COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
position. It looked horrific hanging there, for all the world like the
twin spires of Cologne Cathedral suspended in the sky.
Some time later we heard that the VJ 101 had rolled uncontrollably
during transition, and its American test pilot had managed to survive
by the skin of his ejection seat. The news came as no surprise. VJ 101
was the story of the German Aircraft Industry. Fifteen or more years
of lost technology, trying to catch up too fast, with inadequate
resources.
At a subsequent air show the test pilot, George Bright, visited the
Elliott stand and Ron Howard heard his story at first hand. The rate
gyros had been reverse connected and when the aircraft started to roll
he counted 'black... white... black' and 'GO!' at the beginning of white
- in order to eject when his seat was pointing at the sky!
Pondering our future in Germany I took myself off to Bad
Godesberg and Ken Powell. We lunched together in the British Club,
overlooking the Rhine, and shared the inevitable Mosel to which he
was much attached. A pleasant occasion until he noticed Adolf Galland
in the centre of an admiring group across the room. Ken worked
himself up into quite a state and said loudly that Galland acquired
agencies like scalps, for prestige rather than practical reasons, and
lived on his past reputation. I took it all with a pinch of salt, because
Ken could be very caustic, and everyone knew they were in direct
competition.
Finally we got round to the subject of my visit. The main priority
would still continue to be Entwicklungsring Sud despite their disaster
with the VJ 101 prototype. Its military derivative was said to be short
listed for NBMR 3 - a joint NATO4 requirement. Second would be the
Dornier VTOL5 transport project at Friedrichshafen, on Lake
Constance, near the old Zeppelin works.
In addition I would reactivate my relationship with Karl Doetsch
- one of the German boffins who had been 'persuaded' to come and
work at the RAE after the war. Picked up near Oberammergau, as
hostilities ceased, his 'captors' had suggested to him that he might
otherwise find himself in Russia. So Karl, as they say, 'chose freedom'.
Now back home again he was the new Professor of Aeronautics at
Braunschweig University.
Karl had been a 'Flugbaumeister'. One of that rare breed, a highly
qualified engineer who was also a skilled test pilot. He had written the
first set of German pilot's notes and had developed what was probably
the earliest yaw damper to go into production. It was fitted to the
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