tony blackman rrr:1 Articles 17/5/10 18:19 Page 40 VulVulcancan tetesstt pilotpilot Former Avro Chief Test Pilot Tony Blackman talks to Pat Malone about aviation past, present and future ifty years ago next month, the first Avro Concorde was a twinkle in the eye and legions Above: Tony Blackman at home in Hamble Vulcan Mk 2 was delivered to the RAF at of test pilots were needed to keep the show on today with a painting of A.V. Roe’ s original FWaddington. That aircraft, X558, is now the road. Names like Avro, Vickers, Handley Hamble airfield the last Vulcan flying, coddled and cosseted Page, de Havilland, Armstrong Whitworth, back to life by a dedicated band of volunteers Saunders Roe, Westland Aircraft, English and their sponsors. If at all possible it will take Electric, Fairey, Gloster, Shorts competed on what was going to happen. Multi-national to the sky on that anniversary, and there to see airframes while Bristol, Armstrong Siddeley collaboration was the way forward, but we’re it will be Tony Blackman, the Avro test pilot and Rolls Royce produced jet engines; lower not very good at working with others; we who flew it to Waddington on July 1st, 1960. down the market there were dozens of weren’t really prepared to work with the Tony Blackman is every bit as remarkable as companies like Miles and Auster in the light French. We would have cancelled Concorde the Vulcan. Scientist, polymath, author, aviation field. With due respect to Rolls Royce had we been able to do so – the French were politician, marketing man and corporate fixer, and BAe, we cannot be said to have built well the drivers all the time, and I admire and envy he was one of a new breed of test pilot who on those foundations; how did we contrive to their approach tremendously. spoke the language of the engineer and blow it? Bureaucratic meddling, politically- “When I was at ETPS we had talks by test designer and understood in depth the aircraft’s driven company amalgamations, industrial pilots like Neville Duke, Roly Falk, Peter Twiss, increasingly sophisticated systems. When he strife and poor management all played a part, Brian Trubshaw and Roland Beamont, and all rolled the Vulcan off the top of a loop at but ultimately, says Tony Blackman, the British of us had ambitions to one day step into their Farnborough he was able to analyse every just don’t get it. “Politicians have never shoes. We didn’t realise that the days of an aspect of the manoeuvre scientifically, as well understood how important it is to keep abundance of prototypes were coming to an as getting a yee-har thrill out of it. technology at the cutting edge,” he says. “The end, aircraft firms were going to reduce in The fifties was a golden age in British cost of these projects is never measured number, programmes were going to be cut, aircraft manufacturing, and Tony Blackman against the cost of not doing them. We don’t and the need for test pilots was going to was there to ride the wave. Dozens of realise how important manufacturing is, diminish.” companies were competing to produce better although our politicians pay lip service to it. Tony Blackman caught the best of it; aircraft, military and civilian, more efficient “The French, on the other hand, know the destined to become Avro’s chief test pilot, he engines, avionics for navigation, world-leading value of technology; French civil servants and helped develop the Shackleton, the Nimrod, blind landing systems, missiles and weapons politicians have a much better grasp of reality the Victor K2, the Vulcan – testing 105 of the platforms. The V-bombers were brought to the than our own, unfortunately. People once 135 that were built – and the HS748, runway, TSR2 was on the drawing board, laughed at the Airbus, but we didn’t realise certificating many variants and demonstrating 40 General Aviation June 2010 tony blackman rrr:1 Articles 17/5/10 18:19 Page 41 Left: a young Tony Blackman climbing into a Harvard Above: Tony with a de Havilland Venom Right: in an F86 Sabre Left: Tony piloted this B52, 20008, after flying Vulcan XH535 in formation with the B52 over Edwards Air Force Base, below Below left: Tony with Avro’ s chief test pilot, Jimmy Harrison at the SBAC show, Farnborough 1958 General Aviation June 2010 41 tony blackman rrr:1 Articles 17/5/10 18:19 Page 42 it on some of the world’s worst airfields. He designers and engineers of increasingly amazon.co.uk refers. Suffice it to say that he was also the first project pilot on the HS146 complex aircraft.” Test flying became performed well enough on the Vampire and before the programme was stopped in 1973. teamwork, and it was no longer tenable for the Venom to be sent to No 13 ETPS at These latter aircraft carry confusing test pilot to fly the aircraft, then tell the Farnborough in 1954, and was thought to be designations; they were started by companies engineers what needed to be done. the first university graduate on the course, which were later forced to amalgamate, and “Some great test pilots, like Roly Falk (who getting a distinguished pass. It was, some had three sets of initials in their names hired Tony at Avro) were handicapped because incidentally, the first ETPS course to feature at different times. Each change was a little they were so good that they didn’t understand helicopters, which Tony disliked. “I thought death for the industry and for the aircraft as that we mere mortals had difficulty putting up they were bloody dangerous,” he says. “I was tradition was lost, expertise squandered, with some bad handling feature – their skills dead scared that I’d get sent to D Squadron, marketing made difficult. masked imperfections which were the helicopter test squadron – that’s what Today, Tony Blackman lives in Hamble, a unacceptable. When you’re testing an aircraft could happen if you got on the wrong side of stone’s throw from the churchyard in which that may have to be flown by the world’s worst Group Captain Sammy Wroath, who was A.V. Roe is buried, and not far from the house airline pilot, it’s an advantage to be less than commandant of ETPS at the time. I regret now in which Roy Chadwick lived when Avro perfect.” not having done more with helicopters, which created Hamble airfield. These facts played no In fact, Tony was almost scrubbed at the ab are not as unsafe as they were then.” part in Tony’s decision to move there; he and initio stage because he found landings difficult As an RAF acceptance test pilot for the Mk his wife Margaret simply wanted to be closer – he didn’t go solo until his 13th hour. But 1 Vulcan, Tony became well-known at Avro, to their children. Tony has never had the sort and when Avro won the contract for a titanium of interest in aviation per se that animates Below: Tony Blackman, front and centre, steel Mach 3 aircraft designated the 730 he most of us; as a youth he was obsessed with with friends and colleagues from the test was recruited to do the test flying. The 730 mathematics and the exciting new science of flying world, including some of the most was cancelled at the time of the notorious computing. A Cambridge physics graduate, he famous names in the business 1957 White Paper, but Avro had plenty of was called up to do national service teaching once he’d got the hang of it, he never looked development projects and Tony was kept busy. maths and physics to pilots and navigators. “It back. From being the worst pilot in the Remarkably, he’d gone from maths teacher to struck me that at the time a lot of the test squadron on the Prentice, he became the best Avro test pilot via initial training, Squadron pilots had had no chance to have proper on the Harvard, and was sent direct from service, ETPS and 18 months at Boscombe technical training, so I joined one of the Ternhill to Germany for front-line conversion Down, in just six years. courses I was teaching, solely with a view to onto the Vampire 5 via the Meteor. We’ll skim It must be somewhat frustrating for men like becoming a test pilot,” he says. “The older test over his progress because it’s all set out in two Tony Blackman to have to hang around while pilots had a lot of experience of flying, but they autobiographical works, ‘Tony Blackman, Test slower mortals are catching up – indeed, he didn’t have the scientific background to Pilot’, and ‘Vulcan Test Pilot’ which really had a reputation for doing more than anyone, translate that into useful information for the ought to be gracing your bookshelf – faster than anyone. Generally he’d have all 42 General Aviation June 2010 tony blackman rrr:1 Articles 17/5/10 18:19 Page 43 C C r r o o w w n n C C o o p p y y r r i i g g h h t t C Above left: at Avro Tony helped develop the Shackleton r o w n C o Above: Tony flew all the V-bombers; this is the Handley Page Victor p y r i g h t Left: at Hawker Siddeley Tony test flew the Nimrod Left: Tony Blackman landing the Avro 748 on a rough strip in South America Above: deomnstrating the Avro 748 to a potential customer four of the Vulcan’s engines started before his pilots express their opinions firmly can stabilised at a climb rate of 30 feet per minute co-pilot was strapped in; Sir Charles Masefield sometimes be taken for arrogance, but it’s in with the correct combination of altitude, recalls that on his first Vulcan flight, Tony the nature of the job to defend an opinion, temperature, power and aircraft weight, and a handed him the controls as the wheels came properly arrived at – that’s what they’re paid brief bit of turbulence could upset twenty up, then took out a screwdriver and for.