We’ve had a consistent nil response to our adverts for a replacement FlyBy editor, so it looks like this particular magazine is destined for the shelves of history. I’ve produced it for about seven years and its time for me to enter dry dock and take a breather.
And so, it is with regret that I report this is the last edition of this magazine unless someone steps up to keep it going.
It remains for me to sincerely thank my small and stalwart band of contributors, without whom it would never have been the magazine it was. Your work is enshrined on our website and no doubt will be enjoyed for years to come. In fact, I recently had an email from the Royal Navy’s FAA Officers’ Association expressing interest in some of our work for their new e-magazine. Flattery indeed!
I will continue serving on the National Executive for at least another year, health permitting, and will now concentrate my efforts on the website, which is in need of some TLC. I’ll also be front and centre in helping the new Slipstream Editor, when we find one, to get started and get cracking.
For me, FlyBy has been an enriching experience as it honed my artistic leanings, improved my computer skills and increased my general knowledge, as I researched the many articles and stories in its pages.
It’s been a blast, but it’s time to move on. I can only hope that someone will pick up a new thread and make it their own.
The good news, however, is that although FlyBy might fade away, the Association is prepared to pay good
money to someone (anyone!?) to produce Slipstream magazine.
This follows our inability to find a volunteer to replace Terry Hetherington, our last editor, and recognition that Slipstream is central to our existence and if we have to pay, we have to pay.
The offer is open to anyone. You don’t have to be a member, you can live anywhere in Oz or overseas and you don’t need prior aviation experience. We can make it work for the right person.
So, get your thinking caps on. Do you want to earn some tax free dollars? Do you know anyone who does? Perhaps an aspiring partner, or son or daughter, or a friend who’s looking for a supplement to their income and the chance to learn new skills.
There’s no harm in finding out more so all they have to do is to drop me an email to find out more - see page 5 for details.
On that note, stay safe, stay healthy and all the best mp
Some final words and thoughts from the outgoing Editor of this magazine.
We remember those who are no longer with us.
THIS MONTH’S COVER PHOTO REST IN PEACE
Leading Seaman Aviation Technician - Avionics Thomas Baskerville marshals a Japan Maritime Self Defense Force
SH-60K ‘Super Auk’ from JS Shiranui to land on HMAS Brisbane during Exercise Malabar 2023 while off the coast of New South Wales.
Since the last edition of FlyBy we have been advised that the following have Crossed the Bar: Florence (Flossie) Nugent; John Currie; Keith William Taylor; Leith Gardiner; Gary Criddle
You can find further details by clicking on the image of the candle.
Letter to the Editor
This month’s crop of correspondence from our Readers.
Future of the FAAAA
Some serious stuff was discussed at last month’s AGM.
Why on earth would the batsman stand on the centreline?
Gunfighters over Korea
A Tribute to 77 Squadron RAAF.
HMZNS Manawanui
GPS is highly vulnerable to jamming, so a new kid on the block is being developed.
A professional seaman offers a perspective on the recent sinking of the NZ Survey Vessel.
The Unassuming Hero
A Tribute to a forgotten pioneer of Australian Naval Aviation.
Around The Traps Bits and Pieces of Odd and Not-so-odd news and gossip.
FAA Wall of Service Update
The status of orders for Wall of Service Plaques.
Dear Editor,
Advice has been received that the wheels are in motion for a Last Post Ceremony at the Australian War Memorial for Pat Vickers on the 18th August 2025.
The CO of 723 Squadron, Lt Col Pat Shadel, has been working in the background to make this happen and will send over a flight of EC 135s to do a flypast to honour Pat. The CO is very supportive of the RANHFV.
HARSwill, mostlikely, send over 898 and a H model to join the flypast.
Those of us who will be at Old Bar on the 18th (Vietnam Veterans' Day) will be able to watch the ceremony on the big screen like we did with Darky Phillip's Last Post Ceremony.
This is still evolving so I'll keep you posted as information comes to hand.
Cheers, John Macartney
By Ed. Pat Vickers was a highly respected and well known pilot who became our first casualty in Vietnam in February 1968. You can read a little of his story here.
Do You Want to Earn Good Money?
We are looking for someone who can produce a quarterly magazine for us, and we’ll pay good dollars to them to do so.
Here’s the deal:
• You initially commit to produce a magazine at least quarterly for one year (4 editions).
• Final product will be in high quality PDF format.
• We will then publish it through our website and email system, so you don’t need to be involved in printing or otherwise distributing.
• We will provide you with advice to help get you started.
• We will pay up to $2,500.00 per edition to the right person, depending on their skills.
• You don’t need to be an FAAAA member, so family and friends are eligible. Spread the word now!
For full details and conditions, contact the webmaster here.
THE FUTURE OF THE FAAAA
The FCM, or Federal Council Meeting, is our big event of the year, when delegates from all Divisions get together with the National Executive to discuss how the FAAAA is tracking and to make any necessary decisions. In effect, it is our Annual General Meeting.
This year’s FCM was held on 26th October in the FAA Museum, with a good turnout either in person, or on line via Zoom.
The agenda and reports/papers for the meeting can be read on line here (you will need to log onto the website to do so). Minutes of the meeting will be added when they are available.
Aside from the usual business of ratifying last year’s Minutes, hearing office bearer reports and the like, there were two main areas of business: a paper on the future of the Association, and a Motion to move our website to a new Provider and spend some money on it to ‘future proof’ it.
Dot points on the key outcomes of these discussions are as follows:
The Future of the FAAAA
We recently narrowly averted having to dissolve the National Body for want of a National Secretary. We’re not out of the woods yet, though, and how we might make the Association more resilient was presented in a paper.
The paper examined a number of key threats to the Association and suggested mitigating action.
The principal and most immediate threat is the lack of an Editor for both Slipstream and FlyBy magazines. The lack of any product for most members could severely impact on our membership numbers next year.
The focus will be on retaining a quarterly magazine, which shall remain titled “Slipstream”.
As no volunteer Editor has been forthcoming, we will pay a person to undertake the work, if one can be found.
The magazine will be in electronic format only. Divisions will print and distribute hard copies to those members that must have them in this format.
Immediate action will be taken to advertise for, and hopefully secure, an Editor.
Divisions undertook to assist the new Editor, if one can be found, with the provision of at least one suitable article per quarter per Division.
Museum Update
The Museum Manager was unable to attend the meeting, but we received a written brief from her, signed off by the Director of the Sea Power Centre Australia (SPC-A), which gives some insight into his vision for the museum. You can see that report here.
During the FCM discussion it was recognised (again!) that the situation is far from ideal, and whilst the Director SPC-A appears to have a plan, it appears to be contained in his head. We have not seen any cogent ‘road map’ to take the Museum forward, nor any milestones or other indicators that should be achieved on the way to this (as yet) unspecified destination.
The provision of an MRH90 airframe has been a hot issue for the FAAAA. Initially, the Museum summarily rejected an offer of an airframe but after strident representation agreed to undertake a ‘Curatorial Review’ to assess the heritage value of the aircraft. We are assured that this process has now been complete and the recommendation is, logically, that the MRH90 does have significant historical and heritage value to the FAA. You can see our submission to that Review here.
We are also advised that Defence disposals has no MRH90 airframes left, so the Museum missed the boat there big time. Army has two and has apparently agreed to loan one to the FAAM, perhaps initially for a five year term.
That’s yet to be confirmed, however, and DSPC-A is still talking about putting it in storage in Sydney rather than displaying it on the floor in the FAAMat least for the medium term. This appears to be consistent with his ‘clean brush’ approach which is hinted rather than explicit - that is, to reduce the
The FCM agreed, and authorised the expenditure of up to $5K to preserve a website into the future.
Appointed Positions
The FCM agreed to the appointment of the following positions on the National Executive:
Mark Campbell - President
Anthony Savage - Vice President Andrew Whittaker - Secretary.
The meeting also acknowledged that Margaret Maher (ACT Division) had put her hat in the ring for Secretary, and although unsuccessful on this occasion hoped she would assist the National Executive - perhaps, on an ex-officio basis for the moment, as Assistant Secretary. Margaret kindly agreed to this suggestion.
number of aircraft in the museum display and ‘revamp’ them in some way.
Change is something we all have to live with, but a golden rule is that whatever you change to must be better than what you had. In the absence of any plan, or even a detailed ‘vision statement, it is difficult to see where or why DSPC-A is going. Up to now he is certainly not taking any stakeholders on whatever his journey is, and we have been clear in our expectation of closer liaison. As we’ve said in the past, we have veterans with (collectively) hundreds of years of experience and knowledge, and it’s inconceivable why SPC-A is not consulting with us on matters of fact, detail or, for that matter, the best way to preserve and present our heritage.
On a broader issue we remain concerned about the current state of the Museum and will continue to work with DSPC-A to try to resolve and shape improvements.
The Website
The webmaster presented a paper which detailed the current situation with our website:
It remains serviceable, but has a large number of structural errors resulting from its rebuild a few years ago.
Our relationship with the current provider has deteriorated to the point where it is difficult to discern any good will whatsoever.
The webmaster has concerns about the future viability of the relationship with the current provider.
He recommended we move to a new provider and spend money to have a more modern, smaller website developed which is better suited to our future.
The National Executive now comprises:
President - Mark Campbell
Vice President - Anthony Savage
Secretary - Andrew Whittaker
A/Sec - Margaret Maher
Treasurer - James Caldwell
Database Manager - Paul Norris
Webmaster - Marcus Peake.
Slipstream Editor - vacant .
Capitation Fees & Slipstream Levy
Finally, the meeting agreed to hold the Capitation and Slipstream Levy at current levels ($7 and $6 respectively).
Note: These notes don’t constitute official Minutes of the meeting, which will be forthcoming in due course. They are intended only to inform readers of the broad thrust/outcomes of the meeting.
Autonomous Medivac
Just about everyone in the FAA has, at some point in their careers been involved in Medivacs - some under fire. That might be a thing of the past with the development of a modular container that can be integrated with multiple air and ground vehicles to carry payloads such as medical supplies or wounded personnel.
Developed jointly by Lift Aircraft and Near Earth Autonomy, the system is designed to operate without human pilots in a variety of military applications.
276 Pilot’s Course Graduates
Sir Angus Houston was the reviewing officer for the most recent pilots’ course to graduate from RAAF Pearce at the end of September2024.
Two Navy graduates received their wings: Benjamin Trimmer who was born in Canberra in Oct 00 and did a BSc majoring in oceanography and maths at ADFA, graduating in Dec 22. He is posted for Helicopter Conversion on 723 Squadron. Lachlan Magee was born in Melbourne, Victoria in Oct 99 and did a BTech in aeronautical engineering at ADFA, graduating in Dec 22. He is also posted to HC723,
From L-R in the photo above: Brett Dowsing, Nick Trimmer (father of one of the graduates and himself an ex-FAA pilot); Ben Trimmer; Lachlan Magee and three WA stalwarts: Mike Keogh, Jim Bush and Bill Atthowe.
Some 20 RAAF (2 females) also graduated with 2 x 34 year-old ex-lower deck guys. One graduate was born in Afghanistan, 10 are posted for fighters, 5 for King Airs and the rest for transport and maritime. Apparently, there is about a 12-18 month delay for the Navy boys before Helicopter conversion course, which is not good. One hopes some useful employment can be found or them, or, better still, Navy is looking at getting them an overseas conversion or loaning them to Air Force to keep them flying.
RN Fast Jet Squadron Back to Sea After 15 year break
For the first time in nearly 15 years an RN fast jet Squadron is embarked in a Royal Navy aircraft carrier.
809 Naval Air Squadron, based at RAF Marham and equipped with F-35B stealth fighters, joined HMS Prince of Wales in the North Sea for a month of training. This will be a crucial step towards the planned global 8 month deployment next year.
The Squadron is joined by the RAF 617 Squadron ‘Dam Busters’ in what is increasingly becoming a joint-service environment.
For three of every five Squadron personnel this will be their first time at sea, a measure of how quickly maritime air skills deplete, and also that many wear RAF uniform. “We are still in our infancy forming as a Squadron”, their CO said, “so joining a carrier for the first time is truly a milestone”.
Oops!
In the last months of the war the RN tried landing De havilland Mosquitoes onto an aircraft carrier. It was the first twin to land aboard a carrier and, at a gross weight of 20,000 lb, almost twice the weight of previous aircraft. You can read about it later in this edition (see ‘WTF’ article).
The war’s end removed the urgency of that trial, but the Brits didn’t give up - instead using the DH Hornet - an aircraft that Winkle Brown once described as ‘The Ferrari of the Sky”. The small sister of the Mossie was still a handful for deck landings, though, as this 1950 photo shows.
One Step Closer?
Our Quest to Put an MRH90 into the FAA Museum
For reasons best known to themselves the management of the FAA museum decided, some time ago, that an MRH90 ‘Taipan’ was of insufficient heritage interest to include as an exhibit. This was despite the aircraft being in service in the RAN for some ten years and its important history as a Fleet Support unit and in many community support operations.
We are pleased to report that, after strident FAAAA representation, the Director of the Sea Power Centre has acknowledged the aircraft is of sufficient interest to place in the museum - if he can get one.
He further advises that the Australian Army Heritage Unit has agreed in principle to loan one of their two MRH90’s to the FAA Museum, but acknowledges there are many details to work out.
In principle, this is good news. But we are mindful of the inexplicable decision not to include one in the first place, and concerned that every day of delay takes us further from the goal of having an airframe on display in the museum.
To that end, the FAAAA will continue to press the Sea Power Centre to expedite both the Heritage assessment and to either lock in the Army loan agreement on a long-term basis, or to apply for a Taipan from Defence Disposals, assuming one is still available from that source.
We also continue to press for assurance that the Museum will expand its operations from the current three days a week, and to offer visitors a better experience than is presently the case. ✈
What Happens With The Wall of Service if FlyBy Goes Tango Uniform?
Ever since it started, FlyBy has been integral to advertising Wall of Service plaques and keeping applicants advised of their progress.
So what happens if FlyBy goes T.U?*
Well, in a nutshell, nothing changes. The website will still have all the details and you can still apply for a plaque in the same way. You’ll get the same email responses and notification when your plaque is finally fixed to the wall.
The only difference is that the website will have a new link put on it which shows the progress of applications in the pipeline.
So, don’t hesitate: order your plaque now if you haven’t already.
*Tits Up.
Have you thought about getting your name put on the FAA Wall of Service?
It’s a unique way to preserve the record of your Fleet Air Arm time in perpetuity, by means of a bronze plaque mounted on a custom-built wall just outside the FAA museum. The plaque has your name and brief details on it (see background of photo above).
There are over 1000 names on the Wall to date and, as far as we know, it is a unique facility unmatched anywhere else in the world. It is a really great way to have your service to Australia recorded.
It is easy to apply for a plaque and the cost is far less than the retail price of a similar plaque elsewhere. And, although it is not a Memorial Wall, you can also do it for a loved one to remember both them and their time in the Navy. Simply click here for all details, and for the application form.✈
Order No.54. is open with the following names on the list so far:
During the month several of our readers received an email, purportedly from one of our founding members, which explained that he had a bad case of laryngitis and could the recipient please contact him by email.
Those who did then received another email asking them to buy an Apple gift card for his niece, whose birthday was that very day and who was suffering from Stage 4 cancer.
The required gift card was to the value of $400 and the imaginary niece rejoiced in the name of Brenda Hole with her fictional email address @talktalk.net
Emails like this are always a scam. In fact, any message that starts off by saying someone can’t use the phone and please can you contact them by email is probably sus - there’s been a few of them around.
The problem is that they appear to be from a person you know and trust, so its easy to be duped.
But stop and ask yourself: is the request something they would do? Nobody reasonable reaches out in that way, asking for a fairly obscure favour for a third party that’s always in dire straits, and promising to ‘pay as soon as he can’.
I got one asking if I’d buy a camera for his daughter. He was stuck in Whoop Whoop and the daughter was on an oil rig so couldn’t get to the store. Sounds less likely than the one above, but the same theme.
The best thing to do in such cases is to immediately delete the email. If you do have any lingering concerns, reach out someone who knows the person, asking them to check they’re OK.
In the cases above, all was well: but in 2023 over 600,000 Aussies were scammed to the tune of $2.74 billion, so you need to be careful. ✈
Did You Help After Tracy?
There’s a 50th Anniversary Event coming up later this month.
Note this is not a highly regulated event. For most things you can just turn up - the exception is for the Coonawarra Visit, for which prior registration is required. Contact Raymond Sandford here for further details. ✈
With the vulnerability of GPS to malicious interference, the world is ready for a new global navigation system. But what could it be?
Marcus Peake has a look.
Navigation was, for the early aviators at least, always a problem. With no radio navigation aids it came down to visual cues or, when they weren’t available, to DR (Dead Reckoning).
The limitations of DR – primarily its inherent inaccuracy – drove other solutions, and for a long while radio navigation beacons provided the answer. Developed in the 1960s, these were, primarily, either non-directional beacons (NDBs) which an aircraft could track to or from, or directional beacons such as VOR and its derivatives which gave the pilot his or her bearing in relation to it.
Such navigation aids generally had short range so for long distance flights, particularly over water or uninhabited tracks, aircraft use Inertial Navigation Systems, or INS. These are self-contained units that don’t rely on any external signals but instead use accelerometers and gyroscopes to sense the speed and orientation of an aircraft to calculate its estimated position from a known departure point. This required not only the development of these sensors, but also computers powerful enough to crunch the minuscule information they provided.
In effect, INS systems are a form of Dead Reckoning and, like that basic system, they are subject to errors. Each minor error in its sensors, such as in the measurement of angular velocity or linear acceleration, are cumulative as each new position of the vehicle is calcu-
Photo: Geoawesomeness
How ItWorks inThree Sentences
lated upon the previous one. This accumulation of errors can be significant, and the longer the vehicle is moving, the greater the error. INS systems are, therefore, often used in tandem with other technologies.
By the mid 1990’s there was a new kid on the block - the Global Navigation Satellite System, or GNSS, which used satellites to fix an aircraft’s position. GNSS seemed to offer the perfect solution as it was cheap, extremely accurate and pretty much foolproof – or so we thought.
That’s before people started to jam GPS satellite signals, or, worse still, to manipulate them in order to give the wrong position on an aircraft’s instrumentation. One light-hearted example was a group of New York delivery drivers who didn’t want their employer to see where they were at any particular moment. A more sinister example is in war zones, where an enemy seeks to deny GPS coverage or to inject incorrect information into the navigation systems of weapons or drones.
Unfortunately, manipulating GPS also affects civilians as well. According to the European Business Association, there were over 49,000 incidents of civilian aircraft being the victims of spoofing in 2022 alone. Most were in the vicinity of conflict zones, although such incidents can happen anywhere. The incidence has not reduced either: on average, 1,500 flights a day are now experiencing GPS interference somewhere in the world.
❝On average, 900 flights a day are now experiencing GPS interference somewhere n the world. ❞
So the concept of using a self-contained navigation system which can’t be jammed is appealing. But it needs to be more accurate than the existing generation of INS devices which, reportedly, can accumulate an error of about one nautical mile for each 360 hours of operation.
The Next Generation
Enter the Quantum Inertial Navigation System (Q-INS), where movements of a single ‘super’ atom is tracked precisely utilising the peculiar properties of quantum mechanics. When com-
bined with atomic clocks and special software analysis to reject interference, the new system is far more accurate than traditional INS systems using accelerometers and gyroscopes.
Atoms are excellent for making accurate measurements because they are all the same. Atomic measurements made in one laboratory would be precisely the same as in another, as the atoms behave identically.
Q-INS systems rely on the phenomenon of ‘quantum superposition’. Where particles like atoms can exist in multiple states ate once. These states are influenced by motion and gravity, which allow for the measurement of acceleration and rotation – information that can be used to calculate the device’s precise change in position over time. Its back to the old DR days but, instead of a stopwatch, airspeed indicator and compass, atoms are used.
But to measure an atom’s reaction to movement, you first have to precisely control its state. This is achieved by using a cloud of ultra cold atoms – almost at absolute zero – which causes them to ‘coalesce’ and act as a single entity. When the device in which they are contained moves, the superposition states of these atoms changes due to the forces upon them. These changes are measured and used to calculate how much the device has moved and in what direction.
The first job is to make some of the coldest atoms in the universe. Paradoxically, this is done by lasers, using a phenomenon called Doppler cooling. It works by ‘firing’ a red laser towards atoms. If the atoms are moving randomly the light appears red, which is does not match their natural absorption frequency. If an atom is moving towards the laser, however, the Doppler effect causes the light to appear more blue and it is then momentarily absorbed before being randomly reemitted into the environment. The emission causes the atom to lose a little bit of kinetic energy which slows its movement down and lowers its temperature microscopically.
If lasers are fired at the atoms in all three dimensions, its movement can be halted. This doesn’t ‘trap’ the atom, however, which is a requirement, so a magnetic field is also applied, which effectively ‘sucks’ the atom(s) into a force field and holds them there.
What is Doppler Cooling?
Doppler cooling is a mechanism that can be used to slow the motion of atoms and to cool them.
In a Quantum INS system this changes their state which allows them to be used for measurement of changes in acceleration.
The simplified principle of Doppler cooling is as follows:
1. A stationary atom sees the laser neither as red nor blue shifted and does not absorb the Photon.
2. An atom moving away from the laser source sees it as redshifted and does not absorb the photon.
3.1. An atom moving towards the laser sees it as blue-shifted and completely absorbs the photo, slowing the atom and reducing its kinetic energy.
3.2. The photon excites the atom, moving an electron to a higher quantum state.
3.3. The atom re-emits a photon. As its direction is random, there is no net change to its momentum over many photons. (Wikipedia).
Above. A refined model of the Q-INS, which was tested in the air. The purple chamber at the top of the unit is where the atoms are trapped using doppler cooling, magnetic fields and lasers.
One measurement of the atoms’ displacement due to external forces (aircraft inertia) is taken about once every second. Below: QinetiQ’s Airborne Technology BAe 146 aircraft in which the Q-INS was first tested in May 2024. ✈
Analysts examine data aboard the test bed aircraft (QinetiQ image)
This magnetic optical trap holds the supercooled atoms in the middle of a small vacuum chamber, keeping them from touching its sides where they would warm up.
The cloud of atoms are then cooled even further, and this causes them to ‘coalesce’. They lose their individual identities and, in effect, start to behave as one single ‘super’ atom. In this state quantum effects become apparent – for example, they exhibit super fluidity, where they can flow without any internal viscosity, and they can interfere with themselves like a wave.
You now have a supercooled ‘super atom’ suspended in a vacuum chamber where you want it. But so what?
Well, atoms in this state are easily perturbed by an outside force, and another laser beam can then be used to measure their displacement if they are disturbed.
To do so, the atom is subjected to a process called Interferometry, which uses a very powerful laser to split the atom cloud into two. The two bodies are allowed to move apart before being ‘flipped’ (by another laser) to rejoin each other. On completion of the phase of this sequence the phase of the atoms is sensitive to any acceleration to which they were subjected. This is measured to give a fingerprint of how the cloud was accelerating, and in which dimension.
The interferometry process imparts heat to the cloud which then ‘breaks down’ to its original indi-
vidual atoms dispersed in the chamber - so the whole process is then repeated to produce new cloud. The whole cycle takes about a second, which means that a fingerprint of external acceleration is measured with that frequency.
The measurement tells us how the linear acceleration of the ship or aircraft has changed as a result of moving up, down, left or right or in velocity - and by how much. This allows calculation of the position of the device in relation to its starting point, and, because we are measuring relative changes using particles at the atomic level, there are none of the inaccuracies inherent in conventional INS systems:
gyro drift, assembly alignment, accelerometer bias and so on.
Moving
to
a Challenging Environment
Every single step of the quantum process is highly complex, and would be impressive enough just in a stable laboratory which can be totally shielded from any external interference. The enemy of all Quantum Engineering is noise – both mechanical and electro-magnetic, so putting it into an aircraft which is a vibrating and unstable platform emitting (and being radiated by) radio and radar signals is perhaps the most challenging of environments.
But that’s been done. The Q-INS prototype has been installed in a test bed-aircraft and flown, with remarkable results. It is ‘rack mounting’ size, for the moment, but the British scientists who have developed it are confident that within a few years many of its components will be miniaturised into hand held devices.
So there you have it. We may not have Quantum computers yet, but we have Q-INS and you can expect to see it replacing conventional INS systems in the not-too-distant future. It is highly accurate, stable and impervious to external jamming or spoofing. What isn’t there to like about it?
And, as the final icing on the cake: because the atom cloud within it is sensitive to acceleration, it is also sensitive to gravity. And if you can measure changes in gravity with exquisite accuracy, you can measure deposits of underground minerals, tunnels, geographic features and the like. ✈
LLAST MONTH’S MYSTERY PHOTO ANSWER
A quirk of mounting the engine inverted was that each cylinder bank had different compression ratios because of windage from the crankshaft threw more oil into one bank than the other. The presence of oil in the combustion chamber effectively reduced the octane rating of the fuel.
ast month we brought you the picture of the V12 engine above, and asked which WW2 fighter used it extensively and what particular notable feature that aircraft had.
The answer to the first part of the question was the Messerschmitt Bf 109, which became the most widely built aircraft of the time with over 34,000 being produced). (It became almost universally called the Me109, which was the incorrect terminology).
The engine that powered most of the wartime variants of the Bf109 was the Daimler Benz DB601/605. This was a V12 power plant which was mounted inverted to lower the centre of gravity, provide better pilot visibility and offer easier maintenance. For the technically minded, the engine displaced 35.7 litres and delivered 1,475HP through a geared drive. It weighed 745kg (1,642 lb).
Inverse mounting also allowed a blast tube to be located between the cylinder banks, which gave the Bf198 (E models and beyond) the notable feature we asked for: it sported a 20mm or 30mm (K model) cannon that fired though the nose cone of the propeller. You can see it (painted red) in the image to the left.
This required alignment of the driveshaft to the blast tube, which was achieved by an offset reduction gearbox with a hollow shaft. Complicated engineering for those days but quite achievable. ✈
The cutaway below shows the how the cannon fired through the blast tube mounted between the cylinder blocks, and the reduction gearbox arrangement.✈
The philosophy of the Me109 was to carry the largest possible engine in the smallest possible airframe, and to make it easy to produce and repair. Interestingly, the first flight in September of 1935 was made with an imported Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine of 695 hp, but this was soon replaced by more powerful German engines.
Above. A Bf109 with its engine removed, showing the position of the canon (lower) and the two machine guns mounted above the engine block. Inset right. A Bf109 undergoing gun alignment. You can see how much pilot visibility was improved by having the engine inverted.✈
by Graeme Lunn
In the desperate days of 1942 the US Navy craned sixteen twin-engined Army Air Force B25 Mitchell bombers onto the flight deck of the 25,500 ton Hornet, sailing the following day for what became known as the Doolittle Raid, named after their leader Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle.
Unable to land back on Hornet the plan was for a one way mission against Tokyo, flown without fighter escort, then continuing on to China. When 600 nm from the Japanese mainland Task Force 16, now including Enterprise, were sighted by an Imperial Japanese Navy picket boat. Prematurely launched at this distance meant none of the sixteen reached their Chinese landing fields after bombing their targets.
This famous operation came immediately to the mind of test pilot Lieutenant Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown when he was unexpectedly tasked in 1944 to carry out deck landing trials of a de Havilland Mosquito. The sole naval aviator among the RAF pilots of the Aerodynamics Flight, a unit of the Experimental Flying Department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough, Winkle had a considerable reputation for deck landing accrued in a Service Trials Unit working with the new escort carriers.
WTF?
The assigned Mk.6 Mosquito was, at 20,000 lb, twice the weight of any aircraft so far landed on an RN carrier, and the first twin-engined type.
Calculations of arrestor gear limits indicated a maximum airspeed for deck landing of 83mph/72 knots while the Pilot’s Notes quoted a stalling speed of 110 mph/95 knots with gear and flaps lowered. To solve the conundrum new Merlin 25 engines were fitted with experimental four bladed cropped propellers, as the vital hook was fitted to a strengthened rear fuselage with all excess weight removed until the airframe weighed 16,000lb. A wingspan of 54 feet meant the starboard wheel would have to be close to the flight deck centreline for landing and take-off to ensure adequate clearance from the carrier’s island.
Winkle flew the much-modified aircraft to HMAS Condor Royal Naval Air Station Arbroath for shore trials using the four arrester wires on their short runway. There he met Lieutenant Commander Robert ‘Bob’ Everett, the batsman assigned for the trials, who was Chief Instructor of the Deck Landing Training School at the nearby Peewit/ Naval Air Station East Haven.
Son of Admiral Sir Allan Everett, loaned to the
RAN as First Naval Member of the Commonwealth Naval Board in the early 1920’s, Bob had been a Midshipman in 1931 in the battleship Rodney. Graduating from No.36 Naval Pilots Course in August 1937 he trained on the new Swordfish 1 TSR biplane then entering service.
Joining 820 Squadron in July 1938 they embarked for the final time on Courageous in September before becoming the first squadron to land aboard the new Ark Royal on 11 January 1939.
Also moving from Courageous to the Ark was Lieutenant (O) Harrie Gerrett RAN. Harrie, the final of only nine pre-war RAN observers, had completed the 32nd Naval Observers Course in June 1938. In May 1939 Harrie, inevitably nicknamed ‘Digger’ onboard, was appointed to 820 Squadron. When war was declared in September 1939 Bob and Digger formed a formidable crew facing the rigours of that first year of hostilities in the Atlantic, Norway and the Mediterranean. They were so successful that both pilot and observer were Mentioned in Despatches on 4 October 1940 ‘for continued gallantry and devotion to duty and good service whilst serving in HMS Ark Royal in operations in the Mediterranean’.
Commanding 810 Squadron aboard Illustrious in the Indian Ocean during
1942 Bob was shot down with his TAG and briefly taken prisoner during the invasion of Madagascar. Already harbouring antipathy towards the Vichy French after operations off Oran with Digger in July 1940, being put into a cell which was bombarded the next night by his own squadron reinforced those feelings considerably. Awarded another Mention in 1943 Bob left 810 Squadron when appointed to instructional duties ashore. Then, in March 1944 came an unexpected role in the Mosquito trials with Winkle Brown.
Moving from Condor to Peewit for two days of ADDLs (aerodrome dummy deck landings) Winkle found that Bob disappeared from view under the Mosquito’s port wing and engine as he approached the round down. Recognising the vital importance of Winkle seeing his final signals and the all important ‘cut’ Bob immediately adopted a precarious stratagem.
Despite the skepticism of RAF test pilots about attempting to land such a large and heavy aircraft on a carrier’s flight deck, Winkle flew the test aircraft out to Illustrious on the afternoon of 25 March 1944 as she steamed between Arran and Ailsa Craig, in the Firth of Clyde approaches to Glasgow. With VIP ‘goofers’ on the carrier, who only had the single day available, Winkle omitted the
Previous Page. Bob Everett, the Batsman assigned for the trial landing of a Mosquito aboard Illustrious, stands on the centreline of the carrier as pilot Eric “Winkle” Brown makes his approach. Having given the ‘cut’ signal Everett sprints to the edge of the deck (above) to avoid being struck.✈
Above. Winkle, in the lower centre of the photo wearing the Mae West, being congratulated by Rear Admiral Reginald Portal, Flag Officer (Home) Air. Immediately after the landing the aircraft was
down to the hangar for checks, before undertaking another four landings.✈
usual ADDL warm-up circuits ashore before going ‘feet wet’ in case something was broken.
Turning in astern of the ship Winkle found he had the best view of a flight deck he had experienced until then. That view included Bob Everett, standing almost on the centre line directly in the Mosquito’s path with his bats raised as if a matador bravely facing a charging bull.
Given slight corrective signals as funnel gases created some turbulence Winkle found the Mosquito slow to respond to ailerons at just over 70 knots airspeed. Crossing the round-down Bob slashed his paddles in a brisk cut signal and immediately sprinted across the deck and into the nets to avoid the port propeller and wing as the Mosquito caught the number 2 wire.
Among others crowding around, Winkle was congratulated by Rear-Admiral Reginald Portal DSC, Flag Officer Air (Home), a WW1 observer over Gallipoli who was to be appointed eight months later as Flag Officer Naval Air Stations (Australia). The aircraft was struck down to the hangar for a thorough check of her test instrumentation before take-off and another four landings. After the wardroom celebration that night Winkle found that no cabin had been allocated so slept on the wardroom couch.
The next days trials were with increasing weights until catching a wire at 18,000 lb sheared the claw off the hook. Winkle, immediately slamming the throttles wide open, only managed to recover on the edge of a stall around 10 feet above the waves. Further trials in May, loaded to operational weight and bombed up, proved the viability of the proposal, at least when flown by an outstanding test pilot and guided by a brave batsman. Bob Everett was awarded an OBE for his critical role in the trials.
One hundred TR.33 Sea Mosquitoes with folding wings were ordered in December 1944, but only 50 were built, with deliveries not beginning until after war’s end in November 1945. Another twenty-six TR.37s were ordered but only six of those were built. The front-line 811 Squadron, training with Mosquito FB.6s since September 1945, received twelve TR.33s in April 1946. The squadron disbanded in 1947 having never embarked her Sea Mosquitoes, to the relief no doubt of every deck landing control officer in the fleet.
Post-war the RAF transferred over 200 Mosquitoes to the FAA which found a ready niche for them in second-line squadrons ashore as a versatile fleet support aircraft.✈
Above. The prototype Sea Mosquito TR.33, with its folding wings, four bladed propellers, externally mounted torpedo and an early ‘thimble’ radome on the nose. (Dan Shumaker Collection). Only 50 Sea Mosquitos were built as the end of the war overtook their operational need. ✈
struck
A PERSPECTIVE ON THE SINKING OF HMNZS MANAWANUI
By Commander Tom Sharpe OBE
On Saturday 5 October 2024 the Royal New Zealand Navy’s hydrographic, diving and salvage ship, HMNZS Manawanui, ran aground off the southern coast of Samoa. All 75 of the ship’s company abandoned ship safely and only minor injuries were reported. She then listed heavily, caught fire and, some eleven hours later, sank.
As the commanding officer of the last Royal Navy ship to nearly sink – that was HMS Endurance, a ship with many similarities to Manawanui, in 2008 – I have views. I’m giving them here partly to inform, but partly also to correct some of the narratives and commentary that have emerged following the incident, many of which appear to have their basis in misogyny rather than hardearned sea time.
There are only a few ways a ship can run aground. First, you don’t know where you are on the chart through human or system-induced navigational error (e.g. HMS Nottingham, Lord Howe Island, 2002). Second, you do know but the chart is wrong (HMS Brocklesby, Burntisland noise range, 1997). Third, you know where you are and the chart information is correct but conditions (wind, tide etc) overwhelm your ability to hold position (ferryPride of Portsmouth collision with HMS St Albans, Portsmouth Dockyard, 2002). Fourth, you suffer an engineering defect and the subsequent loss of control sees you run aground (MV Ever Given, Suez Canal, 2021; MV Dali, Baltimore Bridge, 2024). For completeness, we should include showboating (Costa Concordia, Giglio, 2012) and deliberately grounding to save the ship from sinking (MSC Napoli, English Channel, 2007).
All initial indications in the case of Manawanui point to a loss of propulsion/control as the primary cause. This has been half confirmed by New Zealand Defence Minister Collins, who said: “We need to find out what happened, apparently it lost power, I’m aware of that, and ended up aground on the reef.”
The photos of Manawanui before she sank shows
she had Restricted in Ability to Manoeuvre (RAM) shapes hoisted – a signal to other ships. The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea says a RAM vessel is one which, “due to the nature of her work, is restricted in her ability to deviate from her course. These vessels include but are not limited to: vessels engaged in dredging, surveying, or underwater operations.”
In other words, when the machinery failure happened, Manawanui was probably operating in navigationally tight waters, likely surveying an area whose charting information was dated and therefore inaccurate. Incidentally, surveying uncharted or poorly charted waters in South Georgia and Antarctica in HMS Endurance involved some of the most difficult ship manoeuvring I did in twenty years at sea.
Technically, once power was lost, Manawanui would have ceased to be RAM and would instead become Not Under Command (NUC), requiring a different signal hoist, before becoming Aground, requiring yet a third signal. However the crew probably had other priorities than flying the technically correct day shapes.
The lead up to the grounding would have been tense. Assuming there was a loss of power, the bridge team would have known very quickly how long they had before they would run aground (assuming the chart data wasn’t way out). “What’s failed”, “can we recover it” and “what are our reversionary options” would have been the conversations flying between the bridge and the engineering team. I can’t tell from the photos if an anchor was dropped – this would be a natural reaction to try and prevent a ship which had lost power from going aground but it doesn’t work in every situation. In Endurance the anchors saved us in the end, but we drifted a long way before they took hold.
The grounding of Manawanui would have been horrific, with a lot of noise, the lurching and grinding of the ship on the reef and alarms sounding on the bridge. Those from my ship’s company in 2008 who ran into the engine room of HMS Endurance to try and control the water flooding into it will never forget those moments. It would have been the same here. The damage
Manawanui on fire before sinking. The crew all survived without major injuries Credit: Profile Boats
control officer takes reports from the damage control parties so they can track the amount of water coming in and whether or not it can be stopped or contained. The ship’s marine engineering officer works alongside this, looking for ways to manage the water ingress whilst calculating the changing stability condition of the ship.
Vessels like Manawanui and Endurance, both originally designed for commercial service, are intrinsically less survivable than combatant warships: they’re not built specifically to take damage and keep on functioning. The ship’s captain – Commander Yvonne Gray in Manawanui, a former Royal Navy officer – has to process all this information and make the big calls. At some point, she would have looked the engineer in the eye and said, “are we going to make this?” The answer would have been the worst thing you can hear at sea, and she probably already knew it.
Then she made the call to abandon ship. This is brave no matter how you got there. Every second of your training for the past 20 or so years has been about keeping the ship going, ultimately in the face of an enemy. Repair the damage, recover the systems and keep fighting, or at least get away to fight another day. In Endurance back in 2008, at different stages of the crisis, abandoning ship was definitely on the cards. I found the idea of abandoning ship so uncomfortable, the team I sent to plan how we would do it were forbidden from saying the words – this was part superstition and part not wanting the phrase to be overheard, which could have led to trouble. Commander Gray would not have had the luxury of time for any of this.
The act of abandoning is perilous itself. Most evacuation systems only work up to a certain sea state. Then do it in the dark, in terrible weather and into rubber lifeboats with no engines, surrounded by the very reefs that you’ve just struck and the Manawanui’s company did well to not have any major injuries or fatalities.
When the captain disembarks during all this is the subject of much conjecture and folklore.
Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, for example, refused to abandon ship in 1893 as HMS Victoria sank beneath him following a collision caused by his orders. Choosing to die whilst repeatedly saying, “it was all my fault” is a good example of the noble stubbornness that was common at the time. It’s ironic that these traits were largely responsible for the collision happening in the first place.
Other captains have chosen to go down with their ship, but not that many. It’s generally thought, however, that if it’s practical the captain should be the last person off. The captain certainly shouldn’t be first or early off. No one will forgive the captain of the Costa Concordia for deliberately imperilling his ship and then abandoning it with hundreds of passengers still onboard. Saying it’s because you “fell into a lifeboat” and decided to “coordinate from there” and ignoring the Coast Guard telling you to get back onboard and sort your life out is not a good look.
In my case, if we had abandoned the Endurance, I would have stayed back with a small deck crew because a cruise liner was going to reach us around the time we were due to hit the rocks and I wanted last-ditch options to take a line and be hauled off. Keeping five people back to at least try
this was, in my judgement, worth the personal risk. I wasn’t doing an Admiral Tryon; just managing the situation. Staying on board to die is daft and of another era.
In the case of the Manawanui, it seems that Commander Gray made an early and brave call based on the inevitability of the situation, and then managed the evacuation well.
Now there will be a series of investigations during which culpability, responsibility and credit will be determined.
They will establish how the ship lost control at this critical and dangerous point but tight navigational conditions, poor chart information and bad weather will almost certainly feature. It will be decided, given those last three, whether or not this task should have been conducted just then at all. Some of my best decisions at sea involved tearing up the programme (which there can be significant pressure to achieve), waiting for the weather to improve, or daylight, and then restarting. Suddenly everything is easier and recovering the rest of your programme is never as hard as you thought it would be.
But these are only the precipitating causes. Accidents of this magnitude are rarely black swan events; there is normally a tail of deeper causes.
For example, navies don’t operate commerciallydesigned ships well. We overcrew them and then overcomplicate the maintenance. We often run them too hard, as if they were built with the resilience of combatant warships. We tend to conduct endless machinery drills, needlessly overstressing the kit, ‘because that’s what we do’. Even combatant warships can be seriously damaged by overenthusiastic drills, for instance ones which involve suddenly cutting off electrical power. Ships are designed to run a certain way and if you exceed or alter that, over time problems mount up. This is what happened to HMS Endurance and I’d be surprised if there weren’t similar factors in play with the Manawanui.
The prevailing leadership and culture onboard will also be examined. Actions post-incident will be dissected and lessons passed on to the rest of the fleet. For Manawanui’s captain, I have no idea how this will play out. Certainly in the
Royal Navy, the line between an OBE and disgrace is a fine one. For the ship’s company, there will likewise be decorations for those who excelled during the incident – there are always a few – and possibly punishment for others. When a ship goes aground, the captain bears ultimate responsibility but the ship’s navigating officer and the officer of the watch at the time also have questions to answer.
Investigations will extend beyond the ship. How hard was she and the rest of the navy being worked in the run-up to this grounding? Both the US Navy and the Royal Navy are seeing an increase in incidents caused by trying to do the same tasks with fewer ships and people. Fatigue is everywhere – both human and material.
Is the New Zealand navy, now reduced to five operational ships, suffering from the same? Is it big enough in the first place? This paper suggested only recently that the answer is ‘no’. In which case, what is the right number of ships for New Zealand and how do they now compensate for the loss of one? All of these will need to be addressed as well what to do with the sunken ship to minimise environmental damage and maybe even salvage her.
Hopefully this gives an idea of what might have happened last weekend whilst highlighting the complexity and risk navies take every day in the interests of defending their respective countries. Those who have leapt to question the competence of the captain, often it seems based on her gender or sexuality, should take a breather.
Personally, I will be raising a glass to 75 sailors who for a few hours, miles from help, would have wondered if they had seen their last sunset – but hadn’t.
Commander Tom Sharpe OBE is a former Royal Navy officer. He captained four different British warships, including HMS Endurance, the navy’s ice patrol ship.
The former HMS Endurance, pictured in 2005. Endurance suffered severe flooding in her engine room in 2008 while under the command of Commander Tom Sharpe RN and was almost lost. Read the story here. Credit: Stephen Lock.
HMNZS Manawanui aground near Samoa. The ship is displaying black ball-diamond-ball signal shapes, indicating a vessel which is Restricted in Ability to Manoeuvre (RAM) Credit: Profile Boats
By Graeme Lunn
The FAAAssociation actively fosters the preservation of the history of aviation within the RAN - that history being proudest at a few inflection points in the years since the Fleet Air Arm’s formation was announced in June 1947. One of those points were the war patrols by Sydney and her CAG over four months during the Korean War. Whilst the offensive air operations launched from that carrier earned our respectful memory, we should also acknowledge the outstanding fortitude shown throughout the entire span of that conflict by 77 Squadron RAAF.
When the North Koreans invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950 77 (Mustang) Squadron was stationed at RAAF Base Iwakuni, a unit of the British Commonwealth Occupying Forces in Japan. Packing to return to Australia the following week, having flown their last flight on 23 June, their weekend of partying was cut short when placed on alert for operations at General MacArthur’s personal request. Also with the BCOF was the frigate Shoalhaven, alongside at HMAS Commonwealth in Kure.
Sunday 2 July 1950 was a momentous one for both the RAN and the RAAF. Shoalhaven, after some confusing orders the previous day, escorted the US Army Transport ammunition ship Sergeant Keathley into Pusan harbour, while 77 Squadron flew their first offensive sorties from Japan escorting B-29 Superfortress bombers.
It almost immediately proved the start of a costly campaign for the aircrew when on 7 July the squadron lost their deputy commander, Squadron Leader Graham
Strout, the first non-American UN serviceman to die in the Korean conflict. On 3 September Flight Sergeant William ‘Bill’ Harrop was shot down and captured by North Korean partisan troops who immediately executed him . Only a week later the Commanding Officer, Wing Commander Lou Spence DFC*, was killed.
Moving to the Korean peninsula itself and operating under a ‘Dropkick’ call-sign the squadron attacked Chinese troops for the first time at the start of November. During their three years of operations 77 Squadron flew out of Taegu, Pohang, Hamhung (in North Korea), Pusan and Kimpo air bases. In 1946 Britain had inexplicably sold Rolls-Royce jet engines to the Soviet Union. Reverseengineered and produced in Russia, RollsRoyski powered the People’s Liberation Army Air Force swept-wing MiG-15s, which operated over the Chinese troops and outclassed the Australian-built Mustangs when encountered south of the Yalu River in MiG Alley.
The squadron was briefly withdrawn to Iwakuni in mid-1951 to re-equip with jets.
Unable to procure the desired F-86 Sabres ninety-three Gloster Meteor Mk.8s and four Mk.7s were purchased by the RAAF, the initial airframes being ferried to Japan by the maintenance carrier Unicorn. Jet conversions were undertaken by four RAF instructors who took the opportunity to fly about 50 Mustang missions each in their ‘spare’ time. Short of trained pilots, the RAAF from late 1951 welcomed six RAF loan pilots at a time to the squadron. One of them later become Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Keith Williamson in 1985.
The first Meteor sorties, two flights of eight patrolling near the Yalu River, were flown on 29 July 1951. Aircrew tours were six months with the attrition rate flying Meteors approximately 30% every six months. Of the initial twenty-two airframes when the squadron re-equipped only three survived to the Armistice. Ground attack was hazardous and most aircraft went down to small arms fire.
These F.8 Meteors were fitted with MartinBaker Mk.1 ejection seats. This was fortunate
A remarkable photograph of a Meteor of No 77 Squadron rocketing a communist HQ building in North Korea, taken by an aircraft of the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing of the USAF ✈
for Warrant Officer Ron Guthrie. On 29 August 1951, having just shot down a MiG he was in turn shot down by another Russian-flown MiG above 36,000 feet. His successful ejection at 28,500 feet, number 6 of 7,727 (to date) by a Martin-Baker seat, was the first in combat.* After a frostbite inducing 28 minute parachute descent Ron exchanged gunfire with enemy soldiers, mortally wounding one of them, before his capture. He remained a POW for the next two years.
Three years of operations and almost 19,000 sorties exacted a loss to be balanced against the thousands of buildings and vehicles destroyed in the interdiction campaign. The squadron also accounted for 98 railway engines and carriages, 16 bridges and claimed five MiG-15s. By the 27 July 1953 armistice forty-one pilots had been killedthirty-five RAAF and six RAF - with seven surviving being shot down to become POWs. Fifty-four of the squadron’s Meteors were
lost. The surviving air frames were ferried to Australia with 145 RAAF officers and men on Vengeance in November 1954.
The Department of Veteran Affairs nominal role for the Korean War lists 5,700 RAN personnel from nine ships that saw active service. This includes the one wounded and three Fleet Air Arm pilots lost from theSydney CAG. Also listed are 10,800 army and 1,400 air force names.
We Shall Remember Them! ✈
* On 24 July 2024, an Italian Air Force Typhoon crashed during Exercise Pitch Black in the Northern Territory. The pilot successfully ejected in his Mk.16A seat making it Martin-Baker’s ejection number 7,727.✈ Above. Warrant Officer Ron Guthrie in his Meteor.✈
Above. Meteor in a dogfight over Korea, by artist Drew Harrison. Drew more recently painted the cover to Graeme Lunn’s book on VAT Smith. You can see a good selection of his aviation paintings here ✈
The UNASSUMING hero
The Story of Flight
Sub-Lieutenant Harold Brearley.
By Marcus Peake
Flight Sub-Lieutenant Harold Beardsell Brearley was just 20 years old when he died. He was a young pilot of slender experience, perhaps with just a few score of flying hours in his flying log, and his death was one of many caused by the aircraft type he was flying that day.
After he died his name was recorded in the various lists of those days. Long lists, published in the daily papers of a nation almost inured to human loss in the carnage of the Great War, or etched upon the monoliths erected in every town and village across the country. Lists that were almost brutal in their brevity: “H.B. Brearley FLTSub-Lieutenant, Royal Naval Air Service 30-1-1918.” Slender details as dry as the dust that fills their graves, telling nothing of the passion and vigour of the young men who once dreamed and hoped of a brighter future.
More than one hundred years have come and gone since then, and details of Harold’s early life are scant. We know he was born in St Helens, Lancashire in October of 1887, and his family was buoyed by the Industrial Revolution that had brought prosperity to the town.
His father, Fredrick Thomas Brearley, was a consulting engineer who had several patents registered, including in improvements to the manufacture of glass. In those days St. Helens featured a flourishing fine glass industry employing 30,000 workers, as well as coal,
copper refining and brewing industries, so it was rich pickings for a smart engineer. In any event, the family was obviously well-to-do as they had a live-in servant.
Young Harold Brearley received a good education, attending the Grammar school at nearby Lymm before following in his father’s footsteps to read Engineering at Liverpool University, some 15 miles to the west. By 1916 his family had moved to the larger town of Stockport, however, and on the 29th of October of that year, 19 year-old Harold cut short his studies to join the Naval Air Service.
We do not know why he chose this Arm of the Service. Clearly he was keen to fly, and the BritishArmy’s Royal Flying Corps could have been an alternative. Perhaps, having heard tales of the carnage of the Western Front, he was anxious to avoid khaki; or perhaps it was because the RNAS was bigger and more influential than the RFC at that time. In any event, he was bundled off to HMS Victory VI, the Royal Naval Depot in south London, known as “The Glass Dreadnaught” because it was in the famous old Crystal Palace building. His personal record notes his rank as Probationary Flight Officer, with the Personal Identity Certificate (Official Number) PI38469.
He was only at Crystal Palace for two months but during that time would have learned basic drill and attended lectures on the structure and way of life of the
Left. A magazine of the time showing the old Crystal Palace
over
during the
image, learning aspects of engineering. He was then posted to Chingford (lower) to undertake his basic flying training in the early machines of the time. ✈
Navy. It would have been a strange transition for a young man who had not often ventured more than a score of miles from home, but he marched out on 2nd December 1916 without any notable difficulties, and was posted to Chingford to start his flying training.
Basic Flying Training
Chingford, on the outskirts of London, was by then the home of the Naval Flying School. It was an illconsidered location for an airfield, as it was built on a marsh susceptible to flooding and fog. It was also next to a reservoir which all too often became the final resting place of the fragile aircraft of the time.
As a pilot in the same year time wrote:
“...Chingford was rather a curious aerodrome because it had a lot of streams running across it which you had to cross on wide wooden boards, [like] bridges. I was told I could take up a Maurice Farman. No sooner had I got in the air than another storm sprang up. When I turned round, I was blown at enormous speed to the other side of the aerodrome, right over what was King George the Fifth’s Reservoir. I had awful difficulty getting down; I had to land with full engine, and I was worried the whole time that I should eventually descend into the reservoir.”
Six months later Brearley was briefly posted to Cranwell, another RNAS Flying School, although there is nothing in his record to suggest why. Perhaps it was to convert onto a different aircraft type. In any event, he did well, graduating in July of 1917 with his record notated: “V.G. Pilot indeed. VG and keen officer” and “Recommended for Special Service.” It further notes he had just over 32 flying hours achieved.
Calshot
Unusually, the posting unit took heed of that recommendation as Brearley was sent to Calshot Naval Air Station with effect from 23 September 1917.
Although owned by the Royal NavalAir Service as a flying base, Calshot had no runway; rather, the facility was tucked snugly under the arm of the Spit that jutted into Southampton Water, under the meagre shadow of Calshot castle built by King Henry VIII nearly 400 years earlier. The base was primarily a testing and training establishment for seaplanes, although routine patrols flew from its sheltered waters to protect shipping off the southern coast of England.
It was a busy time for the Air Station - no fewer than 270 trainee pilots passed through the school in 1917but for all that Brearley didn’t fly much as his record shows only sixteen hours in the three months he was there.
To the Fleet
In early October of 1917 Brearley received his posting orders to HMS Pegasus. It was a logical move - Pegasus was the Royal Navy’s brand new aircraft/seaplane carrier attached to the Grand Fleet, which at that time was based at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The Navy had recognised air power to be a desirable element of force structure, but was struggling to make it work. Ships like HMS Furious had been modified to carry aircraft, but they were few in number and still very much experimental.
Operational At Last
We can only guess that Harold Brearley was able to take a few days of leave with his family on the long
building, which trained
120,000 naval personnel
war years. Brearley would have attended classes like that shown in the middle
Calshot NavalAir Station circa 1917. Located at the end of a spit of land extending into Southampton waters, it was ideally suited for its task as a seaplane flying and experimental base. A number of float planes can be seen moored immediately to the north of the base, which comprised mostly hangarage and technical workshops. One aircraft is about to enter the hangar centre left, and another is moored just to the south. Calshot Castle, an artillery fort built by King Henry VIII in 1540, is the round building on the RHS. ✈
journey north to his new ship, as his home was on the way. One can imagine their pride in him, resplendent in his Naval uniform and bearing the wings of his flying brevet. It was the third year of the Great War and young men were still dying in their thousands, so those few days would have been infinitely precious to the family.
As he boarded his train in Manchester he would have given his mother Eveline a hug - she filled with dread at the thought of her only son going to war, and he suffused with a sense of keen excitement. His long months of training were over, and there was important work to be done. Neither of them could have known they would never see each other again.
Shipborne Operations
Although Naval Aviation was relatively new, its potential was very much recognised. Warships were prone to attack by German aircraft or airships, and a means to counter them was important. So too was the need for intelligence: effective shipborne radar was more than 20 years away and a pair of eyes on the horizon was vital.
For launching aircraft, early aircraft carriers were built featuring a flight deck forward of the superstructure. HMS Furious, for example, was commissioned in mid 1917 and could carry up to ten aircraft which were lifted by crane from her hangar onto the flight deck. An attempt to land back aboard ended in tragedy, however, when Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning was killed on his third attempt. A plaque in the church in which he is buried reads:
“This window and that opposite are to the Glory of God and in memory of Squadron Commander Edwin Harris Dunning DSC RN. He was the first officer to land an Aeroplane successfully on the deck of a ship under way Aug 2nd 1917. Subsequently killed August 7th 1917.”
And then, in somewhat flowery language: ‘He loved chyvalrye Truth and honour fredom and curtesie He was a verray perfight gentil knight.”
Dunning’s accident set back any further attempts to land an aircraft directly onto a ship, and the practice of either diverting to a suitable airfield or ditching into the sea remained the only viable options.
But carriers were few and far between, and a way to launch aircraft directly from the decks of cruisers and battleships was needed. Recovering them once they were airborne was another problem altogether.
Flying Trials
Although posted to Pegasus, from 6th December 1917 Brearley was loaned to HMS Dublin and HMAS Sydney, both of which were attached to the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet.
Sydney was under the command of Captain John Dumaresq RN, an Australian born officer of great foresight. He was firmly of the belief that organic air power was an essential part of the Force Structure. He reasoned that reliance on shore-based aircraft was not an option, due to their limited range and long reaction time; rather, there was a requirement to launch directly from a ship in a way that was safe, and did not in any way impede its fighting capability.
Dumeresq had fought at the battle of Jutland and there conceived an idea of how to achieve this: and now he had a light cruiser at his disposal he wasted no time in trying out his theory. His idea was to mount a wooden platform over the main turret.
Sydney was in refit in Chatham dockyard until 16th December, but an order for the work was expedited and she emerged with a platform built to the required specification. It only had a useable length of just over 22 feet, but that was adequate given the relative wind the ship’s motion would generate.
The Problems of Shipborne Aviation
Top: Naval strategists recognised the value of being able to launch aircraft whilst underway, but the means to do so was elusive. Trials were conducted to tow a barge behind a ship, from which an aircraft could launch if the forward speed was sufficient - but the danger of waves and broaching was real and it was a highly restrictive evolution for a warship to perform. (IWM)
Lower: The problem of recovering aircraft was just as vexing. Edwin Dunning’s death after a few attempts at landing aboard HMS Furious resulted in the startling statistic that pilots’life expectancy for such operations would be ‘about ten hours.’
The only practical means to land was therefore either find a suitable airfield ashore, or to ditch in the sea in the hope the pilot could be rescued. In today’s safety-conscious culture that seems an odd concept, but it was an accepted risk in the early days. (Images IWM).
Next page top. Larger capital ships lead the charge in launching experiments, with their longer platforms mounted over a gun turret. The first launch was in June 1917 when Squadron Commander Rutland RNAS flew off HMS Yarmouth. By October 1917 launches were performed with the turrets trained into wind, such as the off HMS Repulse with the gun ranged 45° to starboard.
Next page bottom. The light cruisers employed a different philosophy with their platform, designed by Captain Dumaresq, mounted just forward of the Bridge and above and behind the turret. The platform rotated independently of the gun, giving greater freedom of movement and not restricting the operation of the weapon. Harold Brearley was key to the trails of this platform, making his first flight from HMAS Sydney in December of 1917.✈
The capability was demonstrated for the first time on 8 December 1917 by Brearley and tested again on 17 December (see Brearley’s report on the next page) with such success that Admiral Beatty directed all light cruisers, except those carrying kite balloons, be fitted with decks of similar design. But fate was about to intervene, as from early 1918 the more powerful Sopwith 2.F.1 Camel replaced the Pup as the Grand Fleet’s front-line fighter, and Brearley was sent to learn how to fly the new aircraft.
The Camel - Pilot Killer
Up to then fighter aircraft had been relatively docile to fly, but Sopwith wanted to make their new design highly agile and manoeuvrable. They did so by concentrating all its weight towards the nose – the engine, guns, ammunition, fuel, landing gear, pilot, and controls were all placed within the first seven feet of the fuselage. This arrangement, combined with a powerful Clerget 9-cylinder rotary engine of 130 horsepower and a short, close-coupled fuselage (i.e. a design where the wings and empennage are placed close together), gave the Camel some alarming handling quirks.
Firstly, its forward centre of gravity meant that the aircraft was so tail-heavy that it could not be trimmed for level flight at most altitudes. It needed constant forward pressure on the stick to maintain level flight. The engine had a tendency to choke and stop if the mixture was not set correctly and if this happened, the tail-heaviness could catch out unwary pilots and lead to a stall and a spin. The effect of the torque of the engine on the short fuselage and forward centre of gravity made spinning sudden, vicious, and potentially lethal at low altitude.
The engine torque and forward centre of gravity also meant that the aircraft tended to climb when rolled left and to descend in a right-hand roll. It needed constant left rudder input to counteract the engine torque to maintain level flight.
The torque effect of the engine also meant that the aircraft rolled much more readily to the right than the left and this could lead to a spin. Many novice Camel pilots were killed when they turned right soon after take-off, which, with no altitude to recover, was usually a fatal affair.
This instability provided unmatched manoeuvrability for those who mastered it, but for new pilots, who did not have the benefit of dual cockpit instruction (Sopwith introduced a trainer a few months later to try and address the problem), it made the Camel a daunting prospect for new pilots.
Harold Brearley became one of its victims on 30 January 1918
when, during his conversion to the Camel, he spun into the ground while detached ashore at East Fortune airfield.
The Stockport Advertiser reported that “On the day of the accident, he was trying a powerful machine and, having accomplished a successful flight, was descending when the machine crashed to the ground. Sub-Lieutenant Brearley receiving such injuries that he died a few hours later.”
Following his death at Granton Hospital, Edinburgh he was interred in Edinburgh (Seafield) Cemetery, Screen Wall M, 90. There appears to also be a memorial to Brearley in Douglas Cemetery, Isle of Man, most probably at the grave of his grandfather.
The Legacy
Research reveals a single but authoritative report that Harold Brearley was married at the time of his death, but exhaustive searches have so far failed to find any record of the marriage or of his bride. Assuming it is correct the young woman’s name and what became of her is lost to history. She would have been like thousands of others of that time - widowed early with her life still ahead of her. If she was fortunate she may have found another love, but we will probably never know. There is no record of any children.
What we do know a little of was the fate of father, Fredrick Brearley, who lived through the devastation of another world war before dying in 1947 aged 78. Harold’s only sibling - sister Eveline who was three years younger than him - remained unmarried for her whole life, as was the lot of many young women in a country impoverished by the lack of marriageable men after the slaughter of the Great War. She became a Pharmacist and died in March of 1986 (aged 86) in Banbury, Oxfordshire.
It is easy to look back in history through the lens of today’s technology and to be dismissive of the
A crashed Sopwith Camel. Although it is not an image of Brearley’s aircraft, it illustrates one of the many training accidents that were credited with killing more allied pilots than German ones.✈
Left. A transcript of part of Brearley’s report to Captain Dumeresq, his Commanding Officer of the time. There is a mistake in the spelling of his surname at the signature block, as well as an incorrect first initial: possibly an error by a clerk typist.
Below. The practise of dispatching aircraft from flying-off platforms continued well after WW1 as illustrated here by the image of a Fairey Flycatcher launching from the battleship Ramillies, circa 1925. The platforms were gradually replaced by rotating catapults a year or two later. (Warship Drama). ✈
Seven
years of at your fingertips
Concorde
Read the story of Graeme Lunn’s flight in the iconic supersonic airliner, and of the British Airways culture that consumed those who crewed it. Page 18 of July 2022.
Over the past seven years, FlyBy has brought you scores of stories to capture just about every interest. In this our last edition, we remind you a few random ones, and how to access all of the others.
The 1st Hunter Killer
75 years before Germany’s U-Boats almost brought Britain to her knees, a Confederate undersea craft became the first submarine to sink a Federal vessel - but she killed far more of her own side than of the enemy.
Read the extraordinary story on p8 of the Oct21 edition.
AIR-MINDED CLASS
Of the 13 graduates of the RANC year of ‘41, no less than 10 volunteered for the FAA.
Sea Venom Memories
There were lots of stories about flying our iconic aircraft, like this one from Clive Blennerhassett. Check it out on page 36 of the May 23 edition.
The mightyAn-225 Myira or “Dream” broke just about every record for heavy lifting. It died in February 2022 when the Russians blew it up. Will it ever fly again? See page 45 of Dec 23’s edition.
The Last Days of the Tirpitz
T Rock
FlyBy featured a whole bunch of stories about the Editor’s days working with the National Safety Council of Australia, including this one when he was called on to demolish an old lighthouse with the help of an unpredictable bomber.
Read what happened when the fuse was lit on p5 of the Feb 22 edition.
Read the story of Graeme Lunn’s flight in the iconic supersonic airliner, and of the British Airways culture that consumed those who crewed it. Page 18 of July 2022.
A meat pie, unqualified copilot and a moment of inattention are a recipe for disaster. See p.18 of the Aug23 edition.
A Sound For God To Make
75 years before Germany’s U-Boats almost brought Britain to her knees, a Confederate undersea craft became the first submarine to sink a Federal vesselbut she killed far more of her own side than of the
Afire aboard a ship carrying 3200 tons of high explosive in a city port? What could go wrong? Read about the biggest peacetime explosion in history on p28 of Nov 23’s edition.
Read the extraordinary story on p8 of the Oct21 edition.
See page 5 for details, or contact the Editor here.
