ISSUE 3 : Mar/Apr - 1977 - Australian Defence Force Journal

More documents

Recommendations

Info

40 DEFENCE FORCE JOURNALremarkable and sometimes bizarre genius forinvention by making appropriate modificationsthemselves in the field.1 don't remember any machine coming outfitted with bomb racks. They used to sendbomb racks out. On my small machine 1took on four twenty pound bombs. I fitteda bomb rack just behind the engine under thefuselage. No bomb sights or anything likethat. There was a hole in the floor of thefuselage, and I used to squint down throughthat and when I could see the target I letihe bombs go and sometimes I pulled themachine up too much and the bombsbounced off my axle. But it didn't seemto do any damage.There was a Serbian Pilot attached to theFrench flight. He was an absolute fanaticagainst the Bulgarians, he loathed them.And he used to borrow bombs from me andhis bomb rack, I suppose, only took fouror possibly, he had one under each wing;he probably took six bombs. But that wasn'tenough for him. He'd cut out the passengerseat and used to stack the inside of hisnacelle with bombs — incidentally, this wasa Maurice Farman Shorthorn — and hewould take up a walking stick with a crookedhandle and when he'd dropped the bombsoff his wings he would then take the walkingstick and hook my bombs alongside him,he'd pick it up — they were only smallbombs —and he'd spin the safety fan offand then throw the bomb overboard. 1 "Despite their many technical deficiencies animportant part of the image of flying must beattributed to the character of the early aircraftand the impact which they made on their pilots.The relationship between men and machineswas personal to a degree that is difficult tograsp by those who were not actively involvedin this era of flying, in this relationship thecycle of cause and effect is difficult to analyse.Certainly many of the early aviators wereunashamed romantics and the tendency topersonalize the machines which made theiradventures possible came quite naturally tothem. But equally clearly the aircraft hadintrinsic qualities which stimulated emotivereactions to them at least as much as scientificcuriosity about speed, range, rate of climb andother factors of performance.To me it was at once my favourite aeroplaneand it remained the whole time. It was anabsolute beauty. She really was, of course,a glider with an engine in it, but she hadno bad manners; unlike the Camel (which)for some reason or other the torque of theengine twisted . . . and she'd always turnto the right more under control than to theleft. If you turned to the left you had towatch that you didn't get into steeper turnthan you wanted, and so on. The (Sopwith)Triplane was in every atom of her controlsmooth: but of course you realised that youmustn't play any tricks with her because.I think I'm right, the safety factor was onlythree and a half. There was only one setof flying wires for instance and they didn'teven connect with the middle plane and . . .when I was diving very hard . . . the strainon the centre section, you could almost seea curve on it. Allowing for that, and whynot, allow for the fact that she was by nomeans as strong as for instance the SE5,you could sit back and enjoy flying her.She was so delightful ... 1 remember oneshocking occasion, when it was very hotand there was a ground haze which climbNup with you the whole time . . . and thehorizon is always level with you. 1 wascoming home from a very high patrol whichwe'd broken off really high up — somethingabout seventeen or eighteen thousand (feet)— and then the trouble was to put this oldSopwith Triplane down to the ground. Youcould always spin in; for instance in aNieuport — you spun down. But never,never, never with a Triplane . . . Andbelieve it or not I went to sleep. Onlymomentarily ... To my horror I suddenlyrealised I couldn't recognise the groundbelow me. Really the culprit was themanner of the Triplane. She was so beautiful... I was really heartbroken at leaving myTriplane. And I only flew once (more),nostalgically, at Eastchurch 1 went up inone. But she was still the most gloriousthing to fly. 11As the aircraft themselves came to acquiremore than a mechanical identity, so many ofthe men who flew them came to assume almostlarger than life proportions. The military andnaval branches of the armed services havetheir heroes, but in neither of them is there
FOLKLORE OF AVIATION 41(Courtesy <strong>Defence</strong> Public Relation',)A Scpwith Pup at Point Cook. The type of aircraft in which James McCudden, VC, demonstratedhis flying ability.anything quite comparable to the concept ofthe air ace. Such men, though usually of juniorrank, captured and retained the public imaginationand have remained almost as well knownoutside the air services as within them. Thequalities and activities which established thereputations of these aces of the air are wellillustrated by one contemporary pilot's recollectionsof James McCudden, VC.He was a brilliant pilot; absolutely outstanding.I had enormous admiration for hisflying ability and I've seen him do the mosthair-rasing stunts around the aerodromewhen he was demonstrating what a Pupcould do. His favourite one was to loopdirectly off the ground when he was takingoff and continue looping. On one occasionhe looped thirteen times from take off. Juststraight off the ground and when he's finishedhe was about 500 feet high. It was a wonderfulpiece of flying. And then he used to flyupside down. He'd go up to about athousand feet, turn the machine upsidedown; just go around the aerodrome upsidedown till the engine stopped. Then he's goon gliding and next thing he'd roll it out andgel the engine going again, awaj he'd goand, oh, he was absolutely marvellous; therewasn't a thing he couldn't do with thatmachine. And we all admired him tremendously.He was at Dover at the time of one ofthe Gotha raids on London. When the readinesswent he went off; he went almost mad.Rushing around. His Vickers gun was notloaded; the belt wasn't loaded. But he hada Lewis gun on the top plane which he usedto Are and he dashed around, grabbingmagazines of ammunition — all he couldget from various mechanics and stuck thesearound the wire in his cockpit and awayhe went. We heard that he'd tackled theGotha formation before it reached Londonand he'd dived in amongst them and managedto separate some of the machines andhelp to break up the formation. He thenran out of ammunition, but continued todive in amongst the formation further dispersingthem. A most outstanding and bravedeed for any man. 12A powerful reason why the aviators of WorldWar I established for themselves a uniquereputation, was because their exploits in theair so greatly contrasted with the war on the
Page 1 and 2: MARCH/APRIL 1977No. 3FORCEJOURNAL
Page 3 and 4: DEFENCEFORCEJOURNALNo. 3March/April
Page 5 and 6: y^1^ \Editors Commentf DEFENCE) FOR
Page 7 and 8: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 5The rate of
Page 9 and 10: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 7The inadequa
Page 11 and 12: 7H€ AUSTRALIAN-AMERICAN UUMCi:Som
Page 13 and 14: AUSTRALIAN-AMERICAN ALLIANCE: POSSI
Page 15 and 16: AUSTRALIAN-AMERICAN ALLIANCE: POSSI
Page 17 and 18: in the armvBrigadier W. B. James, M
Page 19 and 20: PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE ARMYrmajor con
Page 21 and 22: PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE ARMY 19to a pe
Page 23 and 24: PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE ARMY 21a low i
Page 25 and 26: PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE ARMY 23and mor
Page 27 and 28: s.First of the LineGroup Captain Ke
Page 29 and 30: I IRST OF THE LINE 2721 knots," wro
Page 31 and 32: FIRST OF THE LINE 29Photographs of
Page 33 and 34: FIRST OF THE LINE 31A Seagull III,
Page 35 and 36: FIRST OF THE LINE 33sive cruise to
Page 37 and 38: FolklopDavid LanceKeeper of the Dep
Page 39 and 40: to go slap through the hangar and w
Page 41: FOLKLORE OF AVIATION 39well got to
Page 45 and 46: AUDIO VISUALMajor Adrian Sandery,BA
Page 47 and 48: THE AUDIO VISUAL SEQUENCE 43mailer.
Page 49 and 50: ETHANGLTHE 6th COLUMN ?C 'haplain S
Page 51 and 52: ETHANOL — THE 6th COLUMN? 49taria
Page 53 and 54: (LUSfWII/ ABSOLUTE WAR AM) A POLITI
Page 55 and 56: CLAUSEWITZ ABSOLUTE WAR AND A POLIT
Page 57 and 58: BOOK REVIEWS 5523 Huntington, op. c
Page 59 and 60: BOOK REVIEWS >"as is only to be exp
Page 61 and 62: BOOK REVIEWS 5s>albeit minus much o
Page 63 and 64: BOOK REVIEMS 61• The statement th
Page 65 and 66: GOOD ON YA MATE! 63my headset, I go

ISSUE 3 : Mar/Apr - 1977 - Australian Defence Force Journal

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?