The Naked Pilot by David Beaty

Author:David Beaty [David Beaty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847973269
Publisher: The Crowood Press
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

On 12 February 1953, Captain Charles Pentland, who had instructed me and my generation of pilots on flying the Atlantic, arrived in England to take delivery of a new Comet, Empress of Hawaii, for Canadian Pacific Airlines. Like Foote, he was a Book pilot. At de Havilland he received his training on how to fly the Comet. He was even trained on how not to fly it by a demonstration of ‘the Foote take-off’.

On 2 March 1953, on a hot dark night at maximum all-up-weight, Pentland tried to take off from Karachi – and crashed, killing all eleven people on board. It was a repetition of the Rome accident. Pentland, too, had implicitly obeyed.

You would have thought that now there would be a vindication of Foote, but the Comet sales potential was too valuable for that. Instead, the Inquiry blamed Pentland, bringing in another verdict of pilot error. But now others were voicing doubts. The Aeroplane stated that with two such similar accidents, such a mistake as lifting the nose too high ‘must be presumed to be easily possible’.

Foote was more convinced than ever that he had been unjustly blamed. He became ill with worry. Off flying, he was under his local doctor, who reported him to the BOAC doctor as suffering from ‘anxiety’. This doctor had been his squadron doctor during the war, but so worried was he that he would be caught showing sympathy to BOAC’s ‘black sheep’ that during his examination he shut Foote in a cupboard when a BOAC top official knocked at his door and wanted to see him.

Because of the anxiety diagnosis, the insurance company now refused to insure Foote’s Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence. Foote went to the Vice-Chairman of BOAC, Air Vice-Marshal Victor Tait, with information he had discovered that the Comet could stall at higher speed near the ground than in free air, and that the margin of safety was minute. Tait did not admit the viability of the argument. Comets continued to fly – and now, one after the other, they were (though for a different reason from his case) exploding in the air.

A third Comet take-off technique was now introduced. The nose-wheel had to be returned firmly to the ground until not less than 5 knots below the unstick speed.

BALPA took up the matter of what was wrong with the Comets. A meeting of the Comet sub-committee of BALPA’s Air Safety and Technical Committee took place on 24 February 1954. Two representatives of the Comet fleet had been invited, but had written to say they felt unable to attend. The committee considered their absence ‘a very great loss’.

Foote continued in his struggle to clear his name.

An opportunity to demonstrate his undoubted flying skill came on 1 September 1955. He was piloting a York freighter to Bangkok when there were two sudden bangs and the aircraft swung to the right as both starboard propellers disappeared into the Bay of Bengal.

The York plunged towards the sea. All freight, mail, tools and loose

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