COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
Things became easier when Hugh Cundall joined us from the Air
Registration Board to help with the introduction of Yorks and
Viscounts. At least there was someone else to share the hazards of
Bryan's outside visits. Bad luck on Hugh, his job meant that before
long he had acquired the lot - or as near as made no difference - and
I had correspondingly greater freedom to concentrate on other matters.
Hunting Clan was fun. There was a sense of achievement as the
company built on its trooping contracts to Malta, Gibraltar and
Singapore, and won licences for new scheduled services. A Newcastle
centred network with links to Bovingdon, Glasgow and Belfast,
Amsterdam, Hamburg and Scandinavia came first. Then a West
African run to complement the East African Safari to Nairobi and
Rhodesia.
As the operations became more complex, and the fleet grew, better
methods of aircraft and crew rostering were needed. My good friend
Tony Lucking, at that time working with Urwick Orr, came to help.
Soon we had decent gant chart displays, together with a flying hours
limit calculator and recording system for pilots, radio officers and
cabin crews. I looked at other areas - and managed to simplify the
WAT 1 calculation for Yorks using high altitude airfields on the Safari
routes - whilst Tony, to his surprise, found himself with a totally
different project.
It was Bryan's idea. He wanted a work study on the flight deck.
Arthur Rusk was the captain. Like all such exercises the crews were
deeply suspicious. But Arthur didn't care a jot. He was the original,
outwardly scatterbrained, generous Irishman and he had married the
most beautiful hostess of them all. They lived in a converted stable
block close to the airfield. A delightful pair and their parties were
great.
Tony and Arthur got rather more than they bargained for, when
their Viking lost an engine immediately after take off, and had to
divert into Heathrow under marginal conditions.
"And there was I," said Arthur, "working as if the devil himself was
after me - and he was! he was! - and myself full of wicked words. But
your Mr Lucking sat there calm as you please with his stopwatch -
writing it all down."
In spite of the pressures, and Bryan Greensted notwithstanding,
perhaps even because of him, the feeling of fun persisted. We worked
and played hard, raising the rafters in many a pub from the upmarket
Two Brewers in Chipperfield - where the crews stayed overnight
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