COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER SEVEN BALBOS AND BOOZE
been available to the enemy on the Russian and Western fronts.
At Hildesheim my photo Typhoon investigation got under way at
last. Comparison flying soon revealed that there was marked difference
in the handling compared with other aircraft. You could pull 'G' much
too easily, accurate slow flying was difficult, and on landing there was
a definite tendency to pump handle and overcontrol in pitch. Stan Carr
went right through the elevator circuit. Nothing wrong there. Friction,
mass balance and elevator profile were quite normal. What else was
different on these aircraft? A camera installation replacing the port
inboard cannon? Extra armour around the engine and radiator?
And then it clicked. The forward armour had been removed at
some stage. But the extra tail ballast was still in place. The three photo
recce Typhoons were weighed. We had been flying them for months,
and on ops, with the centre of gravity behind the aft limit! It was a
sobering thought. The offending tail ballast was removed and, for the
last two months of their lives, they handled like normal Typhoons.
As the photo Typhoon exercise ended 146 wing acquired an Anson
XIX. On the strength of his time with 84 Group Communications
Squadron this aircraft became Butch's responsibility and, to my
surprise, after all our disagreements, he converted me onto it before
anyone else.
It so happened that I had worked out a forward facing camera
installation for the Tempest V - based on an otherwise unoccupied
section of leading edge near the wing root. If we could make up a
sample I would have a ready made excuse, or so I thought, to deliver
it by Anson to the Central Fighter Establishment at Tangmere. Once
there I could slip across to Glosters, to see Frank McKenna, who had
responded positively to my letter.
The upshot of that particular idea was a quick trip back to the
railway line near Alhorn. The train of flat cars and its Tempest was
still there. We removed a section of wing, and brought it back to
Hildesheim, where Stan Carr worked his usual magic. In the end I flew
the Anson to Tangmere via Brussels. On board was our Tempest
sample, an accompanying set of photographs, and seven passengers on
UK leave.
Frank McKenna asked me to spend the night at his home on the
outskirts of Cheltenham. He seemed little changed, just slightly more
rotund and ruddy faced, and we picked up almost where we had left
off more than six years earlier.
After his family had retired to bed he told me that there was a test
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