Hilary’s WHAT?, Beermat

I believe several station commanders had the bright idea of using a jet engine, in various ways. Only snag. It doesn’t do the job. The physicists among us should be able to work out the necessary heat required to turn snow into water and steam.

Re clearing snow from runways. In the ’50’s there was great competition among station commanders to keep the runway open come what may. One ’50’s winter at Wattisham there was a decent snowfall. Efforts were made to clear the runway with snowploughs mounted on bowsers, and flying commenced. One of our bright lads did a complete 360 on landing and luckily stayed on the runway, another swung off and sank to its belly in the lovely clay found in that benighted part of Suffolk, so flying was suspended. The runway had got a layer of compacted snow and the groupie decide that a layer of large gravel spread on the snow would be just the job, so the local gravel companies sold him a couple of hundred tons and spread it on the runway.
Lovely, flying recommenced, but that afternoon came a partial thaw and the gravel sunk into the snow. That night it all froze solid, result, no flying.

Every other airfield was open and our man was beside himself. All the aircrew were issued with shovels and carted out onto the runway with orders to dig it out !!!

There was much grumbling and larking about as you may imagine, and the enterprise had to be abandoned at tea break, with a few square yards of runway exposed and the prospect of several weeks more digging. remember the service saying “You shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke”

Certainly one of the best 1940 programmes to come on the box. Pity it was only half an hour.

Sorry David, my memory is not what it was, because I don’t remember your fathers death. The occasion when 3 aircraft got bogged that I recalled, must have happened on a different occasion, possibly later in the year.

Regarding your fathers accident, I quote from the invaluable “To Fly no More” by Colin Cummings:–
“The aircraft overshot from a GCA and began a visual circuit before landing on the runway. The pilot then called ‘overshooting’ and took off again before commencing a turn to port at low level. The aircraft descended and struck the ground, the port wing broke off and the aircraft went through a hedge, into a small wood and caught fire”

Both crew are listed as being killed, so anything I presume is supposition. A GCA is a Ground Controlled Approach, in which the pilot is talked down by a ground controller with a radar, set up on the airfield. This is to bring the pilot to a position such that he is at the correct height, speed, and direction so that he can get a good visual on the runway, and perform a satisfactory landing.

I do not know how much experience the pilot had, but would guess not too much. It was a common error that pilots would be too nervous to reduce speed sufficiently, and were also a bit high, to make a good landing, and so the overshoot procedure would be initiated as described. If the weather was poor it was essential to do a very disciplined “bad weather circuit”, in order to regain the runway and land successfully. To then overshoot from this shows that the pilot was in some difficulty. Any panic under these circumstances could result in the accident described.

As an aside I well remember flying with an inexperienced pilot under these circumstances and have to talk him very firmly, and as calmly as possible, round a bad wether circuit. This luckily resulted in a successful landing, even though it needed nearly all the 2000 yards available. Bad weather with minimum visibilty and low cloud base was not recommended for the faint hearted.

David- Yes I was at Strad in August ’56 and remember the incident. In fact the runway had to be closed for a while, and we were on Exercise Ciano at the time.
Strad is in High Suffolk which is renowned for heavy clay, a Venom had swung off the runway, and got bogged down and was not recovered due to pressure of the exercise. then one of our Meteor NF swung off on the other side with a similar result, but the flying programme continued. Then, during night flying, another Venom overshot and bogged down in the overshoot, so flying had to be abandoned for the night.
I remember flying over the next day and seeing the aircraft scattered over the airfield like a warzone. Very funny.

Now I know why I should have taken a bog roll along when my pilot mentioned aerobatics

Thanks for linking us to that site.
They are doing a superb job, and the photos are very informative. I never knew how complex the Mossie was, used to sit there thinking of one of my uncles who was a carpenter, and had worked on repairs to them at Little Rissington.
Knowing his toolkit of saws, hammers,screwdrivers, etc, I thought they were nailed and glued like any old cupboard.