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Ogilvy Relinquishes the Stick

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Ogilvy Relinquishes the Stick David Ogilvy in his office at AOPA headquarters in Victoria, London OgilvyOgilvy relrelinquinquiishesshes thethe stisticckk AOPA’s David Ogilvy talks of his life and times to Pat Malone avid Ogilvy, AOPA’s longest-serving able both to recognise aircraft and play the age to join up. With thousands of aircrew officer, has decided to step back bugle, he was stationed in a chair in the being kicked out, there were very few going Dfrom his involvement with the middle of the playing field to give warning in. To this day David is bewildered as to how Association after 45 years and is passing of the approach of Doodlebugs in wartime. he succeeded where so many failed. “At on much of his workload on aerodrome His interest in flying dates from the day the aircrew selection they made it quite clear protection. school was beaten up by a Hawker Hart; they didn’t need anybody and the process A co-founder of AOPA UK in 1967, he immediately began planning to convert was fairly intense,” David says. “For the David has done almost every job in the the school grounds into an aerodrome, medical you had to stand on one leg with Association down the years – he is a laying out runways and support facilities in your eyes shut, and I’ve never been able to former Executive Chairman and President, his mind. During the war he lived on his do that. The medical officer said I should as well as having edited this magazine. An bicycle, haunting the perimeter fences of fail, but I pleaded with him so he hauled in RAF Mosquito and Meteor pilot, he is the nearby aerodromes or the Hawker factory the senior medical officer, and of course I author of 14 books on aviation and has at Langley, where they turned out 12 couldn’t do it for him, either. But he agreed been involved in fighting general aviation’s Hurricanes a day. White Waltham was the to let me through because I’d come out very cause at 30 public inquiries. Once General headquarters of the Air Transport Auxiliary fit on every other count. Heaven only knows Manager of the Shuttleworth Collection, and every conceivable type of aircraft how I got away with it.” David has 6,500 hours on some 80 passed through. At Woodley, Miles were David went to a grading school at different aircraft types, many of them rare making trainers, RAF Winkfield was an Shellingford in Berkshire to do 12 hours on and exotic, and he was awarded the OBE Elementary Flying Training School with Tiger Moths. “You had four assessments in in 1994 for services to aviation. Among Tiger Moths, and in the middle of Windsor 12 hours and you could be chopped at any the many highlights of his career was Great Park there was a secret aerodrome stage,” he says. “I didn’t go solo in those 12 flying the Mosquito in scores of air attached to a Vickers shadow factory with hours but some did, and I was very jealous displays, and for the film ‘633 Squadron’. most of its buildings underground, and of them. But to a man, those who went solo Unfortunately, the legacy of an accident occasionally a sharp-eyed cyclist might see were failed and those who didn’t went thirty years ago is coming back to haunt a Wellington flying in. through. I found out later they had a policy him, and he no longer runs the hundred Having joined the ATC at 15 David got of giving those who were to be chopped one yards as fast as he once did. For this and his first flight in a Dakota, and it was a solo flight, so they could say they’d done it.” other reasons he is reducing a workload major disappointment. “Sitting in the back After ground school at RAF Wittering which in recent years has seen him handle did nothing for me,” he says. “I thought, if David was passed around several bases as a 752 operational or planning issues relating this is flying, I’m not as keen as I thought I non-flying supernumerary. Bursting to fly, he to small GA aerodromes in the UK. was. Later I was given a flight in a Tiger presented himself at Denham Aero Club and David has had a fascinating career. The Moth from Panshanger and allowed to showed the CFI his log book. “He gave me son of a music teacher, he played trumpet handle the controls, and I was hopelessly two circuits and sent me off, so my first solo and trombone, to the occasional lost to a determination to join the RAF as a was in a civilian Piper Cub.” consternation of his neighbours, and music pilot from that moment.” Training began in earnest on Tiger Moths led to his first aviation-related job – being Unfortunately for David, if not for the at No 3 Flying Training School at Feltwell in the only boy at Aldenham School who was world, the war ended just as he came of Norfolk. “The scrub rate was fantastic,” 48 General Aviation June 2012 David says. “Every Monday someone Three historic aircraft of the wasn’t there; they’d been sacked over the former Skyfame museum: weekend. But I seemed to have an Mosquito 35, Anson 1 and unusual attitude. I said to my instructor, Oxford, all of which David (at right) flew in displays. Also seen ‘you know, I really do enjoy this flying, it’s are fellow pilot John Schooling marvellous’, and he was quite taken aback (left) and Peter Thomas, creator – no pupil had ever said that to him and owner of Skyfame. before.” Mosquito David went on to the Harvard, which was a great leap forward from the Tiger Moth. “I think the sequence of Tiger Moth and Harvard was the best training sequence anyone could invent,” he says. “The Tiger gave you a sense of the weather and the wind, and you grew up in the Harvard, which taught you not to fool about.” With some 200 hours he went on to 204 Advanced Flying School, where despite his expressed preference for Spitfires he was sent to Brize Norton and introduced to the Mosquito. “I was a little disappointed but I soon discovered the Mosquito was every bit as good to fly. My instructor sold me on new jets couldn’t get anywhere near us.” roll and you couldn’t stop it. People were it – at a great height he feathered a fan David was often detached to Gibraltar, killed frequently in those times – the whole and did a barrel roll. ‘Anything a Spitfire Libya and exotic RAF Benson, which was attitude to accidents was different. It was a can do, this can do better,’ he said. The convenient because he had developed an hangover from the war. You got the job trainer, the T3, was very manoeuvrable, outside interest. “I’d always had an interest done, whatever the cost.” much better than later marks which were in historic light aircraft and had flown one much heavier and nothing like as nice.” or two, so it was useful to be in the Elstree It was also a handful. David witnessed London area, where most of them were After six years in the RAF David was offered three fatal accidents where Mosquitos on based,” he says. “I was joint creator with a civilian job at Elstree Aerodrome. “I’d one engine rolled over and smashed into Ron Gillman of the Vintage Aeroplane started air racing and met Ron Paine, who the ground on short finals – one a real Club, where membership was restricted to raced the only remaining Miles Hawk Speed engine failure, two in training. “More owners of suitable historic aircraft. One of Six. He was Technical Director of Derby Mosquitos were lost in handling accidents the keenest VAC members was Neville Aviation, which operated Elstree Flying during the war than to enemy action,” he Duke, Hawkers’ chief test pilot; they had a School. I took over at Elstree the age of 23 says. “They’d swing on take-off, they’d Hurricane, Hart and Tomtit at Langley. I and turned it into London School of Flying, swing on landing, and asymmetric flying used to ring him up and say, ‘I’ve got a and we expanded into three schools, Elstree, was very tricky. I saw three of my little show at White Waltham, can you Denham and Derby. At Elstree we had an Air colleagues being killed, including my own come over?’ ‘What would you like?’ he’d Training Corps contract, and one of my first CO, and it happened very quickly. With the ask. And I’d reply, ‘The lot, please.’ The pupils was AOPA Chairman George Done. high mark Merlins, if at approach speed of Tomtit is now at the Shuttleworth, the “We developed the professional training about 130 kt you kept the speed up you Hart’s in the RAF Museum and the were okay, but if you had to add a bit of Hurricane is with the BBMF. We kept the Elstree, early 50s – throttle on the good engine it could yaw VAC going for six years, but Ron and I both David Ogilvy, and on the wing, his pupil George and roll, and the elapsed time between got too busy and had to let it go. Later the Done, now AOPA touching the throttle and hitting the ground Vintage Aircraft Club was formed and does Chairman inverted would be about three seconds.” a marvellous job.” After Brize it was on to 237 Operational While in the RAF David also instructed Conversion Unit at Leuchars, a small photo at West London Aero Club at White reconnaissance unit with two Spitfires, Waltham, and with Wycombe Flying Club, three Mosquitos and a Harvard.
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