1953-02-07 — Page 11

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7; 1953.

Beginning a life story as exciting as it is true

REAL LIFE

FELL'S

WAS determined to fly the Valiant, Britain's first four-jet atom bomber. I'd watched her growing from a tangle of lines and figures and formulae on the drawing-board, through the workshops, into the great, silver-lethal beauty waiting to leave the ground, I was determined it was I who would test her.

As Vickers chief test pilot for 22 years I had tested most of their important planes, This job wasn't going to slip through my fingers.

But I worried a bit. I was 47; the news- papers_ball_started calling me the "Grand- father Test Pilot"; and my eyes were beginning to show signs of wear.

My sight at long range was still perfect. But

I needed spectacles to read some of the Instru- ments which had to be watched, and I couldn't fly this great four Jet-engined super bomber close up to the sound barrier with pinco-noz on my

noso..

I

THE TRICKY. TIME

WENT into training. That meant not much drinking-not so much, at any rate early hed, and plenty of golf. And I quietly got the chops

in the

the workshops to print up the letters on those thstruments an inch high,

The

day came.

"I waited about while the mechanics crawled over her. This is the tricky time for a pilot. with A

Amachine

has not yet been up,

that

Sometimes weather, hotts you up. Then the suspense goes on for days, This time it was only

hours.

I spent most of the ime driving golf

a relaxing when

belts across the field. I

nerves are keyed up. I think all scared before a first flight.

your

pilots are a bit

I certainly was.

I took the Vallant upstairs at six o'clock that summer evening. As usual, every man at Vic- kers, from lop executivo to the youngest work- shop, mechanic who had helped bring her into being, was out there watching, George Edwards, her designer, like, all good designers, was trying hard to look supremely confident.

ANGEL

by 'MUTT' SUMMERS

Seven minutes later he look worki war; days when 100 miles ed relieved. The Valtant hal

daredevil was still a behaved beautifully. I told

un hour

22 years Chief Test Pilot at Vickers

As told to DEREK MONSEY

Another record in the bag Summers is greeted by his wife and daughter at

him co. He'd given Britain asped, Not two years later heit" plane she badly needs. And we left 20 Squadron, volunteering London Airport after Rving from London to Paris and ba

in 70 minutes in the first all-jet Vickers Pliking.

54TH

A GOOD platfest

2

good drink. Its test pilot needs it,

The Valiont

was the 54th first flight I had logged. years to the day after my first, It was my last.

25

03

new

riding a new horse: feeling its mouth, finding how it moves.

The Bulldog felt fine. I took her up, easily, to about 12,000 ft. and then put her into a spin.

That is often the crucial moment for a

It was

nearer

and

335

fact, their only test pilot for which we had not used, I'd .both the olg Vickers-Armstrongs get the speed up from

Vickers Supermarine m.ph. to 350. I got it to 349.9. Where the went to I'll never the know.

works).

Vickers gave me excitement

I

wanted. Brund When the Air Ministry boys new planes, prototypes, straight had first asked for a Aghter of the stocks-fighters, and given us all the specifica- bombers, trainers, sea-planes, on-one we built and scrap-

the lot.

I used to look forward to them. Each one had always something different, a Dow challenge. But with

respect..

No one can ever be complete- ly sure if a new plane will y at all, and my job was to find out just that, Arst, and then go on to discover exactly what and how much it would do in any given circumstances,

ped as useless-they had asked for a top speed of just over 200 miles an hour..

FRIENDLY

NLY a few weeks

after I

nd taken the Spit up I went over to Germany with Jimmy Doolittle, who later led the Yanks over Tokyo. I had an Invitation to visit General Udels, whom Doolittle knew, at the Luftwaffe headquarters.

ruppose the most famous— probably immortal planes 1 tested in that strangely sinister pre-war decade were the Wel- One morning walked Into lesley Bomber, which captured the impressive hall of the Ber the world long-distance record; lin Air Ministry The head the old Walrus spolierrecce, porter came up to me imme beloved by the RAF for its air- dintely and said, in Englis! sen rescue work during

the "You are Captain Summera. We war; the Wellington, backbone are expecting you. of Bomber Command through the early war years, and the. Spitfire, which certainly saved London, if not Britain, in 1040.

A

LIKE A DREAM

ND I would like to say this. Every single one of these planes was produced by Vic- kers in spite of ignorance, pre- judice, and shortsightedness at the Air Ministry during those fatal years.

The Wellesley was turned

Udets spoke good American. He was very friendly, Wo chatted, he very genial, setting the atmosphere. Then he rang a bell, and a very

attractivo Secretar Becretary came In: "Good morning, Captain Summers."

Udels said: "Please

ask Colonel Junk to come un-oh, and to bring our fle the Spitare."

Udots smiled at me. "It is a very good machine. Very good." They went over all the details for me. They had them all. Weight, speed, armament. The

on

down by the Ministry and pro- colonel smiled a sad smile. "It duced by us as a private ven-

ใบ

The Wellington Wo built bore no relation to the Minis- try's detailed specification, be- cause we: felt that specification was entirely wrong.

beautiful fighter," he said. "Poor Captain Summers. You have only one."

I tried to smile back.

It was almost anticlimax to Goering's office

be led into after that.

.

The

The Walrus was a complete- ly private venture.

Reichsmarshal, vast, pasty faced. And the Spitfire, the glorious from scross his desk. His llan beamed at rac Spit, we built with the help of Rolls-Royce, for

cub growled in corner. We small Minis- had not much to say. He had try contribution to its cost, on stage-managed my discomfiture, Air Ministry official was allow- the "absolute ́ condition that no and that was good. ed to interfere with it.

de w

It could have been something of this kind that killed poor John Derry when his Havilland 110 disintegrated at Farnborough last year. Troubles like that have a dirty habit of recurring through the years.

NO FLUTTER

Nothing went wrong with the Spit.

Mitchell designed her inside six almost sleepless workshop and the

JUST ONE

however.

all trooped off to the local the RAF Experimental Station at a "replacement" for testing af designer, Atters.

dectricians. Martlesham. Known as suicide draughtsmen as we do after

work], every first flight to celebrate,

When I made up my mind AND LAST to be a test pilot I suppose I was just out for excitement. I wanted something out of rou- line. But at Martlesham I learnetl what the job is really

for this one. Nothing I could about.

fool can take a proto- do would bring her out of it. Алу

Eight thousand feet completed

IA type up, the only

breed, and, the ground.

had had enough

months, NAZI pride and showmanship

went further, machine of a If something goes wrong, wreck crawled out, a bit forward, WELL, the Gamecock killed

people, They, let me take up their the thing and kill himself. That on to the wing-and, of course, three men. I offered to working flat out produced the Dornier bomber, the Henschel doesn't help anyone.

at that moment she began to take up the fourth fitted out prototype in another six. Best dive-bomber, and even their behave. I still had a foot with weird instruments design- speed I have ever heard of. dangling in the cockpit, so

Messerschmitt fighter, the 109. Early on I et to measure the flutter

to en I begged Mitch

So I had plenty to say to used crawled inside again, and land- make

it to kick the stick back, locate the fault. My job was to cover her in as I was getting

the Air

Air Ministry In London old, and I'd begin to feel the when I got back, Some of it the thing dutter

dc- ed ns quickly as I decently liberately, and then stop it

cold

upstairs. Hundreda

of helpful. could.

bring the plane down intact, ghter pilots ought to be grate- We all guessed what was One does not have time to And for some reason it couldn't ful

Forspex casing. Spit. It was better than Mes- moment something goes wrong.

She dev

Gew like. dream, fratserschmitt's-nighter, but still, One is too busy trying to put

time

You could do almost they had-hundreds of 100'e, up. it right, or get out.

anything with

with her

and we had just that one Spit Mitch, who could only just fre. It fultered all right. Coming fly a slow trainer, fussed about That was 1936. out of a dive at 1,500 ft., the like a hen when I came down. I told him it was a good· nero- hants so violently it

A few weeks later 1 drove home and told Dulcio, my wife, that he could stop worry- A test pilot is only as good ing for ever. I'd given it up. as his ability to find out tho it I was going to die a sud- faults and come back with his ven death now it would be a plane and himself intact, able prosate

one,

without glory. to tell the story and tell it ac- Crossing Piccadilly, or getting curately.

drowned in a barrel of beer.

I have bought a

a big house

here in Weybridge where

Wo

have lived since I

I joined Vic-

kors 23 years

ago. The works

200 TYPES

HAT was why I always in-.

I

and

and

ho did as

be properly frightened at the be made to flutter at high al- her in withed, and shut coming. I was glad we had the i

But once back on the ground, are just the other side of thesisted on watching a plano

one feels it. And I felt very from the drawing-board stage scared indeed. right through the workshops. I

to

titudes where. I could bale-out and come home alive in brolly.

the

ripped

along.

that

hill, and the planes throb and screech overhead all day long.

But I had found the trouble, stick was whipped out of plane, and to leave it have furned

architect, wanted to know what it was Moving my weight forward had the skin off my agers. I wrap But I bet him Ave bob builder, and gardener. I about, and understand how any done the trick. It was a sim- Splitting the house into three,

new features wo

worket, before I ple job for the workshops to pud my arms ound it and with the alternative prop, and selling two of them. And climbed in.

shift the centre of gravity A

heaved whenever I begin

with everything I'd feel like In three years at Martlesham bit, and make the

We came out of that dive-the driving down to Vickers and I flew about 200 different types a great little fighter and safe. Gamecock with reluctance and

Bulldog into picking up a plane, I have u of

Two of plane,

them, at chat with the plumber instead. least, I will never forget,

The Gloster Gamecock was me with relier and a prayer-

and

janded the other. That

with Summers joined the RAF in

at one

ail gave un

the One was the Bristol Bulldog, 1924.

He was flying solo

The Gamecock's evidence the designers needed, A time qulic

They put a simple balancing wing-Butter-some- tween-wars fighter biplane the thing like wheel-wobble an

device into the Gamecock, and instruction, It may not be RAF had. I took it up for cor. The machine gels into a

she politely stopped being record, but, it is not far short, testing.

ahudder at coriain speeds, the killer. Those were the days of Bristol 9A's, and Sopwith Snipes, and plane,

One takes it easy in a new vibration eventually rips of [1929 Mutt Summers left the

feeling one's Avay, the wings, and the whole thing RAF planes left over from the first

and Joined the Vickers as it were. It is rather like disintegrates.

Calet Test Pilot-In

in three

weeks, after six hours' "dua" probably the most famous bo- trouble was

group ng

4

NEXT WEEK Secrets of the air war

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