Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'allan jones'.
Found 13 results
-
Flying the Furrow By Allan Jones I like simming aviation history. It grabbed me particularly with the release of FS2004: A Century of Flight, even though I had FS2002 previously. Later on, that led to my interest in the WWII Air Transport Auxiliary flights and a series of articles on FlightSim.Com under the umbrella title 'Fly & Deliver'. I was recently reading Alexander Frater's book, Beyond The Blue Horizon, published in 1986, the story of re-flying the original London to Australia route using then-modern commercial flights. It gave rise to the following sim in a similar vein, drawn from the facts and anecdotes in Frater's account. The pioneering air service between England and Australia was provided by Imperial Airways, and it had a few tricky bits along its route. Some were due to political squabbles and others arose from aviation challenges. In the nineteen twenties and early thirties, it was all daytime flying, of course, other than the Paris to Brindisi section, in which passengers travelled by train. With overnight stops in fine hotels, it took twelve and a half days, but the journey was still a lot faster than by ship. Imperial Airways selected aircraft tailored to each segment of the route; the Handley-Page H.P.42, the Short 17 'Kent', the Armstrong Whitworth AW15 'Atalanta' and, with Qantas across Australia, the De Havilland A86 Express. Part of the reason for this mix was that the route evolved in stages, as commercial air travel from Europe moved into Africa, India and the South Pacific. The service provided gracious luxury for the small number of elite passengers who used it, as well as an adequate cargo space for the lucrative air mail contracts. Take the H.P.42, for example. It was a long, blunt-nosed biplane with an interior more akin to a Paris salon. Its cockpit would do justice to the cab of a vintage steam locomotive. Rated at a cruise speed of 100 mph, pilots claimed they never achieved that. In time, KLM may have sped past the H.P.42 with their Fokker FVII fleet, but the dinner service, wines and cigars served in the salon were excellent. The segment from Jordan to Syria began at Ziza, south of Amman, and terminated at Ramadi, west of Baghdad. For this stretch the RAF had already come up with an innovative navigation solution. The desert was rather more uniform than the South Downs or the Rhone Valley, and far less hospitable. Worse still, it was without useful landmarks. So the RAF made one, called the Furrow. This navigation technique wouldn't go down too well environmentally these days. Take two teams of engineers, one at the departure airstrip and the other at the arrival point. Send them to meet in the middle, ploughing out a furrow, or painting the rocky areas that you can't plough. The resulting furrow was about two meters wide and 470 miles long. The pilots took off, climbed a bit then followed the line. Hours were spent wrestling the controls through the blustery desert thermals before they landed. A new acronym entered the aviation world - FTF, Fly the Furrow. Some people thought it was too easy, or cheating; altogether too boring. The proper way to fly was by compass, dead reckoning and prayer over a 500 mile tract of desert. With the Furrow, they argued, the pilots would get bored and fall asleep. The Furrow was long gone, I thought. But along its route, at intervals, the RAF and Imperial Airways had constructed emergency landing strips with fuel dumps. These had to be armoured and locked up, with a key that ingeniously unlocked both the aircraft doors and the fuel bunker. The pilot would never be embarrassed by, 'Oops, I left the key on the hallstand. Sorry, chaps'. So I first looked at the illustration of the route in Frater's book, next at Google Earth and finally I checked out TASoftware's Plan-G map. There are airports and airstrips in the right places for the journey. Some later became associated with pipeline pumping stations. I saw also that there is a road in pretty much the right place; a line in the FSX desert. Ten years or so after the early H.P. 42 flights, the Air Transport Auxiliary in WWII were delivering four-engined bombers at low altitude by following railway lines across England. I'd done that, so I could follow a desert road, I reasoned. It would be even easier, as there are no trees and woodland to obscure the line and make it more difficult. What to fly it in, I wondered? Obviously, hurtling over Jordan and Syria in a Pilatus PC-12 at a height of 16,000 feet, sitting back after setting the autopilot, wouldn't quite do justice to the trip. Five or more hours of hand-flying at 84 mph, though? That's hard work! There are freeware H.P.42 and Fokker FVII in the FlightSim.Com file library. In the end I settled on the Spartan Executive by Milton Shupe, Scott Thomas and Urs Burkhardt, also available there. It would double the speed of the H.P.42 easily and, despite its far more modern looks, it was a near contemporary. The H.P.42 first flew in 1931, the Spartan in 1936. And it looks sleek; I could feel like one of the elite passengers in Imperial's salon rather than a train driver. The flight details are below. The weather on the day I flew the route was cloudy, with rain in the desert for a while, but the mail had to get through. The Furrow didn't stay in use too long. Imperial Airways changed the long-haul flights to flying boats and used a different routing in the area. British ingenuity showed the odd quirk there, too. Take, for example, landings where the light and water clarity made it difficult to see the surface for touchdown. An inventive solution was to use bags of ping pong balls, to be dropped prior to landing. If vintage celluloid table tennis balls are retrieved from the very center of the North Atlantic Gyre and sold on eBay, buy one. They are probably part of aviation history. The flight time in the Spartan was about two and half hours. Enjoy the thought of Imperial Airways, if you do it, even if you fly it in the H.P.42 and it takes forever. Allan Jones The 'Fly & Deliver' articles are in the Archives. Allan is also the author of the Catrin Sayer Mysteries, available as ebooks and as Kindle Paperbacks. Fly & Deliver: A Flight For Joy Fly & Deliver: Faith's Flight Fly & Deliver: Hazel Raines, Christmas 1942 Fly & Deliver: Fine China, Saraha Sand Fly & Deliver: Four More WWII UK Flight Plans Fly & Deliver: Four WWII UK Flight Plans The Flight The original flight started at Ziza in Jordan and went east to Ramadi in Iraq. So Amman airport was a logical start. The route I followed was based on the standard FSX landscape, its roads and airfields, but I don't claim it to be definitive. I left Queen Alia International heading at 650 to airfield Z17l, climbing to 4000 feet. On much the same course, I next crossed OJFH (Prince Hassan airbase) and followed Highway 10 until it turned into Highway 1. This led all the way to the destination, on the north side of Lake Habbaniyah. Along the way were the following airstrips or airports providing useful landmarks: Z17l Highway H OJFH Prince Hassan Airbase OJHR H4. Mahattat al Jufar Z17A H3 Ruwayshid OR1J H3 OR1L H2 The nearest airport to the Ramadi airstrip mentioned in Frater's book appears to be Habbaniyah, OR0Q, so I landed there, careful not to arrive at the nearby Al Taqaddum military airbase, ORAT, without permission.
-
Fly & Deliver: Faith's Flight Chongqing to Kolkata (Calcutta), Christmas Day 1944, Seventy Years Ago It has been some time since I wrote anything for FlightSim.Com or added to my blog here. My writing in other areas (detective novels) has absorbed me for months now. It was coming across the notes made some years ago and the holiday approaching that made me think I should write up this Christmas Day flight and add the story here for others to try it. 'Faith's Flight' is a 'flying the hump' variant, but not the northerly route we find most often in flight simulation and notably in Dave Gundlach's excellent 'The Hump' adventure (hump10.zip in the library). This one is in part along the more southerly route, stretching on to Kolkata, then known as Calcutta. Departing Kunming Faith Cook (nee Rowe) is an English author, born in China. She is the daughter of a missionary couple, Stanley and Norah Rowe who served with the China Inland Mission (CIM) in the period before and around World War Two. My godmother was a teacher/missionary with CIM after World War Two and it was from looking into her own story that I came across this remarkable flight. Faith wrote about it in her book Troubled Journey, on the pleasures and challenges of growing up as the child of dedicated missionaries in rural China. In 1944, around seven-years old, she was in a boarding school then located in Sichuan province. The decision was made to evacuate the 30-plus school children and teachers to India. After a long journey from Leshan to Chongqing in trucks along refugee-packed roads, the school children and staff reached the Chongqing airport (Jangbei) where this flight began. The planned route was Chongqing - Kunming - Calcutta. The children and teachers were loaded aboard an American C-47 I believe (she refers to the aircraft as military DC-3). Faith recalls being passed from hand to hand by American soldiers and entering the 'dark hole' of the aircraft entrance. After approximately two hours of flying they were nearing Kunming when they received radio signals about an imminent Japanese bombing attack of the airfield, followed by radio silence. In fact, records show that Kunming was bombed daily over Christmas week 1944. The pilot circled for two hours getting increasingly concerned about the situation and his fuel levels. At a critical point, radio contact was re-established and he was directed to the airfield at Yunnani (about 50 miles west of the original destination). En route he ran out of fuel yet managed to glide in and make a dead-stick landing there. Following refuelling, they returned to Kunming (which had re-opened) to a 2.00 a.m. breakfast on the base, a welcome treat for the hungry children and caregivers. The party then re-boarded the aircraft and set off on the second, longer leg of their journey to Calcutta. En-route clearing the mountain ranges Faith Cook recalls in her book the soporific effects of flying at high altitude without supplemental oxygen, the bouncing around in the turbulence crossing the mountains and her recollection of another student, asthmatic, getting into breathing difficulties. Eventually they arrived safely in Calcutta with its heat, bustle and noise to face yet another new environment away from parents. Her book mentions that there was a rumor that the pilot who flew this trip was so traumatized that he never flew again; one that I hope is incorrect - he did a good job under very difficult conditions. The Flight I used the default DC-3 in FSX in the 'war surplus livery' for this flight. There are many more detailed DC-3s and C-47s available either in the FlightSim.Com library, with virtual airlines on the internet or as payware models. If you have not previously flown 'The Hump' mission mentioned above, I recommend it as a prequel to this flight. It follows Route Able east over the Himalayas to Kunming (and is more challenging!). Although it was not specified in Troubled Journey I have taken the CIM school children's westerly flight to follow approximately the more southerly trans-Himalayas route (Route Baker or 'The Low Hump'). This route was direct to Calcutta and opened up during 1944, when the Allies took Myitkyina Airfield. Strategically this deprived the Japanese forces of their principal fighter airfield used against Allied aircraft over the Himalayas. I have no other basis for the selection than the flight was direct to Calcutta. At the top You will need to be cognizant of altitude; to maintain an appropriate safety margin for all parts of the flight yet minimize the time spent above 12000 feet given the passenger load and the concerns about hypoxia. For the second leg specifically you will need to be conservative in your fuel management to arrive around Calcutta with appropriate reserves. The flight routes for the two stages of the journey are: Jangbei to Wujiaba ZUCK HQ QNX ZPPP Wujiaba to Belhara ZPPP QK MO EG VEBA The first leg is planned direct to Kunming (Wujiaba). If you wish to follow the route taken in the original flight, you will need to change course starting 60 miles out from Kunming, travelling to the location of what was Xiangyun Airport, now closed, at 25° 26' 44" N, 100° 44' 5" E. This airport was formerly the Yunnani Airfield, I think. You can then make your way back to Kunming as there is no airport or airstrip at the Yunnani location in FSX or FS2004. Passing Chittigong into the Bay of Bengal The second leg involves the crossing of the Himalayas. The flight to the first waypoint is the challenge in altitude adjustment mentioned earlier. The later stages allow for gradual descent as you cross Myanmar (formerly Burma) traversing the delta of the Bay of Bengal and arriving into the old Behala Airport rather than the International Airport that would be used these days. I hope you enjoy the simulation if you give it a try. Season's Greetings! Allan Jones allanj12@gmail.com Allan Jones is the author of several ebooks, one about flight simulation of the stories of the Air Transport Auxiliary in WWII (In a Moon's Course) and more recently two art crime mysteries, The Chinese Sailor and The Scottish Colourist featuring a Welsh detective, Catrin Sayer. All are available from major ebook suppliers. -
View full article
-
Fly & Deliver IV: Hazel Raines, Christmas 1942 By Allan Jones Viscountess Nancy Astor was a formidable, aristocratic woman who held her own against all comers, including Winston Churchill. Hazel Jane Raines, a young American flyer from the state of Georgia, was invited by Lady Astor to spend Christmas during 1942 at the family mansion, Cliveden, on the River Thames. It had plenty of guest rooms. For Hazel, it was something quite out of the ordinary. She was then 26-years old and a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), part of the contingent of female American pilots Jackie Cochrane had organized to travel to England. Their job was to work with their English counterparts and deliver military aircraft in support of the war effort. Although she had both private pilot and commercial pilot ratings, Hazel had a long-standing heart condition and also had asthma. It was during a period of hospitalization towards the end of 1942 that Nancy Astor visited her and made the invitation. At Cliveden that Christmas Hazel learned that her host's interest was, at least in part, matchmaking - she had unmarried sons and the idea of a 'Southern Belle' in the family appealed to her; but Hazel made it clear that flying and support for the military effort was her interest, not husband hunting. Below are the details for a flight simulation drawn from her log book, the original flight having being made on December 29, 1942 immediately after the visit to the Astor family. She delivered a Spitfire Mark IX with a Merlin 61 engine from the ATA headquarters in White Waltham (near London) to Hawarden Airport (near Liverpool), with a stop at RAF Mount Farm, then a photoreconnaissance base. In March 1943 Hazel was delivering another Spitfire and had a complete loss of power. Failing to restart the engine, she crashed into the thatched roof of a barn in the village of Collingbourne Kingston (near Marlborough, Wiltshire). A warm, first-hand account of the incident by one of the local men who rescued her is given in the village history web site. She miraculously escaped with a bad gash to her forehead and badly bruised legs. Later that year, with the USA then in the war, she completed her ATA contract and returned home to serve with the fledgling WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) organisation. Like the ATA, the WASPs delivered aircraft across America, freeing up male pilots for combat-related duties. She also towed target tugs for weapons training. Hazel had a varied and interesting flying career before, during and after WWII; she was a pioneer of women's aviation in Georgia, a pilot with both the ATA and the WASPs and later in 1950, while holding a reserve commission in the USAF, she was recalled to active duty with the Third Air Force during the Korean War in a desk-bound role. Her story is told in letters home in the biographical work compiled by her niece, Regina Trice Hawkins, entitled Hazel Jane Raines, Pioneer Lady of Flight (ISBN 0-86554-532-4). Hazel Raines died of a heart attack in 1956 while on assignment in London, England, age 40. She had logged over 6400 hours of air time as a pilot. In 1989 she was inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame and in 1995 became a recipient of the Georgia Women of Achievement Award. Allan Jones allanj12@gmail.com Allan Jones blogs on www.flightsim.com at the Aviation History & Flight Simulation category location. His ebook In a Moon's Course contains the story of the ATA and 28 of their World War II flights/plans for simulation. It is available at Amazon, Kobo, W.H. Smith, iTunes and other ebook online suppliers. The Flight. More about ATA flying is given in previous articles on this site. It was VFR only; maximum altitude 5000 feet; no instrument flying, no radio. Navigation was largely by 'acquired knowledge' of the landscape (and railway lines) of Britain. The route I selected steers clear of industrial and city areas, where WWII barrage balloon arrays would present a hazard; learning about these arrays (and paths through them) was part of the familiarisation training for new pilots. The ATA Ferry Pilot Notes - the primary reference work for the pilots - state you should keep the maximum speed in the range 195-215 mph for the Merlin engines (which will require great restraint for a Spitfire!). Waypoints: EGLM EGLJ MORTN LICWP EGNR Departing EGLM White Waltham turn 315° for a short trip into EGLJ Chalgrove, located about 2 miles east of the former RAF Mount Farm (which was re-developed as the village of Berinsfield, south of Oxford). After take-off from Chalgrove, you will pass east of the college spires of Oxford then head north past Enstone Airfield roughly following the A44 main road to Morton-in-Marsh. Wolverhampton will appear on the right with its Halfpenny Green Airport close by and ahead will be the Shawbury Air Base. The final leg into Hawarden will show the River Dee Estuary as you descend into the active runway. Hazel's log book shows a total time of 60 minutes for the trip. -
View full article -
Fly & Deliver: Fine China, Sahara Sand By Allan Jones We see an aircraft in its livery and say, "That's a Lufthansa 747" or an "Air Canada A321", often forgetting that these aircraft are refitted and painted appropriately for different roles over their working lives. Sometimes these changes can be extreme. The two flight simulations here are from the life of one Douglas C-47 'Skytrain' aircraft, construction number (c/n) 12358, built in 1942 in Oklahoma City. Photo by Rolf Larsson Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Captain John Cecil Kelly-Rogers in the Boeing 314 flying boat Berwick, January 1942 Flight 1: Nice, France to Biggin Hill, England; the 'John Knox'. In 1948 this World War II Lend-Lease C-47 was sent to Scottish Aviation, Prestwick for refitting as Lord Beaverbrook's personal aircraft. The first flight story came from Brian Powell, a pilot with an interesting and varied career; he was an RAF instructor in WWII, did testing, training and deliveries for Vickers, Airspeed and De Havilland and worked also an airline pilot. Brian was the pilot of this aircraft during its service with Lord Beaverbrook. Beaverbrook was a 'larger than life' character, a newspaper tycoon who served in Winston Churchill's cabinet as Minister of Aircraft Production, later as Minister of Supply. Extremely wealthy, his aircraft was sumptuously appointed at the time. This flight is not about Beaverbrook, though, it is about Churchill and Brian Powell; how a civilian pilot, while delivering Churchill home, came to inspect a Guard of Honour. /i Flight 2: Naimey to Agades, Niger; Air Niger 5U-AAC Much later, in the livery of Air Niger, the aircraft was based at the city of Naimey, the capital of the country of Niger, West Africa. Air Niger served the country's domestic airline needs and had routes into the Upper Volta. Here is a flight from Naimey east to Agades from the 1960s. No more sumptuous birds-eye maple paneling, just regular airline seats, a crowded hold and passengers that varied from UN diplomats to students nervously heading out of the country for the first time. Then c/n 12358 disappeared from the records. Through the help of the DC-3 network in Africa I discovered that it had crashed in Tofamanir (sometimes known as Tofamaner), Niger on 16 July 1973. Tofamanir, on the remote chance you don't know its location, is 500 km north-east of Naimey. The full story in 2010 and '97-2003' Word formats or Notepad text, with the flight plans in FSX and FS2004 formats, are given in the library file flydeliver3.zip. Enjoy the Mappin & Webb china... and the Sahara desert. My thanks to people who provided elements of the background for this story: Brian Powell (and a family member who dug out most of the aircraft's timeline), Rolf Larsson, Alexandre Avrane and John Austin-Williams. Allan Jones allanj12@gmail.com Allan Jones is the author of In a Moon's Course, an ebook on the simulation of flights made by the Air Transport Auxiliary in World War II. Download FLYDELIVER3.ZIP -
View full article
-
South From Chakeri: A B-24 Ferry Flight Across India By Allan Jones In 1948 Captain Jamshed ("Jimmy") Munshi made his first flight in a Consolidated B-24 'Liberator' bomber from Kanpur, India to the city of Bangalore in the southern part of the country. Details of the story behind this flight plus information to fly the simulation in MSFS are given below. The Background Story The Consolidated B-24L 'Liberator' GR VIII now sits in the vast working and storage space called the Reserve Hangar of the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa, well protected from the elements (photo below, right). It is surrounded by many other aircraft, each with their own story to tell, each in a different stage of restoration. Sixty five years ago this B-24 was stored in quite different conditions. Produced for the Royal Air Force under the Lend-Lease program of World War II, it was delivered on 30 July 1945 to India, serving with No 355 Squadron. It soon ended up with over 100 other surplus Liberators in a storage and disposal area called '322 Maintenance Unit', Chakeri Field, near Kanpur (then called Cawnpore) in Northern India. What happened next is a little vague. The terms of Article 4 of the USA Lend Lease Act are very clear: the RAF could not "transfer title to or possession of such defense article ...or permit its use by anyone not an officer, employee, or agent of such foreign government". In plain language, in order to meet the Lend-Lease obligations before leaving India, the RAF had to render their Liberators unserviceable if they did not retain them in British possession. According to the 'unofficial' web site of the Indian Air Force Bharat Rakshak and other sources, after stripping guns and other parts, many of the aircraft left at Chakeri had holes made in their fuselages, their wings and tails were damaged by bulldozers, they had sand poured into their engines and their magnetos were removed. However the degree of '[un]serviceability' varied. The RAF ground crews that had maintained the Liberator squadrons had little appetite for their destruction and were also naturally focused on their own demobilisation and transfer home now that the war was over. Nevertheless, the Bharat Rakshak account makes it clear that an assessment by US officials confirmed that the Lend-Lease obligations had been met. The subsequent restoration describe below was due to the ingenuity, energy and resourcefulness of the Indian personnel. From its experience in the post-partition war with Pakistan after WWII, India needed heavy aircraft/bomber squadrons. When negotiations with USA and British authorities failed to reach an appropriate supply agreement for new aircraft, the Indian Air Force focused on the potential resource of the Chakeri field. The aircraft at Chakeri had been sitting there some time. Kanpur is described in Wikipedia as having "a humid subtropical climate, ... [it] features long and very hot summers, mild and relatively short winters, dust storms and a monsoon season", i.e. not the ideal storage 'boneyard' for aircraft. A team of Indian engineers led by a Mr. Yelappa from Hindustan Aircraft Ltd. (HAL) assessed then prepared in the field 42 of the B-24 aircraft left at Chakeri (photo below, right) to a standard they thought sufficient to be ferried south (map, below, left) for comprehensive refit in Bangalore, HAL's base. Hindustan Aircraft Ltd. was then an aviation service company and is now known as Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, an aeronautic and aerospace manufacturer. India, as a newly independent country, had no trained B-24 pilots. Captain Jamshed "Jimmy" Munshi was an experienced DC-3 pilot who had recently become the Chief Test Pilot for HAL. According to Bharat Rakshak, he did not have any time in four-engined aircraft before this first ferry flight but had some familiarity with Pratt & Whitney engines from his DC-3 experience. His pilot's manual for the B-24 was reportedly put together by combing through the "wrecks" and combining remnants of discarded manuals. Apparently (and understandably) no-one was comfortable with retracting the undercarriage before full servicing - so he flew the B-24s with the undercarriage down, a journey of 800 miles. At Bangalore, these aircraft were restored to operational status, providing the Indian Air Force with a heavy aircraft fleet for the next twenty years. In 1967, in a 'museum exchange' agreement between Canada and India, one of these aircraft (HE-773 'M') was exchanged for a Canadian Lysander. HE-773 then had a far longer sequence of ferry flights to Ottawa, its current home, becoming the Liberator GR VIII on display at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum. Other Liberators that are still around today that were at Chakeri Field include the Collings Foundation B-24J and the RAF Museum B-24L. Of more than 18,000 Consolidated B-24s manufactured there are now but a small handful left, carefully restored and much valued as part of aviation history. Captain Munshi's ferry flights had a significant role in the continuing life of some of these veterans. I hope you enjoy this simulation. The Flight This ferry flight of 5 1/2 hours is not a long flight for a lightly-loaded Liberator, so adjust fuel accordingly. The route from Chakeri airbase I chose is almost directly south to the highlands around Bangalore (airport elevation 2913 feet), passing over the cities of Nagpur and Hyderabad. I have no details of the original route but it was reported to be direct, and the route I chose also provides the maximum opportunity for diversion to airfields en route in the event of problems. Waypoints: VICX KKJ NNP HHY SAI VOBG I flew this route in both FS2004 and FSX using aircraft from the FlightSim.Com and Virtavia/Alphasim freeware libraries: B24_LIB9.ZIP in FS2004 and the B-24 from the B24B26.ZIP package in FSX. I also liked the C-87 (cargo version of the B-24) package (C-87_LIBERATOR_EXPRESS.ZIP) in FS2004, which has an excellent 2D panel set and good accompanying documentation. I flew south with the undercarriage down at 155 mph, the maximum 'wheels down' speed (flight time 5 hours 40 minutes). For comparison, I repeated the trip at normal speeds and operating altitudes in the C-87 'Liberator Express' with a flight time of just under 4 hours. For FSX I used default scenery. For FS2004, I added Keith Sebastian's India mesh (INDMESHA.ZIP). The Indian landscape you cross includes cities, roads and large river and reservoir systems that can be tracked on Google maps. The various airports en route are also easily identifiable if the weather is clear. Note that Bangalore airport (as of 2008) is new - the Begaluru International Airport north of the city. The old municipal airport VOBG is standard in FS2004 and FSX and this is the destination for this flight - it is now known as HAL airport or Hindustan airport. There your B-24 can go through a full maintenance overhaul! Acknowledgements I appreciate the considerable assistance given to me by the staff of the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa regarding information about and access to Liberator GR VIII (see www.aviation.technomuses.ca for more information about the aircraft and the museum). The article here by Gp. Capt. Kapil Bhargava (Ret'd) on 'India's reclaimed bombers' was the original 'spark' for creating this flight simulation and provided much of the story. More details on the Liberators at Chakeri is given here and the story of GR VIII and its much longer ferry flight from India to Canada is here. Allan Jones allanj12@gmail.com -
View full article
-
Fly & Deliver: Four More World War II UK Flight Plans By Allan Jones In the September 18, 2012 feature article Fly & Deliver: Four World War II UK Flight Plans I described flight simulations of World War Two ferry deliveries flown by Hugh Bergel, a civilian pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). Bergel had recorded his experiences in the book Fly and Deliver - a Ferry Pilots Log Book which gave the details necessary for the flights. Log book extract - W.H. Aldrich WHA1 3 over Bristol FS2004 This article brought me a number of welcome email responses regarding the enjoyment this subject and these flights in particular, with some helpful suggestions from others. A general question was "would there be more flight plans?" The ATA existed for six years (1939 - 1945) and made around 300,000 aircraft movements, with a number of these described in two relatively recent documentary works - Giles Whittell's "Spitfire Women" (Harper Perennial books) and the documentary film "Forgotten Pilots" (a UK ITV West production). There are more records in other works, including the operational archives of WWII airfields and the logbooks of individual pilots, some now legendary, many more but fading memories. While some pilots went on to more flying exploits, most returned to their old lives outside aviation in the post-war period. Here are four more flights I selected. Full details are given in the attached library file (FLYDELIVER2.ZIP) with route plans in FSX, FS2004 and Plan G3 formats. ATA pilot Joan Hughes in front of a Shorts Stirling bomber during WWII AW1 2 Boscombe Down Turn FSX 1. The 'Gaggle of Geese' flight from Forgotten Pilots, 1940, Tiger Moth The first women pilots to join the Air Transport Auxiliary were a small group of very experienced flyers. Nevertheless they had to undergo a lot of verbal rebuffs about 'women flyers' and other chauvinistic challenges to fly with the ATA. It took two years for them to achieve anything like equal status and during this period they were largely relegated to flying De Havilland Tiger Moth trainers and Miles Magisters. This is a flight in a Tiger Moth from Hatfield to Prestwick. 2. Ann Welch, Chattis Hill to Colerne, 3 February, 1942, Spitfire Ann Welch flew this seemingly short (less than 50 miles) VFR flight at near tree-top height in bad weather, flaps down, to deliver a Spitfire under 'Priority 1' orders, after standby at the plane for two days with the weather closed in. It turned out to be one of the planes urgently needed for delivery to the USS Wasp, loaned by Roosevelt to Churchill to deliver Spitfire squadrons to relieve the siege of Malta. Welch spent a lifetime in aviation, principally in gliding and was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE). She died in 2002. 3. W.H. Aldrich, Llandow, Wales to Andrewsfield, Essex, 2 April 1945, Mustang The stories of a few pilots, male and female, with many flying hours accumulated in a lot of aircraft types, make up much of the current ATA folklore. But for all the 'legends' there were of course many more pilots who did the 'daily grind' of deliveries. Here is a flight by W. H. Aldrich taken from a section of his logbook available in the memorabilia web site of Haddenham Airfield, delivering a Mustang Mark IV from Llandow, Wales to Andrewsfield, Essex. Diana Barnato Walker and Spitfire GG1 1 Approaching Linton on Ouse FSX 4. Thruxton to B.31 (Eu, near Dieppe, France) from Fly and Deliver (Bergel), 6 September 1944 (Spitfire) This flight of three Spitfires, two by ATA pilots and the third by an RAF GSU Wing Commander, records the first ATA aircraft delivery to France after D-Day. The flight route involved a brief reconnaissance down the Seine prior to landing at a new battleground airfield coded B.31 close to the town of Eu in Normandy. It is a poignant note that by prior arrangement Bergel moved behind his subordinate, Maurice Harle, on approach. The first French national to fly with the ATA made the unit's first delivery to France after the invasion of Europe, returning to the battle-scarred but liberated corner of his homeland in a Spitfire. HB5 7 turning towards France FS2004 The ATA pilots, generally older men and younger women, were often referred to in humour or derision as 'Ancient and Tattered Airmen' or 'Always Terrified Airwomen'. They were in fact neither tattered in their demeanor nor terrified in their conduct. They had to balance constantly the risks of VFR flying in often 'dicey' weather against the need to move aircraft away from manufacturing sites where, clustered together, they could be more easily bombed. 173 fatalities of ATA crew occurred during the course of these operations, commemorated in the plaque at St Paul's Cathedral, London. The flight and ground crews members of the ATA much deserve the only official recognition presented to them by the British government - albeit belatedly in 2008 - the ATA Veteran's Badge. Commemorative Plaque St. Pauls Veterans Badge I used default scenery and freeware aircraft from the FlightSim.Com library throughout, although there are more detailed or realistic payware aircraft available. Details and acknowledgements are given in the Flight Notes in the library file. I hope you enjoy these additional flights. Allan Jones allanj12@gmail.com Download FLYDELIVER2.ZIP -
View full article
-
Fly & Deliver: Four World War II UK Flight Plans By Allan Jones Realism in flight simulation is partly about the creation of aircraft, panels, sounds and scenery in the right detail. It is also about creating the right mindset for flying and the sense of purpose for the flight. This article provides information on a set of relatively simple but unusual VFR flights with some associated background information. It also leads to some interesting aviation history - the work of the civilian pilots delivering military aircraft in the UK in World War II. The cover photograph of the 16 September 1942 'Picture Post' magazine showing Maureen Dunlop, a World War Two ferry pilot, brought extensive public visibility to the organization that had been formed to provide the ferry service in Britain for these aircraft - the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). Their delivery from factory (or Transatlantic arrival point) to the Air Force, Army or Navy was a critical element of the war effort. During the period 1939 to 1945 male and female civilian pilots were employed in this role. Maureen Dunlop Hugh Bergel, sketched by the artist Sir William Rothenstein (scanned from the book Fly and Deliver ISBN 0 906393 17 5, published 1982 by Airlife Publishing Ltd.). Hugh Bergel was a pilot with the ATA who later became Commanding Officer of the No. 9 Ferry Pool. Fly and Deliver - a Ferry Pilots Log Book is the title of his 1982 book describing his experiences. The four flights I have prepared for MSFS are selected from the many deliveries described in his book as best as I can create them. In an era where ATA pilots flew their own routes, often following railway lines and roads or relying on a growing memory of their country from the air this is, at best, guesswork. The routes Bergel flew that I selected are: Brize Norton to Middle Wallop (7 June 1941, a Havoc) Kidlington to Dumfries (November 15, 1941, a Hurricane) Boscombe Down to Scampton (May 16, 1943, a Lancaster - the delivery of one of the Lancaster's used in the 'Dambusters' flights) Prestwick to Dyce (Aberdeen) then on to Sumburgh in the Shetland Isles (March 28, 1942, a Beaufighter) Nearby Carlisle airport has been substituted for Dumfries, which no longer exists. In the library file (flydeliver.zip) I have provided some summary notes on ATA flying, information about the flights plus the flight plans in FS2004, FSX and Plan G formats. Flying these routes is meant to be an exercise in 'hands on' VFR flying, weather selection and landmark identification - and if you feel initially a little unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the aircraft you choose for each flight, so much the better! The more you 'make it real', the more you will enjoy it. Beaufighter (David Garwood's beaufsx.zip) departing Prestwick - see flight HB4 Beaufighter (David Garwood's beaufsx.zip) changing course over Lossiemouth - see flight HB4 Flight rules for the ATA pilots were straightforward - stay below 5000', always have the ground in sight (sometimes not so easy in the British climate) and no radio contact or instrument flying procedures, whether or not the aircraft was equipped accordingly. Once qualified in one aircraft of a particular class (e.g. heavier single-engined planes) a pilot was required to fly any aircraft in that class using the ATA 'Ferry Pilot Notes' but without further flight training. A pilot with light aircraft experience with ATA who moved up a class to more powerful single engine fighter aircraft, probably with a little time in a Hurricane, could find his or her first delivery to be a Typhoon or Walrus. The motto of the ATA was Aetheris Avidi (Eager for the Air) but the pilots' informal creed was "Anything to Anywhere". From Bergel's notes the ATA lost 153 pilots in WWII (8% of total complement over the life of the service) largely due to bad weather accidents. While this is unthinkable for a civil aviation role these days, pilots were flying in wartime conditions and faced daily the challenge of getting newly-manufactured aircraft away from production sites (where they could be more easily bombed) to the maintenance units and operational airfields. The ATA pilots took risks - but then so did everyone else in the UK in war time, whether in the Armed Forces, in a factory or simply living in a city. Bergel was 35 years old when he joined the ATA and had 153 hours of light aircraft 'club' flying experience. By 1945 he had amassed a further 1200 flying hours, delivering 950 aircraft around the UK covering 80 types - from light single engine aircraft to fighters and heavy bombers. Hurricane passing over the River Mersey estuary with the Runcorn Bridge below - see flight HB2. After peace in Europe was declared, the ATA was rapidly disbanded. The Commanding Officer (Gerard D'Erlanger) with some ATA staff went on to form British European Airways (BEA) but most pilots returned to former occupations and lives, where flying for some became a hobby again - when they could afford it - but for many others their flying days were over. Their skills, low level VFR flying with a multitude of military aircraft, did not match the needs of the emerging airlines for fully trained pilots with experience in one or two commercial aircraft types. Also there was also a glut of highly experienced military pilots demobilized and looking for employment. The final words of 'Fly and Deliver' express Bergel's sense of gratitude for having had the opportunity to fly so many aircraft and, in doing so, for surviving the experience. His one regret on leaving the ATA was that he would never fly another Spitfire. I hope you enjoy simulating some of his experiences. Allan Jones allanj12@gmail.com Resources I used default sceneries in both FSX and FS2004 and freeware aircraft of the type flown by Bergel, but you can use any appropriate plane. Tim Arnot's excellent program Plan G3 was my method of planning the routes, which I then exported to flight plans. Google maps on my tablet computer worked well as a convenient surrogate for aviation charts to check my progress en route, with the added bonus of scale change at a touch! Bones Aviation Page: A catalogue of UK Airfields was invaluable for more information on the UK airfields, past and present. -
View full article
