First Flight

Mine was in a Tiger Moth, G-ADIH, from Staverton some tiime in 1946. This was with the Gloster Flying Club and the hourly rate was £1.10s or £1.50 in today’s money. We flew off the small triangle in the centre of the airfield. My next flight was my first instructional flight and was in Magister G-AJDR which I think is still in the Shuttleworth Collection. There was some confusion at a letr date regarding its pedigree as, like the axe of George Washington, it has had several changes of major components.

Merlins

Sorry but we arrive back from Portugal that afternoon. I’d love to be there. Best wishes anyway. By the way, do you still have G-AJDR there? I had my first instructional flight in it back in 1947.

Folland

I remember as a lad always riding on the top deck of the bus from Gloucester to Cheltenham as I could see over the hedge at Staverton as we went past the Rotol flight shed. Apart from the Folland I remember seeing a Baker Martin MB5, Wellington Mark 6(?) – the pressurised version, and the Westland Welkin. There was a large dispersal area on the south side full of Typhoons that were waiting for delivery from Glosters and there was also a rank of Albemarles also awaiting delivery.

Peter Thomas

One of the titles that Peter used in connection was DFCDFM, which stood for Desmond and Forces of the Commonwealth Distiguished Flyinng Museum. He , I beleive, intended that Slyfame should be a living memorial to his brother, Desmond, who lost his life flying Wellingtons out of Malta.
I have an musing story regardin Peter, and I a sure he would not object to my telling it. We were doing a display as part of an Air Day at Filton and Peter said he would come with me and wind the gear up and down as it was manually operated. To cut a long story short, we were just required to take off, do a flaypast and then land back on. All went reasonably well until the time came to lower the gear on the down-wind leg. Peter wound like mad until he was almost exhausted, but there was no cockpit indication of gear down and locked, so I told him to keep winding. Turning base it became evident that not only did we have a problem with the gear but the radio had failed as well. One more attempt by Peter still got no indication so, deciding that it would be less spectacular to do a wheels-up back at Staverton we flew past the tower rocking our wings and set course for home. Halfway back Peter realised he had been winding the handle the wrong way.

Peter Thomas

Like so many others I am very sorry to read of Peter’s death. I got involved with Skyfame after leaving the RAF in early 1962 and I followed John Schooling as the demonstration plot on the Anson. I also converted to the Oxford just before it was grounded for glue deterioration. I always found Peter a real gentleman to deal with and I was very sorry for him when rising costs forced him to close Skyfame. I still have a letter written by him when I wrote to congrtulate him on his MBE(?) which was for his wildlife preservation work in Scotland. My very sincere condolences to his wife Gwladys and his family.

I,ve been thinking about the question a bit more. There is about a thirty degree difference between the surface wind and that at 2000 feet, so with a surface wind of 180/15 it is quite probable that the wind at 2000 feetwould be 210/25-30. This would give you a tail-wind component for an approach on 09 which would , of course give you a relatively high ground-speed and hence a steeper approach than normal. You then enter an area of wind shear and find that your airspeed decreases and rate of descent increases which, in turn, needs a quick power response. I hope this makes sense!

It looks to me like a typical wind shear siuation, although the steep approach doesn’t seem to fit in with the surface wind direction.

Jersey Rally

Please give my best wishes to John Such. I was a participant in the first Jersey Rally back in 1954 in a non-radio Miles Messenger and in 1971 I became CFI there for Eighteen months. Unfortunately I have been grounded medically, but I have some fond memories of botrh the first rally and the 172 one.