COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
a mixed rocket/jet fighter was under development and Peter Sutcliffe
from Boulton Paul had become chief aerodynamicist, was next on the
list.
When I visited Peter at Woodford he showed me over the
impressive stainless steel research prototype which was then nearing
completion. A three axis autostabiliser had been specified for the
definitive fighter version and I had hopes of it coming our way. But
shortly afterwards the Avro 720 was cancelled in favour of the
Saunders Roe 177, the expensive prototype was broken up, and it was
high time to head for the Isle of Wight.
By happy chance, Pete Wilson, a Naval officer on my ETPS course,
had just been appointed Development Project Officer on the SR 177.
The design had become a joint RAF/RN requirement, the Germans
were showing interest, and the equipment manufacturers were beating
a path to the chief designer's door. Looking out across the Solent from
his office windows at Cowes, a few weeks later, it seemed an ideal
place to work. Especially as it was then, brimming with confidence
and enthusiasm.
From my point of view it turned out to be a good meeting,
Maurice Brennan obviously wanted to see more of Elliotts, and it
looked as if we were in with a chance. An important project too - or
so it seemed at the time.
There were other, less encouraging, encounters. Folland Aircraft
at Hamble - where Ted Tennant, who had been on Typhoons with 146
Wing, had become chief test pilot - was if anything worse than
Hawkers. Their thin wing supersonic Gnat, with AI4 23 and OR 946
instrumentation, was a natural for Elliotts. Yet Petter had such a
fanatical attitude to weight saving that he simply refused to recognise
the need for autostabilisation. Joe Boulger, his assistant chief designer,
and I were reduced to all sorts of subterfuges and Ted said that we
were wasting our time. He was right of course. The Gnat Mk 2 never
saw the light of day.
Glosters, so well placed when I had been involved with them at the
end of the war, had become a disaster area. I flew Jack and Eric
Priestley, our newly appointed aerodynamicist, over there to talk flight
systems on the thin wing Javelin and was deeply shocked.
The design team was almost non existent, quite inadequate for a
project on this scale. Lack of contractual or financial cover, and an air
of defeatism, met us at every turn. The reality was inescapable. That
dusty mock up in the old flight shed was the end the road. Short of an
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