Test Pilot by Neville Duke

Author:Neville Duke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027100
ISBN: 9781909166776
Publisher: Grub Street Publishing
Published: 2006-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Glimpsing the Future

I SPENT my leave at home in Tonbridge, with occasional trips up to London, and it was more than pleasant to be back again with the family and to meet many old friends. Although my three years away had seemed a long time while I was out of England, now they appeared to have just flitted by; and it was often difficult, while sitting in front of the fire at home chatting, to realize that I had been away at all.

As the days went by I wondered from time to time what the Air Ministry proposed to do with me. In my own mind I was certain of two things: that I did not want to become “chairborne” in some office; but that, while I wanted to continue flying if possible, I was not keen to become an instructor again.

When I called at Postings in the Air Ministry I said my little piece to that effect, and I was heard with consideration.

“How would you like to try your hand at production testing?” I was asked. “We have a scheme for attaching pilots on operational rest to aircraft manufacturing firms. The job is to test-fly new aircraft off the production line.”

There was nothing chairborne about this. I could continue to fly. I said I was interested.

“We’ll see what we can arrange and get in touch with you.”

So off I went; and a few days later I received a note telling me to call on Philip Lucas, chief test pilot of Hawker Aircraft at Langley, near Slough, in Buckinghamshire. I went down to Langley on November 18th, less than three weeks after my return from Italy, and there I met Philip Lucas, George Bulman, who had been chief test pilot before Lucas and was now a director of the company, Bill Humble, the No. 2 test pilot, and several other people.

As far as I could tell, the interview seemed to go off satisfactorily; Lucas explained the attachment scheme to me and said that most of the production testing would be on Tempest 2’s and 5’s. I had not seen a Tempest before—they were not even flying when I had been in England last—and I remember thinking that the Tempest 2 looked very much like a Focke Wulf 190 when Bill Humble took me out to have a look at one. The Fury, most secret at that time, was hidden behind screens in the experimental hangar.

After this instructive morning, Bill Humble offered me a lift to London in his car. Having said goodbye to him, the first person I ran into was Jamie Rankin, whom I had not seen since the Biggin days, and also Stan Turner, not long back from Italy; we did a round of the clubs ending up at six o’clock the next morning!

A couple of days later, while I was still catching up on my lost sleep, a telegram arrived from the Air Ministry. It said that I would be posted to Hawker’s at Langley from January 1st, 1945 to January 1st, 1946.

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