring the oil into a small leather suitcase which he kept for his radio gadgets and, again luckily, it did not break. But the oil pressure was down to 15 pounds.
For a few minutes I simply could not move, or do anything but try to regain my breath. But that gauge got me on my feet again, and I climbed round Smithy in the port seat and tried to get my foot over the side for the passage out to the port engine. The howling blast of both slipstreams, centre and port engine, hurled me back against the bulkhead and left me gasping and cursing in futile desperation.
Angry and frustrated by this setback, I looked out across the gap to the failing engine, still obsessed with the one idea of getting there. I forced my leg over the side and pushed with every ounce of my strength; yelled and cursed at the roaring flood of air; but was beaten back to the cockpit; stunned an defeated. Then I saw Smithy's hand go forward to the throttles and push them wide open again. He couldn't let her pick up speed to start an attempt to climb because it would have started the broken propeller windmilling. So he immediately hauled her back and willed and lifted her for height. He looked across at me as I still waited, gasping and hostile against the bulkhead; and I understood his intention.
At about seven hundred feet he shutdown the port engine, leaving her flying at full throttle on one, and immediately starting to lose height. But this was my opportunity to reach the port engine, with its propeller now just whistling round without the blast of its powered slipstream. I went over the side and found that I could force a passage against the blast from only the centre motor, as I had done on the other side. I reached the engine just as Smithy shouted at me to hold on. I draped myself over the cowl against the V-struts and lay as flat as I could with my head behind the exhaust ring. The engine opened up again with a shattering roar, and looking down from my strange situation on the streamlined cowl section behind the engine I saw the grey surface of the Tasman only a few feet below me. The Southern Cross, flying only on one engine, had lost almost all the height as I was making the crossing to the engine. I lay on the cowl, not caring about anything but the temporary relief of not struggling against the airstream, and hang on with the breath being sucked out of my body, behind the roaring exhaust. I remember feeling something pressing against my ribs hurting terrifically, but it didn't seem to matter. There was only hanging on, and breathing, to consider.
Having gained a few hundred feet of height Smithy shut down the engine again. I had my back to the cockpit but it was obvious what he was doing to make it possible to transfer the oil. Relieved again of the worst airstream, I struggled up and attacked the cowl over the oil tank filler cap. It came away easily and I bent it back and was able to unscrew the cap.
Stannage was ready. He dipped a flask of oil from the case, I moved back along the strut and we both reached out till I took the flask from him and moved back to the engine. We lost a lot of oil as it was sucked out of the flask by the airstream, but there was still more than half left as I reached the motor again and held the tin against my body. I climbed up into position over the oil tank, cupped my hand round the opening to avoid losing more oil, squeezed in the top of the flask and poured the oil into the tank. I looked back to the cockpit waiting for the reaction, but with just the ghastly thought now that it might not be a shortage of oil in the tank, but a failing oil pump or a blockage in the system. But in a few moments there was great shouting and waving from the cockpit, and John Stannage held out both his hands with thumbs up.
Pressure! Oil pressure back on the gauge. It worked!
But Smithy signalled again to hold on. We were almost in the sea. I flung myself own on the cowl again and the motor came in with a booming roar. I could see the surface of the ocean skimming by a few feet below: then I buried my head from the torrent of air an waited for more height and a chance to transfer the rest of the oil in the suitcase. As I lay there jammed against the struts I felt a magnificent exhilaration and a reckless enjoyment or our success which made me want to stand up and laugh and shout at the roaring mass of air that tore at everything around me. In my mind I could see the pointer on the gauge rise up and register the pressure in the oil system. Then the pressure of the strut against my ribs began to rush my body so that I began to feel that I could not hold on any longer. The ocean seemed to be moving faster: then faster, and sinking further away. A strange ease and resignation came over me. Nothing seemed to matter. It was all some fantasy in a strange retreating background from which I was floating away.
Then a sharp stab of fear hit me and I realised I was letting go, and I felt again the choking numbness in my body, but something telling me to hold on. Just hold on; to fight the unconsciousness into which I was slipping away.
Suddenly the roar of the engine ceased and I realised that Smithy had throttled back and I had to get more oil. It shocked me back into action and I lifted myself from the cowling and turned to move out reach for the oil.
In a few minutes Stannage and I had transferred all the oil in the case, about a gallon: but some had been sucked away in the airstream. Then Smithy's shout came again and I had to lie over the cowl again and hear the blast of the exhaust a few inches from my ear. But I was past caring now, and there was the exhilaration of knowing we could keep the Cross in the air. When he had a few hundred feet of height he shut down the engine again and I safely made the passage on the strut back into the aircraft. My eyes went to the pressure gauge and I saw the needle at 63 pounds. Then I just lay back on the big fuel tank in the cabin and let go.
Stannage was again in touch by radio and informed Sydney that we were still in the air. That contact with the world by radio seemed at first to give us some physical connection with Australia, and therefore some basis of security: but one quickly realised that the signals coming in through the wireless set were the faint sounds of a world with which we had no connection, and only impressed upon us the vast solitude or our surroundings.
Fascinated by the oil pressure gauge, my eyes kept coming back to it for a reading, and I started to work out how long it would be before the oil transfer would have to be done again, and how many times it would have to be done in the distance we were still out from Sydney. Because I had lost so much oil in the airstream, only a little over half a gallon actually reached the tank. The engine had burned eleven gallons in twelve hours: so about half an hour seemed like the limit of her endurance on the half gallon of oil.
I checked the speed, time, and distance made good, and estimated that the aircraft was still two hundred miles east of Sydney. We went over all the possible alternatives to this method of transferring oil, and were forced back to the original conclusion that there was no other way to do it. We either kept on getting the oil or we lost the port motor and went into the sea.
In about half an hour I was horrified to see the oil gauge starting to flicker again. Till I actually saw it happening I had stayed in a kind of neutral state of mind, accepting the respite, and not really facing the fact that I would have to do it again. Now it stared me in the face. I made an effort to throw off all thought, and just act.
Again I reached the starboard engine, collected the oil, went out the other side, and finally completed the second transfer without incident. But I found that this time, to keep the aircraft out of the sea, Smithy had to tell John Stannage to dump the mail. It was a bitter experience for him, but it had to be done to keep the Cross in the air, because now the port engine was occasionally misfiring and showing signs of packing up. Full throttle for more than a very few minutes brought ominous bangs from the exhaust.
And so we flew on, making the oil transfer about each half hour, throttling back the port engine to cool it off, and losing height: then bringing it up again and trying to gain a few feet on the altimeter
About 120 miles from Sydney we sighted the smoke of a ship on the horizon, and later flew over her. (We later learned that she was a small New Zealand vessel, Port Waikato.) Smithy spoke of putting the Cross down in the sea alongside this vessel, to give us a chance of being picked up: But I knew he was thinking this way so that I would not have to risk any more oil transfers. Strangely enough, I had gained confidence in being able to go through this act without slipping or being blown off the aeroplane, and I felt quite exhilarated at the possibility of reaching Sydney and landing on Mascot airport in good shape. It was typical of Kingsford Smith that he was prepared to lose his aircraft rather than let me risk any more oil transfers; but I felt very sure of myself now, and prepared to go on getting the oil than deliberately to land in the sea with a 'wheels down' aircraft. Had we ditched the Southern Cross, Kingsford Smith's chance of coming out of it from the pilot's seat would have been small. Stannage and I might have possibly made it, but it had no appeal for me an after a short discussion it was decided to proceed for Sydney.
Our real problem now was the port engine. Smithy had to cool it off by reducing power and each time he throttled it back we began to lose height, with the centre motor still blasting away at full throttle. There was little point in worrying about the oil left in its tank. There was just no way of reaching it.
About three o'clock in the afternoon, while Smithy and I were both up in the pilot's cabin, we saw a low, purple streak on the western horizon. John Stannage came up, and our eyes never left this vision till we positively identified it as the coast of Australia. The sight of land impressed upon us the truly disabled condition of the Cross; but in nearly forty years of life it was one of the best sights I had ever seen. Now that we had actually seen the land it seemed infinitely far away; the aircraft seemed barely to be moving, and unlikely ever to reach it.
The intervals between the choking spasms of the port motor were closing upon us, and Smithy was forced to throttle it back every few minutes to prevent its complete collapse. Then it would cool off and gather strength for another burst, and respond again to the throttle, to keep us out of the sea. But the Cross had burned down most of her fuel now and was flying light, and gradually the land grew up out of the sea till we were able to identify the higher land off the port bow as the hills behind Bulli. The desolation of the sea began to be more distant, though it still lay only a few feet below us; and the world we had left in the night only fifteen hours before began to creep back into my mind as a possible reality.
About thirty miles off the coast the engine was calling for oil again and it was obvious that at 60 knots we could not reach the land. Smithy was against my making this last passage for oil and again was prepared to put his aircraft in the sea, since rescue, if we got out of the ditching, was almost certain now. With a wry smile he accepted my suggestion that we do the oil change and go right on in. We were quite close to the land when the pressure gauge settled again on sixty-three pounds. I watched the yellow sands of Cronulla Beach come in and pass under the aircraft as Smithy coaxed its last effort from the banging port engine.
With a perfect approach, he brought her in over the threshold of the airport and feathered her on to the ground. He turned the Cross from her last ocean flight, and brought her to rest by the hanger.
The engine which had kept going at full throttle was the one which had been strewn in pieces on the floor of the hangar and assembled mainly by John Stannage and Jack Percival