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BRABAZON AND ON (Part 6)
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A flight in the Brabazon & Expansion 6.1 Up to the time of the Brabazon work in the flight research department proceeded in a fairly ‘Ad Hoc’ way. Independent of the Design Office of course and the Flight Test Dept. (responsible for the actual operation of the test aircraft) the Head of FRD usually also held the post of ‘Chief Airworthiness Engineer’. The fifteen or so staff tended to combine and interchange their duties e.g. between the design of test instrumentation, flight observer duties developing and analysing films and report writing etc.. The advent of the Brabazon and the general expansion of the flight test programme changed everything. There were many peripheral activities. Work on helicopters was being initiated; the Brabazon powered flying controls (another considerable Bristol achievement) were being tested in Lancaster RE131. The Dragonfly heater (petrol driven!) was being test flown in a Buckmaster and later the Freighter was used to check part of the tab-operated control system for the Britannia. A rapid expansion took place in the department with a much more formal structure being initiated and staff being more compartmented in their specialisation. About fifteen to twenty full time flight-observers and technicians were recruited in rapid time. Staff with previous design experience reverted to full-time design work. Two professional photographers were engaged and the dark-room facilities considerably extended, to cope with the prodigious amount of photographic activity. It should be remembered that there was very little ‘continuous-trace’ recording equipment available at this time. (Among the first to be used were the SF1M recorders imported from France and made available by Miss Rimmer of RAE Farnborough.) There were about sixteen Automatic Observer Panels located in the Brabazon fuselage. Each panel measured about three feet square so the total number of instruments to be photographed can be imagined but remember there were eight sets of engine quantities! The cameras used (described in more detail elsewhere) were generally Vinter ‘H’ a ‘Hollywood’ type camera holding a massive amount of 35mm film – used to measure transient parameters, and the ubiquitous F24 RAF Reconnaissance camera with its most useful variable-time single shot capability. The focal length was easily reduced by the introduction of simple distance pieces. Some of the test flights e.g. To Malta and back, occupied about twelve hours or so. To gain time a large dark room was constructed in the fuselage so that film processing could be started immediately the magazines were exposed. Digressing slightly; throughout my working life in the aircraft industry we almost always seemed to be working under the most intense pressure. Everything was invariably wanted ‘yesterday’ and one also carried in the back of ones mind the terrible price which would be exacted for any serious error. I recall a designer telling me about a progress meeting he regularly attended which was called by one of the Production Manager. Everyone present had to account for the progress, or more often, the lack of progress for the components in the manufacturing area of their responsibility. Woe betides anybody who slipped behind; - this gentleman was a driver, the aeronautical equivalent of Winston Churchill! On this occasion a culprit who had missed his targets trotted out a fairly rambling and unconvincing list of excuses – which brought forth a torrent of expletives from the chair. To complete his humiliation be blurted out “But Sir – Rome wasn’t built in a day!” “That’s because I wasn’t working on it!” came the final word. The late Tony Wilkey |
