Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II
DHfan
Thank you .. I've been racking my brains trying to remember the airfield - Radlett it was, so it must have been a Halifax.
I agree it seems a strange idea but maybe the exigencies of wartime etc.. The chap involved was a very level headed individual and never one to embellish stories. It's still odd though.
Thank you .. I've been racking my brains trying to remember the airfield - Radlett it was, so it must have been a Halifax.
I agree it seems a strange idea but maybe the exigencies of wartime etc.. The chap involved was a very level headed individual and never one to embellish stories. It's still odd though.
Aeroplanes built at that time were fairly robust. A Varsity was barrel rolled by a student and it was unknown until his co-pilot, a junior student, let it slip at a late hour in the bar.
They inspected the aircraft and if they looked very closely they could see the ripples in the top skin of the mainplane.
One scrapped student; one scrapped Varsity.
They inspected the aircraft and if they looked very closely they could see the ripples in the top skin of the mainplane.
One scrapped student; one scrapped Varsity.
I never heard of Halifax wing structural problems, nor of any with its transport successor the Hastings which used the same wing-engine-undercarriage package. Your trials might have been the major tests about 1943 which followed a series of stall-spin accidents. I think they found that the starboard fin and rudder would stall under certain airflow conditions and the empennage was successfully modified to avoid this.
The problem might have been mentioned by Reg Levy in his posts seven or eight years ago?
The problem might have been mentioned by Reg Levy in his posts seven or eight years ago?
IIRC, early Halifaxes had problems with the rudder(s) locking over which was traced to the swept leading edge of the fin. Later ones had a much larger oblong fin and rudder.
Radlett was easy for me to remember - I passed it every week or two as a kid travelling to see both sets of grandparents. Despite now living in Derbyshire, I'm Hertfordshire born and bred.
For a small largely agricultural county that a lot of people have never heard of, with Hatfield, Radlett, Leavesden and Aldenham an awful lot of aircraft were produced there.
Radlett was easy for me to remember - I passed it every week or two as a kid travelling to see both sets of grandparents. Despite now living in Derbyshire, I'm Hertfordshire born and bred.
For a small largely agricultural county that a lot of people have never heard of, with Hatfield, Radlett, Leavesden and Aldenham an awful lot of aircraft were produced there.
Unusual. The multi engine students normally went to transport in its various guises. The V Force was supplied by poor sods like me who were from the jet AFS.
Sending him to V Force must have been a punishment.
Sending him to V Force must have been a punishment.
FED, I agree with Wander,knew him well...
DHF,I suspect that the aircraft would have been instrumented with `strain gauges` `g meters.,etc and a series of gradually increasing manoeuvres carried out to determine actual stresses involved ,in support of the designers calculations....
DHF,I suspect that the aircraft would have been instrumented with `strain gauges` `g meters.,etc and a series of gradually increasing manoeuvres carried out to determine actual stresses involved ,in support of the designers calculations....
Lancaster's suffered from fin failure, the structure was sufficiently strong for normal use but when corkscrewing was introduced as a way of avoiding night fighters fins started to fail due to the forces from side slipping, strengthening mods were introduced. Perhaps the trials were to try and replicate the loads. All Lancaster's were either built to the later standard or so modified by mid 1943.
Richard
Richard
I suspect that the aircraft would have been instrumented with `strain gauges` `g meters.,etc and a series of gradually increasing manoeuvres carried out to determine actual stresses involved ,in support of the designers calculations
I agree, the chap concerned mentioned that the trial comprised a number of dives amongst other manoeuvres. Unfortunately, I was a young FZ eaves dropping on an adult conversation so not in a position to question him further.
I was at Oakington a couple of courses after the attempted Varsity barrel roll. We understood the pilot chickened out when inverted and it was the co-pilot who closed the throttles when the a/c was heading vertically down which reduced the rate of speed increase and reduced the height loss during the pull through. Hearsay I know! Can anyone confirm?
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Hastings wing failure (?)
Geriaviator-
Re your #12544, I did actually witness occurrence of a Hastings main spar failure, though whether it should be classified as a flying accident is perhaps arguable. One day in the late fifties I was sitting in my Hastings at the holding point for Abingdon's RW 08, watching another on late finals. It seemed a bit on the high side and the attitude did not look quite right, indeed at around the 1 ½ mile point it assumed a most pronounced nose up posture then almost immediately made a partial recovery but with a fairly high rate of descent. Approaching the threshold, no attempt to check this rate was made so it landed heavily in a three point attitude just short of the runway before bouncing once onto the hard stuff.
At the moment of impact I noticed quite clearly that while the left side oleos went to full travel, not only did those on the right do the same but the whole wheel arch casting moved visibly upwards. “Something's busted” I thought to myself, and sure enough as the Hastings decelerated up the runway it gradually tipped over as the starboard wing twisted upwards until the tip dragged along the ground, thus arresting further progress.
As I recall, the actual point of fracture was at the junction of main spar with the centre section. The aircraft was of course a write-off, while the reason for this quite unnecessary accident is lost to my memory thought no doubt is recorded somewhere. The flight was for training purposes, though why the instructor/examiner did not take corrective action I don't know; suprisingly, he continued in post afterwards.
Re your #12544, I did actually witness occurrence of a Hastings main spar failure, though whether it should be classified as a flying accident is perhaps arguable. One day in the late fifties I was sitting in my Hastings at the holding point for Abingdon's RW 08, watching another on late finals. It seemed a bit on the high side and the attitude did not look quite right, indeed at around the 1 ½ mile point it assumed a most pronounced nose up posture then almost immediately made a partial recovery but with a fairly high rate of descent. Approaching the threshold, no attempt to check this rate was made so it landed heavily in a three point attitude just short of the runway before bouncing once onto the hard stuff.
At the moment of impact I noticed quite clearly that while the left side oleos went to full travel, not only did those on the right do the same but the whole wheel arch casting moved visibly upwards. “Something's busted” I thought to myself, and sure enough as the Hastings decelerated up the runway it gradually tipped over as the starboard wing twisted upwards until the tip dragged along the ground, thus arresting further progress.
As I recall, the actual point of fracture was at the junction of main spar with the centre section. The aircraft was of course a write-off, while the reason for this quite unnecessary accident is lost to my memory thought no doubt is recorded somewhere. The flight was for training purposes, though why the instructor/examiner did not take corrective action I don't know; suprisingly, he continued in post afterwards.
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Yes Roving, looks like it as I see from my log book that I was indeed flying at Abingdon on that day although a couple of the details look a bit odd. For one thing I quite definitely saw no ground loop, what actually happened is that the aircraft tilted gradually to the right as it decelerated along the runway, finally running onto the grass at a slight angle as the wing contacted the ground; the other oddity is only three crew on board, the missing members being nav & signaller as the Hastings could not be operated without a flight engineer. This was not really legal, although I must admit to once having flown a short Beverley air test with only a co-pilot; other than feeling a bit lonely, there was no problem!
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The test of Halifax were conducted in early 1943 by a Polish test pilot Stanisław Riess. He did a series of flights to find the reason of structural failures of Halifaxes, and on his last test, on 4 February 1943, the aircraft disintegrated in the air, with the loss of Riess and crew. As far as I have read, the problem was in the wrong ballance of the rudder, which caused uncontrollable falling leaf, and in the effect structural failure of the tail.
I am always feeling cold, when I realise that the man just went for suicidal mission.
I am always feeling cold, when I realise that the man just went for suicidal mission.
I have been bracing my self for years and pages and pages for the sad news of Danny's departure, and suddenly without even a by your leave he has pissed off. All I can say is Devastated
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Harry, you had me rather worried there, my father who had to have one Hastings on the line for Met flights at 0800 every morning said that the aircraft was built like a truck and gave very few problems on the airframe side. But I suppose a determined pupil will find a way to break any machine, aircraft or truck!
Geriaviator:-
It still astounds me that my instructor put me in charge of a Hastings at Thorney Island as a young PO fresh out of AFS in 1963. His place, having climbed out of the a/c on a running change, was taken by a fellow u/t co-pilot. Off we went for a take-off, circuit, and full stop landing, and somehow survived to tell the tale. Such events (ie Co-Pilot Solos) were published in the flying programme the previous day. That gave families sufficient time to prepare a picnic and set them selves out at a judicially safe distance from the runway to watch the fun and games. The full stop bit of the landings was merely the anti climax, after much kangarooing beforehand in some cases. Fortunately this tradition was made known to me only after the event, so the only person I felt I had to please was my instructor who was patiently waiting for our safe return. Oh, and the poor unfortunates incarcerated alongside me of course.
The self confidence that such P1 time engendered was a great help in learning to cope with the a/c, and was reinforced on the Squadrons on a monthly CPS basis. The irony is that u/t co-pilots on the much less demanding (for landing that is) Hercules could only log P2 time, as the N/W steering tiller was only operable from the LHS. That also meant that a financial saving in training costs could be made by cutting out co-pilot solo time, a long sought after ambition of the bean counters, fiercely resisted until the tiller issue clinched their case.
I suppose a determined pupil will find a way to break any machine, aircraft or truck!
The self confidence that such P1 time engendered was a great help in learning to cope with the a/c, and was reinforced on the Squadrons on a monthly CPS basis. The irony is that u/t co-pilots on the much less demanding (for landing that is) Hercules could only log P2 time, as the N/W steering tiller was only operable from the LHS. That also meant that a financial saving in training costs could be made by cutting out co-pilot solo time, a long sought after ambition of the bean counters, fiercely resisted until the tiller issue clinched their case.
Last edited by Chugalug2; 13th Dec 2018 at 18:33. Reason: Cope, shmope!