It's May 1941, it's night, you have to land, but how?

[Momoe]

One wing down means that the plane was banked, port wing in this case.
Although aircraft engines are machined to higher tolerances, a newer plane may have used more fuel, also being experienced he may have taken a more circuitous route to avoid known flak concentrations.
Very unusual to have a fire confined to an engine, if it was torn off in the crash there would be very little fuel in the engine fuel suppy, picture seems to suggest that port engines are missing.
The plane is too low, however it is on the runway line which suggests that he could see the runway lights. If he had an engine cut shortly after lining up, on either No1 or 2, this would have the effect of yawing the plane to the left and causing altitude loss.
It's possible he didn't select flap as he wanted to be sure of making the runway before committing to extra drag/extra engine power.

[Exnomad]

Were the approach lights which showed a green in you were on the approach path and red if you were too low in use at that time. (known as angle of dangle lights)
I used those on Oxfords at Dalcross in the early fifties.
Obviously fatigue would have been a factor on return from a long raid.

[Shackman]

I suspect he was just completing his turn onto finals - hence the left wing low - and perhaps over concentrating on the visual clue (flarepath of goosenecks) and failed to perhaps appreciate a rate of descent.

Remember he has Bourne Airfield just to his south west, which was almost certainly also active and would preclude any sort of straight in approach, and if anything make the circuit even tighter, whilst the marked upslope of the first part of the runway at Oakington would give a really false impression of being high on the glideslope.

However, that is only one take on all the possibilities of the many other scenarios. Probably the only definite way to know would require the sort of machine not yet available on the inventory but adequately described by H G Wells!

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi All

Hipper

Bit too much outlay for me - also I would want one of those headsets that allow you to turn your head to look left, right, up, down etc. Then I'd want the display image over three screens! Big plans - small pockets.


Exnomad

Not sure - I've still not researched the date that these would have arrived - I may make a nuiscence of myself over at Airfield Information Exchange


Momoe - Shackman

It says 'wing down' but whoever wrote that could not have been there at the time to watch the aircraft manoevere nor were there any survivors. How do you think they would be able to tell that from the wreckage?

I will check the ORBs from the surrounding fields on the same night and time, I'm wondering now if there were other aircraft nearby.


Cheers
James

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi Again

Another Question, having just looked at some pictures of Shackletons perhaps Shackman might have a good take on it.

The Stirling had a 350W Landing light in the Port Wing - which according to AP129 had an effective lighting distance of 500 feet.

If you were landing in the pitch darkness would you not want to switch this on really quite early? Any idea when the landing light would have been switched on as part of normal procedure? How effective was it?


Cheers
James

[Aerials]

Hello James, may I congratulate you for putting together this amount of evidence that you've gathered so far and your extremely admirable intentions. These stories need telling to give future generations a deeper insight into what the crews achieved and to give a greater depth of understanding over a Court of Inquiry finding in a dusty old file on a shelf somewhere.

A little pedantry if I may; in your post #75 in the green text you have the engines listed: PO (Port Outer), P1 should be PI (Port Inner) and so on for the starboard side. Under all the Extent of Damage assessments, I think that W should be followed by /O, meaning Write-Off.

Like you, I can see this project being quite complex with many excursions into other aspects. The trick will be knowing when you have done enough to be able to present the project. I expect that it'll never be finished to your satisfaction as to it's completeness, because of all the off-shoots. As with many others, I look forward to reading the more complete version. Again, well done.

[Momoe]

Not from the wreckage but from the impact points, first impact point was some trees, by looking at the break point on the trees across the direction the plane was heading, it's fairly easy to get a fairly accurate measurement of the bank at the point of impact.
Same principle applies to angle of descent, this time by looking at the impact damage along the wreckage trail.
Having worked out the plane's orientation, the crash investigators would look at the damage and could get a fair idea of speed, unfortunately they would have had plenty of practice at this time.

Shackman's theory about loss of height whilst concentrating on goosenecks and final turn is possible but the DFC and bar would suggest this was a very experienced pilot, I'm not 100% certain about the role of the flight engineer but he may have been assisting the pilot to a degree (monitoring instruments, lowering flap as instructed, etc). flight engineer would know what height the plane should be turning onto finals.
Flight engineers were capable of flying the plane in the event of the pilot being incapacitated, so would have a good understanding of height/speed.

Back to an earlier post, you mentioned that a companion aircraft made it back 15 minutes after the crash. This is slightly misleading in that duration is based on a number of factors, not least throttle settings.
Planes have several fuel related parameters, maximum speed (simples!), maximum range and maximum endurance, the last one has little to do with bombers more maritime reconaissance but the point is that if your plane left at approximately the same time and arrived back 15 minutes before his companion, did he take a more direct route or did he fly faster, thereby using up more fuel?

[Shackman]

Re the pilot; you say earlier he was a 'spec N', which would indicate he had done the specialist Navigator course, and elsewhere there is a hint he had earned his DFC as a Nav as well. Although a crossover to pilot was unusual, but not unknown, it could be that he was actually quite inexperienced as a pilot (I'm not casting aspersions here) despite his number of hours, and certainly his total Stirling time was relatively low. Do you have any indication of his previous service record?

Re the landing light, again it would be unusual to switch the landing light on except in extremis - it is a very good beacon in its own right for marauding night fighters. A landing light at 500ft can be seen an awful long way away - just try standing well west of London on a reasonable night and see how many aircraft you can see with landing lights on on their approach to Heathrow! Using the runway lights/goosenecks on their own was quite standard practice - again perspective was/is everything, and it is quite straightforward to make your approach in that way.

[Momoe]

Shackman
Good point about the accreditations being for navigation rather than piloting, I'd just found out about special 'N' pilot when I noticed you'd beaten me to it! Well done.

Service history is only released to immediate next of kin, I couldn't get my grandfathers service record directly, my mother had to apply.

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi All

Aerials

Thanks for your kind words - it is an absorbing project. I find that the flow of information comes in waves, during the lulls I work on the models and usually fixate on some opinion which turns out to be erroneous! I've given that up.....

Forums are very special as there are people out there with lots of useful information. Much information I am being sent is behind the scenes.

Hardest of all is trying to obtain information directly relevant to the particular event I am interested in, living a long way from the crash location is a tremendous frustration especially as the owners of the land are so friendly and interested. On my last visit it was difficult getting back to the site amongst offers of tea and lunches!

I have a license to look for wreckage at the site but this runs out soon. Once that happens and the models are finished I will probably start on the documentary. I will put it up on 'Vimeo' which isn't restricted in length as you tube is.


Momoe/Shackman

Thanks - some very valid points. If the treeline had been fairly level at the point the aircraft went through it then you could indeed tell the difference between a 100 foot 'hole' from a 'wings parallel' impact to a narrow but deep one from a banked impact. This then would move the point of impact further North to where the trees were more uniform.

Three miles sounds a long way to be out from the field especially when the DREM lighting radius was only 1000 yards. Since he had to turn back at some point he could well have been banking, perhaps Dry Drayton offered some sort of landmark visible even in the pitch dark - certain field shapes - water perhaps? The Church?

I see the landing data pointing two different ways. Many texts talk about making turns when you can still see the landing lights 'over your left shoulder' - that seems very close to the field to me and probably best for lighter aircraft. The other texts talk about flying away for quite a distance and performing a 'standard' 180 degree turn and coming back on the opposite heading to which you noted while flying 'downwind', this suggests a greater distance, but more time to line up, but more susceptible to crosswinds blowing you off course. The latter course of action would not require any need to see the landing lights at all as they should eventually turn up.

Thanks for the explanation of Special N, I hadn't been able to find that anywhere. I believe that Pilots also had to undergo the W/O course too.

On my next visit to TNA I plan to retrieve all the ORBs from his previous squadron to see what sorties he went on, I have a few already and he was always the Pilot on those sorties. His first DFC, on 7th June 1940, was for successful low altitude bombing over the Meuse in the face of impenetrable fire and being hit. I'm trying to persuade his relatives to let me pay to retrieve his records but no replies so far.

He did not however have many hours night flying on Stirlings, just 17 out of 200 night flying hours in total (mainly on Wellingtons). (Source AM1180). His hours on Stirlings totalled 30 but it doesn't say if this included the 15 night flying hours. His total flying hours was 900.

He had not been at Oakington for very long and may have been unfamiliar with the terrain or more used to his previous airfield. This is why procedure seems important, I assume that he would have flown practice flights around Oakington to get familiar with the land during the day but surely the procedures would have taken the lie of the land into account?

Thanks again to all for suffering my questions with such fortitude!

James

[Lancman]

Iirc it was very easy to misread the old 2 finger altimeter at low levels at night, the hundreds needle nearly covered the thousands needle at 1,000 ft. and, of course, completely covered it at 1,100 ft and at 0 ft QFE.

[Hipper]

I'm no expert but when I've seen mention flying hours totals it covers all hours, including night flying.

30 hours on Stirlings is not much.

In a post war crash that interested me, a co-pilot who had 116 hours was considered 'inexperienced' (his total flying hours in all types was 408).

[Momoe]

James,
there was probably a defined circuit at Oakington and other airfields which took into account local anomalies and also to maintain separation from other traffic.

Unlikely to fly down the runway line and then do a 180 and land as this has huge potential for collisions, normal circuit would be upwind join at a defined height that would be high enough not to interfere with aircraft going round but low enough not to cause problems with losing height, 90 deg left to fly downwind parallel to the runway.
90 deg turn onto base leg (N.B. Goose necks, chance light visible throughout here) and then 90 deg turn onto finals.
Aircraft would have lost height throughout the circuit but would looking to be say 1400' at turn onto downwind leg, 800' at base leg turn and 600' at turn onto finals.
Speed/flap position would also be at given parameters relative to the circuit, e.g. 160mph at join, 140mph at base leg turn and 120mph with 10deg flap at turn on to finals, these would have been worked out as a best operating procedure. Standardising circuit procedures assisted in minimising collisions in the circuit, again these are my figures and would need updating with Oakington specific procedures for Stirlings.

This is a typical circuit and may not have applied here, pretty certain though that they would have got close enough to identify the airfield by the pundit code before committing to land.

[Chugalug2]

Rather than add to the excellent feed-back posted by other members, I have a query of my own instead. Sorry! In post #48 cliffnemo (of WWII Pilots Brevet fame) recalls that in 1944:

2. Can't remember how many goose necks etc, would guess about 20-30 but definitely on the port side only.

Others here have emphasised the importance of perspective on the approach, ie using the lit width and length of the runway to maintain a constant (3 degree?) glidepath on the approach. With only one side lit such perspective is unavailable of course and all depends on the so called "Christmas Tree". It may well be of course that Cliff's experience of using goosenecks was not the common use of them operationally. My first experience indeed was on JP's; on Night Solo at Barkston Heath. Total runway lighting failure, followed by an order for all aircraft to maintain circuit height flying continuous circuits, followed by hasty provision of goosenecks down both runway sides. AALs (Angle of Approach Indicators) were still operative anyway so no drama. If this was something like the Oakington set up at the time of the accident then it should have caused no problems for a standard "heavy" circuit with a three mile final approach, I would have thought.

[jamesinnewcastle]

Lancman

Interesting point I'll have a look at that one.


Hipper

Yes and even fewer at night - he was mostly on Wellingtons before Stirlings. I assume that his flying hours also included any training or 'conversion' hours. I wonder if the response of the Stirling was so much different than the Wellington - might be that he had slipped back into Wellington mode.

It's worth noting that on one sortie he wasn't the Pilot so perhaps some of the hours could be discounted as being actual 'Stirling' flying experience?


Momoe

Thanks for overview - I've been passed the Flying Orders for an airfield in 1942 which outline a great many procedures courtesy of 101history. They are being converted to electronic format after which I'm going to precis the procedure and develop a flow chart - this I'll compare to the outline given in AP129 (1938) and see how much has remained the same and so hopefully infer that this is what might have happened at Oakington.

101history has said that anyone interested can have a copy of the material so if anyone want the full unexpergated version do contact me.

This may take some time but I will post.


Chugalug2

From what I've read in AP129 a single line of goosenecks was completely standard (at least early in the war years), the spacing was 50 or 100 ft and at the time of my document the talk was of just 6 along the entire runway as standard though you could extend them. And why not go mad and have just three for the 'cross bar' (?). With a Chance light as standard there were even fewer Goosenecks, I think there were just two!

I'll post the relevant parts of AP129 if anyone is interested. The Pilot landed with the lights to his left - which is not surprising as he was sitting on the left.

I've not read any mention of Angle of Approach lights in any of my research up till this post - I'll ask over at Airfield Information forum.

Todays runways are lit up like Times Square compared with a Scout campfire in 1941. This is part of my incredulation about the procedures for night landing and why I've tried to simulate the conditions. Also the landing was something that the Pilots always had to do - I read that some sorties were uneventful but the landing is taken as relatively uninteresting as there are few texts about what I see as being life threatening and highly dangerous given the conditions!

Here is another test animation I did for a Chance light supported landing, no claims for it to be correct - just a quick look for me to get some idea. (For example, I think now that the Landing light would not have been that visible and probably not even switched on - WIP)

You Tube

Cheers
James

[Chugalug2]

If there was only a single line of goosenecks, let alone just two anyway (that has to be wrong if there were no other runway lights, doesn't it?) then there will be no perspective, merely the direction and location of the runway. No doubt that was where the "Christmas tree" stepped in, to tell you if you were on or below the correct (3 degree?) glideslope. AAI's would have been the Post War development (giving you below/on/above 3 degree glideslope), which in turn were replaced by PAPI's (precision approach path indicators?). From your animation I guess that the Chance light was a type of floodlight to light up the landing surface? Given, as already pointed out, that 1941 points to non-paved runways, then the lack of installed runway lighting makes sense. Not that long before Lindbergh had landed at Le Bourget with the aid of cars' headlamps to light the grass runway. We used to do "Restricted Runway Lighting" Night Continuation Training on the Hastings. No Landing Lights, no AAI's, and only LI Omni-Directional Runway Lights on (ie the HI Directional ones Off) We thought that was a bit of a challenge! I imagine BC WWII Pilots would have thought it a luxury! Given such limited visual clues, the possibility of disorientation "turning finals" can but be imagined. With so little experience it could have been just that. Many many years ago, as a CCF cadet, I went on a Hill Walking Course at Bethesda in N Wales. Every day we were given a new set of co-ordinates that were always near the top of yet another Welsh hill, and there would be the remains of yet another WWII crashed aircraft which we were supposed to try to identify and take note of engine serial numbers, etc. It brought home vividly to me the enormous loss rate that the RAF suffered from poor airmanship rather than enemy action. RAF Oakington 3rd May1941 could well be yet another constituent of that terrible statistic ensuring "Victory at all costs"

[jamesinnewcastle]

Chugalug

Being brought up on a diet of WWII films it came as a shock to me doing this research just how many non-combat 'accidents' there were. Not surprising on reflection, but still a shock.

Attached some pics of Chance lights in operation, Some are from the IWM web site - just the thumbnails with IWM credit on - hopefully this isn't going to be a problem. The last picture has a Pundit light behind the Chance light. I think that the top light should be red - ie an obstruction light, bit unnecessary when the main light is on!









Cheers
James

[jamesinnewcastle]

Chugalug

Looks like I goofed again! Here are the pages from AP129 and you are right in being puzzled, there are still 6 flares even with the Chance light. I'll claim that they should have drawn them all in instead of just labeling them 1 and 6.

Also there is a drawing with two rows of lights - I've looked at AP129 for ages and only just noticed that! I'm cracking up! Demonstrates the value of discussion I think! I suspect that for a big bomber they would have used two rows of flares. But 100 yds is three times the wingspan of the Stirling, is that a bit wide, even for a runway?

It seems funny that you would land at the tail (bottom) of the T, isn't that the opposite of what lighting was used later. You do land into the wind don't you?

(Note there can be more than 6 as the text indicates - at the time this was written I don't think that there were that many heavy bombers)

Thanks for your observation.







James

[Chugalug2]

The difference of the "T" is not that it has been reversed, you always landed towards the bar, rather that in the "Calvert" system it formed the last part of the approach Lighting, ie immediately before the green threshold lights, and was lit red. In your layout its bar shows the last part of the "Flare Path", ie of the "runway lighting" and no doubt is to warn of that. Presumably beyond was unlit grass and no doubt one's landing or taxy lights would be on by then if not before. Interesting that the interval between lights (goosenecks, glims, whatever) is 100yds. That has two advantages. They can be easily paced out when being set up and also give a constant perspective of sorts on the approach (ie the apparent gap between them can be learnt when on a 3 degree glideslope). So I was wrong to say they give no perspective at all, they would do so if correctly laid out, though of a rather primitive and limited kind. No doubt the French Resistance were also instructed to place themselves at set intervals when holding up torches towards their inbound Lysander!
As to "accidental" compared to combat losses, I have heard that the former exceeded the latter for the RAF as a whole in WWII. I suspect that is rather anecdotal but on the other hand would have been talked down anyway. It was a tragedy to be killed in combat, it was shear waste to be lost due to poor airmanship caused by inexperience or fatigue.
Finally, do you have information on the so called "Christmas Tree"? No doubt it had a more official title. It might of course be that it was the very same AAI that I was familiar with post WWII. It consisted of a box on the LHS of the Threshold area with three colour light aspects so set that they gave, if you were were to climb vertically in the approach path: RED RED (very low), RED GREEN (low), GREEN GREEN (on G/S), GREEN AMBER (high), AMBER AMBER (very high). Did Oakington have such a system at the time? Was it lit that night? Without something of the kind any pilot would have found an approach on some 6 goosenecks, with or without a Chance Light, a challenge I contend. Is it possible that he mistook closer lights for the flare path? Blackout of course prevailed in 1941, but how rigorously could it be enforced in the countryside where the day's work starts well before dawn?
Edited to add that the distance between the double row goosenecks would have illustrated the cleared landing zone. The concept of a runway as a paved landing strip was yet to happen in 1941 (for BC anyway). It would again have given more perspective on the approach and as a pilot I would have preferred that layout rather than the single row and Chance light combination.

[teeteringhead]

just how many non-combat 'accidents' there were.

... and not just WW2. WW1, Korea, Nam, Falklands and Gulf 1 I feel sure lost more aircrew to "accidents" than to combat.