Flying the English Channel involves much more
than the flight itself - which is enough in a minimum flying machine.
With 9 BHP, I had 16 BHP less than Bleriot's 25 BHP engine and
his flight on 25th July 1909 (my birthdate in 1940). Alexander
Duckham sponsored Bleriot for his flight and I had the same sponsor.
Bleriot was 37 years old when he flew - so was I, but I am English
and he was French.
My good friend Chris Tansley and I were parked
beneath a flyover on the M2 to Dover, at night, in pouring rain
with the big ends blown on my VW Camper. It was cold in April
and we were not happy. Later we discovered that the highway Police
had guarded us and our flying machine in its trailer all night
because Kent property is more vulnerable than Suffolk's.
Tansley and I walked to a car scrap yard the
next day and paid £15 for another engine from a VW Beetle.
To get it the 3 miles back to our Camper, were were given a wheel
barrow with a cast-iron wheel and one handle shaft. It must have
been an amusing sight, I'm sure, to have watched both of us frozen
and wet, co-ordinate this barrow with one handle and a rope over
the shoulder tied to the side of the barrow. But we changed the
engine under this flyover and drove on. We were trying to fly
the first powered hang glider across the English Channel and that
seemed a long way off and what we were having to do here, an irrelevance.
Every day seemed to rain and blow so that flying was impossible
for my frail flying machine. Weeks passed before a slight window
in the weather allowed the attempt. But on May 9th 1978, we were
ON. Weather-wise, it looked possible.
Fear possessed me. I can't swim and the flying
machine is so under-powered that if you pull back on the stick
to climb, the energy is lost and you descend. Very delicate flying
is required. I found to go up, it was best to fly until flat out
Vc (25 MPH) straight and level and let the extra lift slowly gain
altitude. The chase-boat driver, Les Wallen, had a small cabin
sort of pilot boat with two 150 BHP Mercurys - vastly overpowered.
It was called 'African Queen'. He wouldn't cross the Goodwin Sands
from Walmer beach just north of Dover and having grown up by the
sea myself, I respected this. We roared off to France in a southerly
direction. This was not a direct route.
The visibility superb for a mile all around
us, but fog hung like a curtain all round. The boat was travelling
at 20 KTS - high speed for it in open seas. It seemed airborne
as much as me. I'd reached about 30 minutes of fuel left. No sign
of France. The boat stopped twice with electrical problems, but
the versatile Tansley fixed it. I circled around not wishing to
continue alone to possibly ditch and not be found. I couldn't
see France and my drift angle was over 40! off track. Better to
ditch out of fuel and be saved and try again, perhaps. At one
hour, I became very anxious about the fuel state, which was one
hour but suddenly saw the coast of France to my right, about 5
o'clock and maybe two miles away. I crossed the coast at 200 Ft
and landed half a kilometre from Bleriot Plage - what a navigator.
No fuel left
Landing on the sandy beach, I uttered one
word. I struggled out of my wet suit which had been too tight
and at last my wincing mouth and the rest of me went back to its
normal shape.
The tale ended with HRH Prince of Wales honouring
the effort with an Aviation Medal of Achievement at the R.Ae.Soc.
The crew got no glory, but they all know who they are and they
share the success of an adventure that couldn't have happened
without them.
Boat Crew Retrieval Crew
CHRIS TANSLEY JOHN WELLS
LES WALLEN CATHERINE COOK
HARRY POTTER BRIAN PATTENDEN
David Cook
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