October 2007
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REPRESENTING SPORT & RECREATIONAL AVIATION IN THE SOUTHWEST www.devonstrut.co.uk DEVON STRUT NEWS - OCTOBER 2007 Welcome to the Devon Strut: Co-ordinator’s Comments by Pete White Our fly-in season has drawn to a close and fortunately the weather had been kinder towards the end, enabling both Belle Vue and Watchford Farm fly-ins to enjoy a healthy selection of visitors. Although my beloved mount ‘IVOR the wings’, is still hangar bound for an engine rebuild, I have been fortunate to either hitch a lift to events with friends or use the 1941 Aeronca 65CA NC33884 that I have been ‘keeping warm’ for Phil Brewer whilst he is back home in Tucson. Although my hours will be a little down on normal this year, I have the prospects of our group enjoying a ‘new’ engine soon and catching up on my IVOR time. These jobs always take longer than you hope and, if nothing else, you learn to be patient and earn brownie points that can be used at a later date. The PFA AGM on the 1st and the NC meeting on the 15th September have helped pave the way for what will be the new, revised and reworked Association which we will all in time get used to calling the LAA. Another current issue is the return of a single rally, ideal if the finances can be nailed and a site found with lower costs. My personal preference is for the one grand meeting for all and if this is achievable within the set parameters and budget I would be ‘waving that flag’ with great enthusiasm. There is a working party on the case and we will know the findings at a later date. With all these recent changes the Committee felt that many of our Strut members would like to put over their thoughts and suggestions so our first Autumn/Winter meeting will be devoted to you, the Strut member. Along the lines of our very successful April meeting this year, we ask you to bring along photos, film etc that can be shown using the Strut’s laptop/projector equipment. We will then hold an open forum on PFA/LAA matters between the aviation film clips. Most of your committee will be present and their knowledge gained from NC and EC meetings will help us all understand where our organisation is heading. The behind the scenes work that goes on for us, the members, filters from the PFA chairman, Roger Hopkinson down through the various committees to Strut level and if any of you have a yearning to know more about the workings then please come along and ask. Don’t forget we are at our new venue, which was discovered by Mike King, The Ley Arms, Kenn, Exeter (see last page for directions- Ed) and one of the reasons we chose it was for the food so arrive a little earlier and treat yourselves. Normally we meet on the second Thursday of the month but this first meeting of the season will be on Friday 5th October and as you can see below all the rest of meetings will be back to the usual time slot. Listed below is our Autumn/Winter program of speakers and meetings, which have been planned to give you a variety of informative and entertaining guests; something that has become the hallmark of our Strut meetings. Friday 5th October‘07 Strut forum and social evening with photos, films & LAA discussion. Thursday 8th November’07 Francis Donaldson. The PFA’s Chief Engineer. Thursday 13th December ’07 Kevin Lambton. SATCO, Plymouth Airport - how we can work together. Thursday 10th January ‘08 Strut AGM followed by the Derek Boyce slide show. Thursday 14th February’08 Polly Vacher. Aviatrix extraordinaire will be our valentine for the night. Thursday 13th March’08 Rob Midgely. Shell Oil’s technical expert. Thursday 10th April ’08 Bill Leary. AN2 Club. Discover this big biplane and how you could fly one! All the best, Pete White __________________________________________________________________________ 1 Scillies (Part Two) by Maurice Wickstead With the reinstatement of civil flying on January 1, 1946, a bevy of independent charter operators sprung up, one of which was Island Air Services based at St Mary’s. Using two Percival Proctors, regular trips were made to Lands End carrying fresh flowers and vegetable produce for mainland wholesale markets in addition to summer pleasure flights from both locations. Patrick Duval Aviation of Birmingham, similarly employed Proctors and an Airspeed Consul feeding outlets in the Midlands. Island Air Services’ first pilot was former wartime ATA flyer, Monique Agazarian, who later bought the company after it had decamped to Croydon. Some older readers may have been fortunate enough to enjoy a ‘spin’ in an IAS Rapide, a regular sight at Heathrow, flying incessant summer sightseeing trips over London in those leisurely 1950s days before the coming of ‘jetwash’. ‘Aggie’, as she affectionately became known, continued in light aviation, latterly with Aviation Training Services of Booker, until her death in 1992 at the age of 72. In September 1988 she renewed her links with the islands by attending an Air Day commemorating the 50th Anniversary of air services to Scilly. Representing the aircraft of the early days at the event were the Aer Lingus commemorative Dragon, ‘EI-ABI’ and a Dragon Rapide from Carlisle. The helicopter first appeared at St Mary’s in February 1948, when a Sikorsky S-51 flown by Alan Bristow carried provisions to the keepers of Wolf Rock lighthouse, marooned by bad weather. Echoing wartime days, flying-boats returned briefly to St Mary’s during the summer of 1949 when Aquila Airways undertook a series of holiday charter flights from Falmouth with civilianised Sunderlands. By this time, GW&S had been absorbed into the BEA, while operation of Land’s End was now the responsibility of the Ministry of Transport & Civil Aviation. At St Mary’s a new control tower was erected in August 1949, together with a basic passenger waiting room and facilities for emergency vehicles. Poor visibility was often a feature around Lands End and lacking any sophisticated landing aids, a sort of chequerboard approach was adopted, reminiscent of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport. Turning ESE over Brisons Rock and Cape Cornwall, a descent was made below the ceiling along the Cot Valley to Kelynack Farm, where after crossing the St Just-Sennen road and spotting two telegraph poles painted with bold red and white strips, a sharp right turn was made to re-cross the road and drop onto the aerodrome. The short hop to St Mary’s proved exceptionally popular with 36,000 passengers carried in 1953 alone, often amounting to a shuttle service with up to 20 daily round trips at high season. Apart from brief incursions by Murray Chown Aviation of Staverton flying via Cardiff and Newquay (St Mawgan/Perranporth) with Proctors, Melba Airways from Manchester and the returning Olley Air Service from Croydon via Bristol and Exeter, all for a single season in 1951, the 28-mile crossing remained the sole domain of BEA until March 1961, when Mayflower Air Services arrived on the scene. 2 Formed by Capt Philip Cleife, Plymouth Aero Club’s former CFI, services began midway through June 1961 with a single Rapide, operating Plymouth-St Mary’s. Over the next couple of years, with a second Rapide, Newquay, Bristol and Cardiff were added, together with a licence for Plymouth-London (Gatwick) for which it was planned to acquire Herons or Twin Pioneers. Sadly the brave venture came to an end on 20th July 1963, when Rapide ‘HLM crashed on take-off at St Mary’s following a tyre burst. Although there were no fatalities, Capt Cleife was seriously injured, putting paid to his flying career. Mayflower was taken over by Scillonian Air Services, which operated intermittently until May 1964 when it passed to British Westpoint, who continued the Scillies routes for a couple of years, linked to London by Dakota via Exeter. Meanwhile, in March 1962, Capt Morris ‘Skipper’ Hearn MBE, BEA’s long-serving Senior Pilot at Lands End retired after 21 years of continuous service, during which time he had completed a staggering 15,000 hours and 31,650 flights and over the route. When BEA commissioned two Sikorsky S-61N helicopters to operate from a new dedicated base at Eastern Green, Penzance in the spring of 1964, it signalled almost the end of the Rapide era. The type’s swansong on the route began midway through 1966, when Scillonia Airways, formed by ex-BOAC pilot Capt KB Neely, took to the skies with three Rapides flying out of St Just. The operation lasted for two more summers until May 1970 when Scillonia was forced out of business. A year later, another former BOAC man, Capt Howard Fry, fetched up in the area with his Westward Airways, flying a single Islander between Gatwick and Newquay via Plymouth. A second aircraft late in the summer allowed an extension to the St Mary’s, but disaster struck in February 1970, when G-AXXJ was seriously damaged, having overrun and buried its nose in the stone wall at the end of 10/28. Westward was forced to rely on costly lease-ins to maintain the service, which ceased at the end of the season when the airline succumbed to financial problems. Another aircraft which fell victim to a boundary wall a couple of months later was Executive Air’s Airedale G-ARYZ, which had the misfortune to arrive in the circuit just after Auster G-AKXP had failed to get airborne forcing the Beagle to alight on the slippery crosswind runway.