Pittsextra

Ml Aviation Ltd -a Secret World by Carter Graham: Keyham Books, Cippenham 9780952771562 Paperback - Baggins Book Bazaar Ltd


More a document of historical record/ interest than a technical study but actually makes for very light reading which is actually enjoyable, especially since it gives a (for this reader anyway) very fresh perspective on the origins and development of the British ejection seat, the accident that claimed the life of Wimpey Wade and a host of other projects and programs that the company engaged in.

Very interesting reading and surprisingly (given the book was published in 2006) that I think you'll find many things are written about for the first time.

Pittsextra

Its an old book written in 1955, first published in 1956 although re-printed more recently by Grub Street.

Through the excellent archives at Flight you can read what was made of the book here:-




javelin | folland aircraft | 1956 | 1033 | Flight Archive




westland widgeon | 1956 | 1057 | Flight Archive


It certainly made an impact at the time and I'm not sure anything has been written quite as candidly since.

I'm sure Waterton needs no introduction here but he was Chief test pilot for The Gloster Aircraft Company, working for the company from 1946 until 1954 (becoming chief test pilot in 1947). The book focuses upon three aircraft that Waterton was heavily involved. The Gloster Meteor, Javelin and also the Avro CF-100.


The timing of the book probably best explains its tone which has been written with the heart on his sleeve. It certainly gives the impression that for reasons not made obvious in the book Waterton was clearly not fully respected at Gloster and one suspects that he was unable to play the political game very well. A man whose first loyalty was to his fellow pilot he seemed very comfortable at going around the company directly to the customer (in this case the ministry of supply) to make his feelings known. No doubt this played its part in the destruction of the relationship.

In the end one can't help feeling an element of sadness at the way you can see the endless bridge blowing coming to its obvious conclusion, and I'm not sure if Waterton really saw it coming. Certainly when the company finally let him go I don't think that was the outcome he wanted but sadly it was a situation impossible to recover from.

A very interesting period and from a unique perspective in that it was written by a man who had resigned himself not to work in the industry again and so to hell with the consequences!

Pilot DAR

I have recently read the book: Initial Airworthiness, Determining the Acceptability of New Airborne Systems, by Guy Gratton.

I found it to be an excellent gathering together of the various aspects of aircraft design, certification and testing. This is certainly a "must read" for students of aircraft design, and those who intend to flight test an aircraft.

Each of the important areas of design and certification are discussed, though some at an introductory level (as I'm sure the author intended), and much more detailed study would be possible, should the reader wish to pursue a specific topic.

The reader will finish the book with many of those "why do they do it that way?" questions answered, yet an appetite for more detail too. The book does not center on any particular class of aeroplane, but rather discusses airworthiness aspects of a broad range of aeroplanes, which further helps the reader appreciate differences to be considered.

The author provide numerous "side bars" to explain associated factors, and fill in the background of some information.

Lots of reference information and tables are provided, which will make the book a good reference book for future work, rather than a one time read. I cannot think of another aeroplane design or flight test book I have read which draws together important information as well as this book does.

I highly recommend this book!

Pilot DAR

igo2fly, if you would like to start a thread here with your question, that would be fine. Your question was not a good fit in the flight test book review thread.

Pilot DAR

Jhieminga

I've read part one and have only just gotten my hands on part two, but Ken Ellis' "Testing to the Limits" deserves a mention if you ask me:
Testing to the Limits: British Test Pilots Since 1910 - volume 1, Addicott to Humble

Testing to the Limits: British Test Pilots Since 1910 - volume 2, James to Zurakowski

This seems to be the first book (or rather books) to cover the many test pilots that supported the British aviation industry. It includes short (and some longer) biographies of all mentioned pilots but also a few longer articles about the changing role of the test pilot throughout the years. Ellis has included all the pilots who either performed the first flight on a type or who gave their lives in the course of their work. That obviously means that not everyone is included, many production test pilots had to be left out for example, but this is still a very comprehensive book. It is also extensively illustrated to show the many different types flown throughout the years.

Pilot DAR

I saw this article linked elsewhere, and thought a post here would be appropriate. It describes the book: Initial Airworthiness, Determining the Acceptability of New Airborne Systems, by Guy Gratton.

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...0c&oe=58B1239E

Flt Tester

A couple more good reference books with lots of info that may interest people in Flight Test are....

1) British Prototype Aircraft by Ray Sturtivant ISBN 1-85648-221-9
2) The X Planes - X1 to X31 by Jay Miller ISBN 0-517-56749-0

Both books are of the "table top reference" type with lot's of photographs, flight records and incident records.

(ps) note for Pilot DAR,..... Maurice Rose'meyer (who's books you mentioned above) celebrated his 90th birthday on the 22 Sep 2018

Pilot DAR

Welcome Flt Tester,

I hope that Maurice is doing well. I have never met him, though a number of my DHC friends have told me many stories about him!

flyinkiwi

Surprised no one has mentioned this, but 'Wings on My Sleeve' by Capt Eric "Winkle" Brown (ISBN# 0-753-82209-1) is a highly recommended read. While necessarily light on technical detail as it is an autobiography, it does give insight into his approach to test flying.

sikeano

Wings on my sleeve is a fantastic book, Eric Brown holds the world record for the number of aircrafts that he tested, fluent in German too. it is an autobiographical in nature but a very good read

My recommendation is 'Sigh for a Merlin' by Alex Henshaw. I found this book quite interesting.

Genghis the Engineer

An interesting book I came across recently, that I think in historical circles is well regarded, but isn't known in flight test circles is this one.


Meager is an interesting chap - he seems to have spent much of the later years of the development and flight testing of big British airships as No.2 to many of the great flight test captains such as Irwin and Scott. His recall of detail is impressive, and his descriptions really do put you in the middle of these huge and remarkably modern flight test programmes. He also knew a lot of the big names that we can only know from history books - Nevil Shute Norway being one who particularly interested me.

It's out of print, but second hand copies seem quite easy to get hold of. I imagine anybody who is actively involved in large airship testing already knows it, so for the rest of us really it's leisure reading - but extremely interesting for all that. I'd strongly recommend it - and certainly I think that flight testers will see far more into the book than most historians will, and as such alone it's worth us reading it.

G

bill fly

DAHenriques

Ah..........Gerry Gallagher......the spin doctor. Anybody lucky enough to have flown with him in the T2 at TPS has come to a first hand association with the vaunted 3 axis coupled departure spin entry.
Flying like that is about as much fun as a pilot can have outside of possibly sex with a grizzly bear after drinking 23 straight afterburners made with Jeremiah Weed!
:-))))))))
Dudley Henriques

MrBernoulli

I enjoyed Brown's book immensely, but wished it had been longer, as I am sure there were more interesting tales to tell.

It appears those tales, or at least some of them, are probably available to read now, in a new book about Winkle Brown.

by Paul Beaver (published June 2023)

"Now, drawing on previously unseen documents and unfettered access to Winkle's own personal archive, Paul Beaver uncovers the complex and enigmatic man behind the legend - the real story of Britain's greatest pilot.

A story Winkle insisted could only be told after his death . . ."

DAHenriques

Ah...Winkle! One of my favorite all time people.
Some years ago I was working with long time friend Gen Des Barker of the SAAF on two books, "Zero Error Margin" and "Anatomy of Airshow Accidents".
Back engineering one of the accidents involved in our research involving prop overspeed in a dive I ended up becoming friends with Winkle.
What a wonderful guy he was. It was 2009. Eric at that time was 90 years old. I can tell you talking with him revealed in a heartbeat he was sharp as a tack and still smart as a whip. We became friends and I simply loved the guy.
What a history he had. I had flown 72 different types. Winkle just laughed. He lost count of the types he had flown. :-)))
Over time we really got into some of the testing he and others had done at Farnborough, especially the high mach number dive testing they did in Spits.
I knew that Herb Fisher here in the states had done high speed dive testing in modified P47's and Eric was aware of that.
Naturally I was interested in just how far they got into the transonic region with the Spits as I saw no way in hell you could get into the 0.90 region with a prop fighter as had been postulated by some here in the states. Eric agreed. He had gotten into high mach areas with a Spit but the prop was of course always the issue. They tried everything they could think of to get into higher mach numbers. They tried special props and different propeller settings and dive entries. Naturally nothing worked. This is why no prop fighter has ever broken the sound barrier.
It was interesting about the incident that Eric told me was in his opinion the absolute fastest dive ever done in a prop fighter.
It was done on the 27th of April 1944 when Squadron Leader Martindale who was at the time heading up the high speed flight test program took a Spit X1 from 40K out to mach .92. On trying to recover at 28K the overspeeding Rotol propeller departed the aircraft taking the reduction gear with it. The Spit took +11g's and when Martindale recovered consciousness he was back up at 40K. He managed to get the gear down using the emergency system and landed without further incident. This incident and the speed achieved that day by Martindale remains the fastest speed in a dive ever achieved by a propeller driven airplane.
Winkle told me they never achieved a speed over .88 without a prop over speed.
This is just a sample of Eric's life and work environment. I considered Winkle one of the finest pilots of any nation of all time, a great guy, and a wonderful friend.
Dudley Henriques

Pilot DAR

I Had the pleasure of chatting with Des over lunch, during a flight test symposium here in Canada a number of years back. He was a presenter, and sure taught me a few things those days! He was a wealth of wisdom! Of particular interest (and coincidence!) was that he regularly flew the Patchen Explorer owned by the museum. It was a one of a kind airplane, derived by Dave Thurston, from the Teal amphibian. It had the 180HP engine installation, which was derived from the TSC-1A3 Teal III design. I own the TSC-1A3 prototype (which was never put into production), which I fly regularly. It is a standard Teal with the same engine and pylon arrangement as the Patchen Explorer. I understand that the Explorer had engine problems while Des was training another pilot in it. If the Explorer is anything like my modified Teal, the glide is poor, requiring regular practice to make decent power off landings. I was very saddened to hear of Des' passing in that accident, he was obviously a very talented and knowledgeable pilot, and just nice person!

DAHenriques

Thank you very much for the nice words about Des. I knew Des for 20 odd years. He was one of the finest human beings I have ever known.
He was with Rama Iyer in the Explorer on final Swartkop. We will probably never really know exactly what happened.Both were excellent pilots. Whatever it was I have absolutely no doubt it happened quickly and was beyond their ability to save the airplane.
ICAS released Des' last book (Anatomy of Airshow Accidents) that he and I (and others) worked on so hard and for so long. I spoke with John Cudahy after Des' death and through John's efforts ICAS created an award for work in flight safety that is awarded every year to the most deserving person. Des would have liked that. I know when ICAS told me about it it made me feel better. Des' work in flight safety has in my opinion saved many lives and I am comforted knowing that his peers chose to recognize him in such a way as this.
Again, thank you for sharing your memory with me. I deeply appreciated it.
Dudley Henriques

Pilot DAR

Yes, Des made a very memorable impression upon me! He gave an excellent presentation which essentially was "You're a test pilot, so you're going to also be asked to demonstrate the airplane at airshows, here's what you need to think about.....". Though I have very rarely needed to demonstrate during an airshow, I certainly embrace his wisdom. I was a jump seat passenger on the DHC Buffalo during the Farnborough airshow in 1984 two day before the accident flight there. As I worked with the pilot, Bill Loverseed, to bring the event into greater understanding, I could see the pressures to demonstrate well, and be safe. Bill was very experienced at air demonstration, having been a Red Arrows team leader, and I understood the unusual capabilities of the Buffalo, and demonstration pressures, which led Bill into a bad situation. Des' presentation really connected with me.

I never saw the Patchen Explorer, but Des and I discussed it, and some of it's characteristics. I had ten years of flying the modified Teal at that time, including the original design approval test flying, and understood some of it's quirks. I ended up buying it, and still fly it. From the aft cabin bulkhead back, the explorer, and my Teal are the same plane. I know that Des understood it well, though he perhaps had less opportunity to get to know it's quirks, as I think it did not fly often. In the case of an engine failure, it glides, but stretching a glide is out of the question, thinking "autorotation" approach is better, their sink rate becomes troublesome when they slow. Des may have been caught out by a high rate of descent, which could not be arrested, which would not be the first time for a Teal!

Des will always remain one of those people I think of with a warm thought, as having added to my wisdom and safe thinking about flying!