Forgotten pilots or flights...

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TheGreenGoblin
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Forgotten pilots or flights...

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:04 pm

A flight in the trail of Bert Hinkler that ended in tragic circumstances.

Early 1930: It had been a depressing English winter – cold, dark and wet for weeks on end. In West Wickham, a young man who had left Australia five years earlier and settled here in the hope of marketing a compound he’d invented to make tyres puncture-proof, was feeling homesick.

That young man was Eric Hook, 27 years-old, living in a newly-built semi in a quiet road off West Wickham High Street with his wife Dorothy – an Anglo-American from Barbados who’d run away from school at the age of 16 to marry him – and their two small daughters, aged four and 2½. ... <<read on in the link>>
An early airman's tragic adventure...

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Forgotten pilots or flights... Captain Richard Ogg

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Feb 25, 2021 5:42 am

Half a century before Sully Sullenberger...

Boeing 377 Stratocruiser
The Flight 6 relief crew, like many Pan Am StratoClipper crews, was the best of the best—Captain, First and Second Officers, Engineer, Purser and two Stewardesses—and all experienced and highly-trained and aware of their primary duties—the safety and the comfort of the passengers in their charge. The crew’s Captain was 43-year-old Richard N. Ogg of Saratoga, New York, a Pan American World Airways company man if there ever was one. Ogg, a pilot for 20 years, had been employed by Pan Am for 15 years, flying for the airline during the Second World War. He had accumulated over 13,000 flying hours in that time and was considered a very capable and calm aircraft Captain. He had 738 hours on Boeing 377s and had recently completed a ditching emergency procedures course.

His First Officer was 40-year-old George L. Haaker, a Pan Am employee since 1946 with 7,500 flying hours, almost half of them in Boeing 377s. He too had just completed a course on ditching. The Flight Engineer was Frank Garcia Jr, a 30-year-old in his third year with Pan Am with 1,738 flying hours, all on the Boeing 377. The Navigator was always a pilot working his way up to the left seat and sometimes called the Second Officer. In this crew he was Richard L. Brown, a 31-year-old working for Pan Am for less than a year. He qualified on Stratocruisers just eight months previously and had 1,283 flying hours with 466 hours on type.
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Potential result of a prop overspeed...
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#3 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Thu Feb 25, 2021 10:08 pm

Half a century before Sully Sullenberger...
Excellent. As a one-time Stratocruiser crew member, i.e. trainee Navigator I re-lived every word of that story, which of course I knew about, tho' I'd never seen this definitive account. I have myself routinely talked to Ocean Station November many times on West Coast to Honolulu trips, tho' by that time whilst navigating the 707's of the era.

I've always been of the opinion that the fuselage remained afloat and eventually had to be sunk by gunfire, as it was considered a hazard to navigation. Clearly wrong, so no idea where that came from. Perhaps just a good bar room tale ?

Stratocruiser runaway props ? One BOAC crew experienced a runaway, as described, to the prop on number 4 engine, the stbd. outer. The relief Flt. Eng. - we often carried two F/Eng's - went into the Navigators area behind the main flight deck, where a window gave a clear view of the engines, and being night used the Aldis signalling lamp that the Strat. fleet still carried to see what was happening. When the prop. shaft, which was slowly starting to glow red from the heat being generated, began to get really hot, and in the F/Eng's opinion about to part company, he yelled to the Capt. who applied a quick full left aileron and back to level flight, and successfully lobbed the departing prop. safely over the fuselage. Clever - and lucky?

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Ed Musick 1894-1938

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:57 am

Another tale of a pilot from the early stable of pilots that flew for Juan Trippe.
One of America's most beloved early commercial pilots, Ed Musick was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894 and moved to California with his family when he was 9 years old. His lifelong obsession with planes and flying began with a trip to the Dominguez air races during his second year of high school. At age 19, before finishing school, he enrolled in a commercial flying course to become an aviation instructor and pilot. During World War I, Musick served as a civlian instructor in the Army Air Corps in San Diego, Wichita Falls and Miami. After the war, he worked as a pilot for various airlines until his appointment to the position of chief pilot for Juan Trippe's Pan American Airways Caribbean division.

Musick was licensed to fly any type of plane, and he was given every opportunity to prove this in his position as Pan American's premier pilot. During his work for the airline, Musick set ten world records including making the inaugural flight to the Pacific aboard the China Clipper flying boat. The China Clipper's momentous flight cemented Musick's place as a modern day hero.

Although his Pacific journey from California to Manila on the China Clipper was perhaps his most famous flight, he was also legendary for breaking the isolation of the remote Pacific island of New Zealand. Flying the Samoan Clipper from San Francisco to New Zealand, Musick received an unprecedented welcome when thirty thousand New Zealander's turned out to greet him. A man of notoriously few words, Musick addressed the wildly cheering crowd by saying only “We are glad to be here."

Pan American's decision to fly to New Zealand was the result of strained relations between Pan American Airways and Great Britain and her colonies. While Trippe's Pan American Airways dominated the skies on routes throughout North and South American and the Pacific Islands, they were unable to come to an agreement to fly to Britain and her colonies. Britain would not allow Pan American to land on British soil before their Imperial Airways could reciprocate. After waiting for years for a shared Atlantic route agreement with Imperial, Trippe decided to look into his other options worldwide. On March 11, 1937, New Zealand broke rank with Australia and Britain to allow Pan American to fly there and Pan American quickly sent Musick on yet another historical journey.

Despite a career as a meticulous and focused pilot, Musick was not indestructible. On January 11, 1938, Musick took off from Pago Pago piloting the Samoan Clipper to begin a survey flight and soon after the flight began, he reported an oil leak in engine number 4. In an attempt to assure a safe landing, he made the fateful decision to dump fuel in order to lighten the plane. The decision proved disastrous when fuel vapors collected in the wing structure causing the plane to explode in mid-air. The US Navy ship Avocet recovered the scattered remains of the clipper that evening.

At the time of his death, Musick was unquestionably the world's most famous pilot. His face graced the cover of TIME Magazine and he was awarded the Harmon Trophy for his work. Musick's accident ended his life at the height of his career and he was greatly mourned. His illustrious career has earned him a place of honor in the annals of early commercial aviation. -Pan American World Airways
Captain Edwin Musick

Ed-Musick-and-First-Officer-R.O.D.Sullivan-in-a-Pan-Am-Sikorsky-S-42-1930s.jpg
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#5 Post by Karearea » Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:07 am

^ Musick Point, Auckland, NZ, named for Ed Musick

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musick_Point
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#6 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:15 am

Karearea wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:07 am
^ Musick Point, Auckland, NZ, named for Ed Musick

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musick_Point
Thank you for the very interesting addendum to the Musick story and a Kiwi angle and tribute to his career. I also found this piece of info in your link very interesting too.

Musick Point radio

The Art Deco influenced station building is wonderful...
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#7 Post by Woody » Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:52 am

Slightly more modern Peter Burkill, not only for his handling of BA38 , but fighting the stream of misinformation about this incident that came from BA.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British ... _Flight_38

He also missed my car in Eastside Staff Carpark :-bd
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:32 am

Woody wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:52 am
He also missed my car in Eastside Staff Carpark :-bd
He deserves to join the pantheon of the Sky Gods, for that fact alone! ^:)^ ;)))

Woody, I was scheduled to fly out on the evening BA flight to Cape Town on the day that accident happened! The flight wasn't delayed but the Captain made a wry, indirect reference to the hull which was visible to those passengers who bothered to look!
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#9 Post by G-CPTN » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:54 pm

Woody wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:52 am
He also missed my car in Eastside Staff Carpark :-bd
OTOH you could have been gifted a new car.

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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#10 Post by Woody » Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:02 pm

Can you imagine how long the insurance claim would take :-o
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The time agnostic, fly tying prognosticator of the Blair Athol Syndicate

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:38 pm

J. W. Dunne

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Dream Prophecies

With his friends' financial investment Dunne formed the Blair Atholl Aeroplane Syndicate to continue his experiments and took up hangar space on the Aero Club's new flying ground at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey. Short Brothers had a manufacturing facility there and were contracted to build the D.5, a broadly similar biplane in which Dunne installed a more powerful 35 hp Green engine. Following a series of increasingly successful flights, on 20 December 1910 Dunne demonstrated the inherent stability of the D.5 to an amazed audience who included two official observers, Orville Wright and Griffith Brewer. He was able to take both hands off the controls and make notes on a piece of paper.
Dunne Flying Wing

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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#12 Post by ian16th » Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:57 pm

Cynicism improves with age

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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#13 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 26, 2021 4:19 pm

ian16th wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:57 pm
Sir Alan Cobham
Aha, I am very glad you have added him here... ^:)^ :-bd
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Parer and McIntosh arrive, rather late...

#14 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Feb 27, 2021 8:58 am

At Fannie Bay, actually months late, and previously presumed dead, and then onwards to a reception in Melbourne where the huge crowds were even more ecstatic... they had been well beaten by the Smith brothers in the 1919 England to Australia race but were feted as heroes (which they were of course).
In early 1919, the Commonwealth Government of Australia offered a prize of £A10,000 for the first flight from Great Britain to Australia, under specific conditions. In May 1919, Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, and Senator George Pearce, Minister for Defence (Australia), in consultation with the Royal Aero Club, stated that valid aircrews must all be Australian nationals, the aircraft must have been constructed in the British Empire, and the journey must be completed within 720 consecutive hours (30 days) and be completed before midnight on 31 December 1920. The departure point must be either Hounslow Heath Aerodrome (for landplanes) or RNAS Calshot (for seaplanes and flying boats), with reporting points at Alexandria and Singapore, and final destination in the region of Darwin. Each flight was to take place under the competition rules of the Royal Aero Club, that would supervise the start, and control the competition generally.
England to Australia
On 8 January 1920, Airco DH.9 (G-EAQM), piloted by Lieutenant Ray Parer, with co-pilot Lieutenant John C. McIntosh, took off from Hounslow Heath. The aircraft completed the flight, the first by a single-engined machine, in an epic 206 days later on 2 August 1920, earning Parer the sobriquet "Battling Ray". Although outside the time limit, the crew was awarded a consolation prize of £A1,000, second only to the Vimy. The DH.9 has been restored and placed on display at the Australian War Memorial at Canberra. The story is detailed in the book Flight and Adventures of Parer and McIntosh written by Emily Charnwood and first published in 1921. The machine is labelled PD after its sponsor, millionaire Peter Dawson, a whisky manufacturer, who financed the purchase of the machine and much of the journey. Ray Parer later took part in a similar journey, the MacRobertson Trophy Air Race in 1934.
Parer and Mcintosh1.JPG
Battling Ray Parer

Parer and Mcintosh.JPG
In my humble opinion this story deserves a film or a good documentary, if that hasn't been made yet.
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László Ede Almásy

#15 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Feb 27, 2021 11:01 am

Was prompted this way by listening to the haunting theme to the film version of Michael Ondaatje's novel "The English Patient"....

László Almásy
During World War I, Almásy joined the 11th Hussars along with his brother Janos. Almásy saw action against the Serbians, and then the Russians on the Eastern Front. In 1916, he transferred to the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops. After being shot down over Northern Italy in March 1918, Almásy saw out the remainder of the war as a flight instructor.
An enigmatic figure, flying was an integral part of career, that may have included spying for the Germans as well...

Almasy_Laszlo.jpg
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The Ondaatje book and the film are very loosely based upon a romanticised version of the count who was played, very well I thought, by Ralph Fiennes one of whose relatives was a pilot who "disappeared" in a Tiger Moth in mysterious circumstances....

G-BALX

Disappears over the channel...
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...Pretoria's finest (1)

#16 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:50 am

Yvonne Pope Sintes
Dan-Air was one of the first UK airlines to employ female pilots, with five among 550 during 1978. It was also the first UK airline to have a female pilot in command of jet aircraft. Yvonne Sintes, who had started her career as an airline pilot with Morton Air Services in 1965,joined Dan-Air as a Bristol-based DC-3 first officer in 1969. She gained her command as a captain on the HS 748 fleet before becoming a One-Eleven captain in 1975. Sintes flew One-Elevens and Comets until her retirement in 1980.
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights... Pretoria's Finest (2)

#17 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:54 am

Jackie Moggridge

Jackie Moggridge (1 March 1922 – 7 January 2004), also known as Jackie Sorour earlier in her career, was a pioneering pilot and the first woman airline captain of scheduled passenger services.
As for all the women she left flying when the ATA closed down. Moggridge then married an army Lieut. Colonel and engineer, Reginald Moggridge, in Taunton, Somerset in 1945 with whom she had two daughters. She was involved with the local amateur dramatics societies but still wanted to fly.

In 1949 she was commissioned into the Women's RAF Volunteer Reserve (WRAFVR), as a Pilot Officer. She qualified for her RAF wings in 1953. A result of her involvement in both dramatics and the reserve Moggridge was interviewed in 1950 by Richard Dimbleby for his radio show Down Your Way. Moggridge went on to gain her commercial pilot's licence in the 1950s as well. She worked ferrying Spitfires from Cypress to Rangoon, to the Indian Air Force and to Burma. After these jobs ended Moggridge looked for more flying opportunities. In 1957 LEC Refrigeration would fly demonstration versions of their fridges overseas for potential customers to view. Moggridge got the job of co-pilot and undertook the trip of 15,000 miles flying the fridges to South Africa. Next, Channel Airways was looking for a pilot for their operation based at Southend Airport. Moggridge applied but neglected to mention she was a woman. She got the interview and managed, using her impressive flying record, to get the job. Over time, she worked the Isle of Wight, Jersey and Guernsey routes.
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...Brother Elmer

#18 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:47 am

Or Eilmer, Malmesbury's fluttering, falling monk, as told by William of Malmesbury (1095-1143)...

William records that, in Eilmer's youth, he had read and believed the Greek myth of Daedalus and studied the contributions of the Islamic Golden Age, including Abbas ibn Firnas's flight. Thus, Eilmer fixed wings to his hands and feet and launched himself from the top of a tower at Malmesbury Abbey:
He was a man learned for those times, of ripe old age, and in his early youth had hazarded a deed of remarkable boldness. He had by some means, I scarcely know what, fastened wings to his hands and feet so that, mistaking fable for truth, he might fly like Daedalus, and, collecting the breeze upon the summit of a tower, flew for more than a furlong [201 metres]. But agitated by the violence of the wind and the swirling of air, as well as by the awareness of his rash attempt, he fell, broke both his legs and was lame ever after. He used to relate as the cause of his failure, his forgetting to provide himself a tail.

Given the geography of the abbey, his landing site, and the account of his flight, to travel for "more than a furlong" (220 yards, 201 metres) he would have had to have been airborne for about 15 seconds. His exact flightpath is not known, nor how long he was in the air, because today's abbey is not the abbey of the 11th century, when it was probably smaller, although the tower was probably close to the present height. "Olivers Lane", off the present-day High Street and about 200 metres (660 ft) from the abbey, is reputed locally to be the site where Eilmer landed. That would have taken him over many buildings. Maxwell Woosnam's study concluded that he is more likely to have descended the steep hill off to the southwest of the abbey, rather than the town centre to the south.[6]

Eilmer used a bird-like apparatus to glide downwards against the breeze. However, being unable to balance himself forward and backwards, as does a bird by slight movements of its wings, head and legs, he would have needed a large tail to maintain equilibrium. Eilmer could not have achieved true soaring flight, but he might have glided down safely with a tail.[7] Eilmer said he had "forgotten to provide himself with a tail."
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Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
William Carlos Williams - 1883-1963

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...Pretoria's finest (1)

#19 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:53 pm

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:50 am
......Dan-Air was one of the first UK airlines to employ female pilots, with five among 550 during 1978.......
Skyways at Lympne(Ashford) had a female Captain on the 748 in 1971. I cannot for the life of me remember her name. Jeez, it was 50 years ago! She shared a flat with a female Ops Officer called Jay. When I was temporarily at Lympne on detachment that year we had some good parties in that flat! The next year Dan-Air took over Skyways.
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Re: Forgotten pilots or flights...

#20 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Mar 01, 2021 6:10 am

CharlieOneSix wrote:
Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:53 pm
Skyways at Lympne(Ashford) had a female Captain on the 748 in 1971. I cannot for the life of me remember her name. Jeez, it was 50 years ago! She shared a flat with a female Ops Officer called Jay. When I was temporarily at Lympne on detachment that year we had some good parties in that flat! The next year Dan-Air took over Skyways.

My very last foray in the R44, before lurgy lockdown, included a turn at Lympne's co-ordinates to see what had happened to the airfield. Sadly it is yet another nondescript industrial estate. I am still due to look at Wye, Challock etc. etc.

Is this the lady you were referring to C16?

https://www.alamy.com/feb-02-1968-first ... 33866.html
Feb. 02, 1968 - First Woman jet Captain; 31 year old Miss Gillian Cazalet, of Beachborough Park, Folkestone, Kent, yesterday became Britain's first woman flight captain for a commercial airline. She was told she had passed her examination off an Air Line transport Pilot's certificate, which means she can fly any type of aircraft from a light plane to a VC 10 jet. Gillian will shortly be promoted to become the first woman captain of a commercial airline turbo jet. She will pilot a Hawker Siddeley 748, with up to 48 passengers to France for her firm, Skyways, based at Lympne, Kent.
Ms Cazalet.JPG
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It seems Kent was a little too hasty in claiming a first as she was preceded by Yvonne Pope Sintes (née van den Hoek)... but good for both of them.

PS - Ms Cazalet et al

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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