RN Autogyro trials.
 

I arrived at RAF Watton in March 1982,on posting to Eastern Radar(civil) and I remember seeing a RN low-loader driving up and down the runway,with an auoigyro taking-off from and landing upon it(Ken wallis lived nearby at Reymerston,where he had his own airfield).Does anyone have any further knowledge about this ?

Ken Wallis did fly the autogiro off of a naval vessel during trials with Vintens in the early eighties. This exercise was preceded by a test flight off of the Isle of Wight Ferry. For this the autogiro was restrained by simple shackle as the engine was run up and the rotor disk got fully autorotating. The shackle was then released by an assistant. On the naval trial Ken flew off conventionally from the helideck into wind described by one witness as seemingly " almost falling over the side". Historically autogiros had flown off Naval Vessels but the RN was very skeptical about the Wallis type autogiro being able to operate "Winter North Atlantic". Suggestions about using it, lightly armed , to extend the eyes and punch of a fast coastal patrol boat or hydrofoil operating in more temperate climes were also dismissed.

Haraka (#2),

I've read somewhere that, in WWII, some of the U-Boats had an autogyro "glider" aboard. On the surface, and heading into wind, there was enough airspeed to lift the thing (tethered to the back of the conning-tower on a 100ft line), a chap, a telephone and a pair of binocs, up to 50ft or so (a sort of flying "crow's nest"), from where he could scan the horizon for prey.

If danger threatened, they would not waste time reeling him in, but cut him adrift, crash-dived the sub, and left him (in the words of the writer) "to drown in the usual way".

I myself would gladly have had a go in an autogyro (well, if Ken Wallis could do it at my age, so can I), even if you'd need to push me up to it in my wheelchair. But too poor, too frail now (and, when my dear Mrs D. was alive, she'd never have let me anyway).

Ah, well ...... Danny.

There is one of the u-boat autogyros in the Deutsche museum in Munich. It was effectively operated like a kite and it would have been a pretty suicidal job flying it. But then again most german submariners perished anyway during the course of the war. I have flown modern autogyros and I cannot imagine flying one with any degree of safety off a ship on a regular basis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_330

The Vinten-Wallis appeared at Farnborough several times in the 1980s, bristling with cameras as I recall!

Or perhaps not bristling with cameras...!

lederhosen (#4).

I believe that, if you exclude small-scale Special Forces, being a member of a U-Boat crew was the most dangerous job in the war (the second most dangerous was of being a crewman in our Bomber Command).

Have only had one ride in a submarine. Highly claustrophobic !

Danny.

Haraka (#2)


Thanks for your info',seems likely then,that the low-loader event I witnessed was a precursor to the trials afloat,to prove that the machine could successfully operate from a small moving platform.Didn't think at the time,but I could have asked Wallis myself,when he gave a talk at my Flying Club at Shipdham in 1988.

Apart from the autogyros,for which he was well known,he had also constructed a replica of a Bleriot-type aeroplane called,I think,the Walbro,originally built by his forebears,which I used to see in the hangar at RAF Swanton Morley.Wonder what happened to that ?

The RN Trialled Avro Rota aboard a ship during WWII.

Walbro Monoplane
 

I believe that it is in the Ken Wallis Hall at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton.

There is also one in the IWM at Duxford, Focke Wulf "Angelis" if my spelling is correct. Think they went up to about 300 feet ISTR.

Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Bachstelze (Wagtail). In many ways the granddaddy for the Igor Bensen rotorkites and autogiros. Ken Wallis used a Bensen autogiro in the late 50's as the start point for his development.

The FA 330 was evaluated by the Airborbone Forces Experimental Establishment at RAF Beaulieu and RAF Calshot during 1946. At Beaulieu it was flown off a trailer towed by the Jeep that flew as Raoul Hafner's Rotabuggy, whilst at Calshot it was flown off a platform built on the stern of an RAF Seaplane tender. Incidentally the Benson gyroglider Ken Wallis converted to an autogyro (G-APUD) is on display at MOSI in Manchester. And Benson based his designs on the Hafner Rotachute flown at RAF Ringway in 1940 - 41

IIRC Bensen examined the FA330 in depth before getting involved with evaluation of Hafner's Rotachute/Rotabuggy.
Again, IIRC, Ken Wallis modified a B7M , a Bensen autogiro (not a gyroglider).
Without in any way detracting from Ken's huge contribution and engineering acumen , I think perhaps there is room for some acknowledgement to be made to the pool of expertise that he had access to at Boscombe Down in the late 1950's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP6VnbeWXSY

Stowed in the coning tower the 3 man crew could assemble it very quickly in a few minutes it was designed to allow German IX D2 type U-Boats to better locate targets.

Climbing to around 700' it gave the pilot with a possible sighting distance of just over 20 miles, drawbacks were, revealing the U-boat visually and on radar, and possible loss of both pilot and craft in the event of a crash dive

Only U-Boats in the Indian Ocean used them as Allied naval superiority in the Atlantic Ocean had made surfacing in the daylight extremely dangerous.

A reproduction was made and apparent handles very well.

https://translate.google.co.uk/trans...e/&prev=search

The statistic we established for QI was that ~75% of the people who had ever served in a German U-Boat during the war died in a U-Boat before the end of the war.

Personally I find this both an awe-inspiring and sobering statistic. It's like the one about american gang members who are convicted of murder in capital punishment states - the first thing that happens is their life expectancy *increases* because they are more likely to live longer awaiting execution than on the streets.

PDR

I've just been looking at a report written in January 1940 covering trials of a Rota C40 carried out at RNAS Lea on Solent, the aim of which was to land and take-off from an area 25 ft square.
The interesting bit is that theses trials were conducted in the lee of hangars, replicating the effects of a ships superstructure and funnel smoke. The inference being that operations from a platform on a ship's stern rather than a carrier's deck were being considered.
An even earlier RAE report from October 1926 looked at the advantages and disadvantages of pilotless gyroplanes. - and to think there are some who think unmanned rotorcraft is a relatively modern idea.

The "Avro Rota" in the film clip at #8 is actually one of a few Pitcairn PA- 39s, which were built for the U.K. These were being intended (but never used operationally AFAIK) for convoy protection work.