Very new old boy
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petermcleland
- Red Arrows
- Posts: 5201
- Joined: 25 Jul 2004, 10:28
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Great reading Ralph...We are up to 32 pages in the .PDF file now 
Regards,
http://www.petermcleland.com/
Updated 28/8/2007
My Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/petermcleland?feature=mhee
http://www.petermcleland.com/
Updated 28/8/2007
My Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/petermcleland?feature=mhee
Tiara Troubles
Many fuel injected piston engines are difficult to start when hot. I think the Tiara engine must have been somewhere near the top of the list. Throughout its time with us it never disappeared. Normally this was not a problem. It only became one if you were staying for a short time when visiting and had to switch off. Quite a long wait was then needed for the engine to cool down.
The business of it cutting out with the throttle closed was finally resolved when the fuel injector pump was sent to specialists and they commented that they had never before seen a pump so badly adjusted. It was put back and the problem never recurred.
The other long running trouble was rough running with the occasional flat spot. It was intermittent but occurred regularly. Again it was constantly being investigated and sometimes it improved with new plugs, etc., but it was never long before it came back. I know it is often very difficult to rectify an intermittent fault but this went on for about 5 years! It was something that I had to live with.
What this did show was that maintenance organisations with no experience on a particular engine can be a problem. In the case of the fuel pump, the fault had been investigated a number of times with no improvement. As another illustration of this difficulty, I had asked a different a maintenance organisation to try and solve the rough running problem. During the work I received a call in the office from them and they asked if I could go up to the field because ‘There’s something wrong with your engine. It’s trying to run backwards!’ I had heard of this before and I knew what would do that but I dismissed it because this was a world-renowned maintenance company. When I got there I sensed that they were a bit wary of this ‘unknown’ engine. Casually I said, ‘By the way, have you had the ignition harnesses off?’ They looked at each other in dismay because they immediately realised that they had got them reversed. Now this was an elementary mistake and it had nothing to do with the Tiara but I suppose you can take your eye off the ball if you are distracted. I know, because it happened to me a few times when flying. Needless to say, they didn’t cure the problem.
Unfortunately a number of faults occurred directly after maintenance – pitch lever jamming, fuel leak at an injector, mixture control malfunction, loose exhaust stub, etc – but these were nothing to do with the aircraft/engine design.
Once, when the oil pressure warning light came on during a take off, I landed quickly and was later told that it was just the transmitter that had failed. Remembering about the flap motor I went to the nearest Peugeot main dealer, bought a transmitter over the counter and it was a perfect replacement at a fifth of the price it might have been. Paperwork? I don’t know what you are talking about!
The rough running was finally cured when I found out about Ted, who was an ignition wizard. He had worked for Vauxhall Motors on the engine side and had a small trouble shooting business. He had rigs and he would test components for hours on end, monitoring them and waiting for an intermittent fault to occur. He found a fault in one of our magnetos after over 20 hours running! Brilliant! The engine was perfect after that and it made me much happier after such a long time. Hot start difficulties were also improved, though not cured.
During this time I remember one short flight in snow. I flew from Booker to Fairoaks, just a few miles away, and I knew the route very well – or so I thought. I had not gone far when I entered a snow shower. We had flown through several earlier in the day and they had all been of short duration. I assumed that this one was just another small one. Rule: Do not assume! The snow became quite dense and I was just about able to maintain visual contact with the ground at 800 feet agl but it was nil visibility forwards and sideways. I decided to ask for a radar steer from Heathrow and they helped me get near to Fairoaks. ‘It’s at your 11 o’clock at two miles’. ‘No contact’. ‘It’s at your 10 o’clock at one mile’. ‘No contact’. ‘You must be able to see it. It’s at 9 o’clock at half a mile’. ‘Contact. Many, many thanks’. I could not really see Fairoaks. What I could see was a fairly indistinct solid white rectangle amid the surrounding broken-up whiteness. Beyond the first third of the runway I could see nothing recognisable. I suppose I should have cleared off and stooged around until the coast was clear but I didn’t know if it was long term snow or not.
We had had the Tiara for three years and after one short flight I joined overhead Fairoaks and entered the circuit to land. Downwind I selected undercarriage down and got only two greens (and a red for the starboard leg). I recycled the gear and still had only two greens so I cleared the circuit to the south, found a bit of free space and recycled several more times. I then pulled the emergency gear-lowering valve. No change.
I got a bit of height and with the undercarriage selected down proceeded to pull the aeroplane about to try and apply some g-loading. I was quite forceful in these manoeuvres and having a g-meter on board helped here. I had a passenger with me on his first flight in a light aircraft and fortunately he was of the unflappable type. I still had two greens.
I contacted the tower and explained the situation and after a while they found an engineer with the maintenance books and put him in the tower. They cleared the circuit for me and I did a series of very low level passes so that they could visually look at the undercarriage from the balcony. Under different circumstances that would have been great fun! The starboard leg was down and appeared to be OK. The engineer looked through the circuit diagrams and thought the most likely explanation was an electrical failure. So I decided it was time to land.
Fortunately the wind direction was such that there was a wide expanse of grass on the right hand side of the runway and so if the starboard leg did collapse, the machine would slew to the right on to the grass. I did the usual things, slow approach, soft touch down on the port wheel and held the dicky wheel off until I ran out of aileron and the starboard wheel held! I still had two greens, but great! The leg appeared to be OK so I taxied back to the hangar. I really should not have done that because when they jacked the Tiara up, the starboard leg dangled and swung to and fro. I had just been lucky.
On the rear face of the main spar, on both sides of the wing and within each undercarriage bay was a length of rubber of circular cross section, maybe 0.6 inches diameter with an integral eyelet at each end. It was part of the emergency gear lowering design. When the gear was retracted the rubber was in tension and trying to pull the leg down against the load from the hydraulic jack. The idea was that when you needed to use this device, the valve in the cockpit, with a ring on top was pulled up, all pressures in the undercarriage circuits were dumped and the rubber cord took over and cracked the leg to its ‘over-centre’ position so that it was locked down.
On this flight, the rubber cord had snapped and had become entangled with the U/C retraction mechanism (which was actually a small version of those in Hawker piston monoplanes) and prevented the U/C leg being locked down. It was ironic because there was nothing wrong with the U/C and it was part of the emergency release system that caused the ‘emergency’!
In fact, there were no up locks for the U/C. It was kept retracted by the hydraulic pump raising it and then stopping via a microswitch. As the legs sagged slightly, the switch detected it, started the pump and up the legs went again. Each time the pump started another of those lamps in the cockpit came on and it would flash throughout a flight. So in theory you could not have a wheel that was locked up. As for being locked down, well ????
The last ‘dicey’ event occurred not long after the aeroplane started to run perfectly. I was on my own swanning about over the North Downs, Guildford way, and minding my own business when I heard a horrible, loud but short lived buzzing sound, like a burst from a burp gun. The noise came from the engine and it was then replaced by a loud banging noise. Trouble! But it was still going. I contacted Fairoaks and asked for a ‘straight in’ which they agreed. On the way back I examined every field that was near me in case I had to try and land in it. Got back OK and taxied to the hangars. Later they told me that they thought that a flying tractor was coming their way.
They dismantled the cylinders to find that half the skirts of the No. 1 and No. 2 pistons were missing. They were in bits at the bottom of the sump. The buzzing noise was the engine chopping up the skirts into little pieces. I have No. 1 piston in front of me now and it was the missing part of the skirt that allowed the piston to tilt in the cylinder and for the top of the piston on one side to bash against the cylinder head, hence the banging noise. The maintenance company didn’t have a clue as to how this could have happened.
I was determined to follow this through. The fracture of the piston looked like a fatigue failure to me but I was not an expert so I got in touch with the retired Chief Metallurgist of Farnborough. He confirmed that the burnishing indicated that it was indeed a classic fatigue failure.
I spoke to Rolls Royce, Heathrow who were the agents for Teledyne Continental and by coincidence, considering the rarity of Tiaras, they had heard about a problem with some new cylinders that were being fitted by a company on the south coast. They didn’t seem to fit cleanly and the engineer had queried it.
About 40 flying hours before this event, our Tiara had undergone an Annual Inspection. When they did a compression check on each of the cylinders, all six were down and unacceptable. Apparently, the original cylinders had had steel sleeves pressed into the aluminium finned body and this had proved troublesome because there was poor heat transfer between them which led to distortion of the bores and the resultant lack of compression. TDC corrected this by introducing a sleeve with a contoured exterior and the fins were cast around it so there was intimate contact. We bought six new cylinders.
The engineer fitted these and the Tiara was cleared to fly. In reality, what had happened was that the four holes in the bottom flange of each cylinder had been drilled 1/16.inch out of position to one side during manufacture. The engineer had assembled them on the cylinder block studs and pulled them down against some resistance so the bores were out of place by 1/16.inch. The result was that all pistons now had a side load on them and it took about 40 hours of running for the skirts to fatigue and break off.
Teledyne contacted their base in the US where they found they had to scrap about 400 defective cylinders sitting on the shelf. We were supplied with correct cylinders and not long after Teledyne withdrew support for the Tiara engine. The engine was reassembled at Castle Mill and for the next 50 hours it was as good as gold and 100% reliable.
Unfortunately the aircraft was not getting the business use that would justify its bills and so we sold it to some Germans, Munich way, who immediately painted it red all over. I believe that it is still on the German Register.
Next, back to learning to fly.
Ralph
Many fuel injected piston engines are difficult to start when hot. I think the Tiara engine must have been somewhere near the top of the list. Throughout its time with us it never disappeared. Normally this was not a problem. It only became one if you were staying for a short time when visiting and had to switch off. Quite a long wait was then needed for the engine to cool down.
The business of it cutting out with the throttle closed was finally resolved when the fuel injector pump was sent to specialists and they commented that they had never before seen a pump so badly adjusted. It was put back and the problem never recurred.
The other long running trouble was rough running with the occasional flat spot. It was intermittent but occurred regularly. Again it was constantly being investigated and sometimes it improved with new plugs, etc., but it was never long before it came back. I know it is often very difficult to rectify an intermittent fault but this went on for about 5 years! It was something that I had to live with.
What this did show was that maintenance organisations with no experience on a particular engine can be a problem. In the case of the fuel pump, the fault had been investigated a number of times with no improvement. As another illustration of this difficulty, I had asked a different a maintenance organisation to try and solve the rough running problem. During the work I received a call in the office from them and they asked if I could go up to the field because ‘There’s something wrong with your engine. It’s trying to run backwards!’ I had heard of this before and I knew what would do that but I dismissed it because this was a world-renowned maintenance company. When I got there I sensed that they were a bit wary of this ‘unknown’ engine. Casually I said, ‘By the way, have you had the ignition harnesses off?’ They looked at each other in dismay because they immediately realised that they had got them reversed. Now this was an elementary mistake and it had nothing to do with the Tiara but I suppose you can take your eye off the ball if you are distracted. I know, because it happened to me a few times when flying. Needless to say, they didn’t cure the problem.
Unfortunately a number of faults occurred directly after maintenance – pitch lever jamming, fuel leak at an injector, mixture control malfunction, loose exhaust stub, etc – but these were nothing to do with the aircraft/engine design.
Once, when the oil pressure warning light came on during a take off, I landed quickly and was later told that it was just the transmitter that had failed. Remembering about the flap motor I went to the nearest Peugeot main dealer, bought a transmitter over the counter and it was a perfect replacement at a fifth of the price it might have been. Paperwork? I don’t know what you are talking about!
The rough running was finally cured when I found out about Ted, who was an ignition wizard. He had worked for Vauxhall Motors on the engine side and had a small trouble shooting business. He had rigs and he would test components for hours on end, monitoring them and waiting for an intermittent fault to occur. He found a fault in one of our magnetos after over 20 hours running! Brilliant! The engine was perfect after that and it made me much happier after such a long time. Hot start difficulties were also improved, though not cured.
During this time I remember one short flight in snow. I flew from Booker to Fairoaks, just a few miles away, and I knew the route very well – or so I thought. I had not gone far when I entered a snow shower. We had flown through several earlier in the day and they had all been of short duration. I assumed that this one was just another small one. Rule: Do not assume! The snow became quite dense and I was just about able to maintain visual contact with the ground at 800 feet agl but it was nil visibility forwards and sideways. I decided to ask for a radar steer from Heathrow and they helped me get near to Fairoaks. ‘It’s at your 11 o’clock at two miles’. ‘No contact’. ‘It’s at your 10 o’clock at one mile’. ‘No contact’. ‘You must be able to see it. It’s at 9 o’clock at half a mile’. ‘Contact. Many, many thanks’. I could not really see Fairoaks. What I could see was a fairly indistinct solid white rectangle amid the surrounding broken-up whiteness. Beyond the first third of the runway I could see nothing recognisable. I suppose I should have cleared off and stooged around until the coast was clear but I didn’t know if it was long term snow or not.
We had had the Tiara for three years and after one short flight I joined overhead Fairoaks and entered the circuit to land. Downwind I selected undercarriage down and got only two greens (and a red for the starboard leg). I recycled the gear and still had only two greens so I cleared the circuit to the south, found a bit of free space and recycled several more times. I then pulled the emergency gear-lowering valve. No change.
I got a bit of height and with the undercarriage selected down proceeded to pull the aeroplane about to try and apply some g-loading. I was quite forceful in these manoeuvres and having a g-meter on board helped here. I had a passenger with me on his first flight in a light aircraft and fortunately he was of the unflappable type. I still had two greens.
I contacted the tower and explained the situation and after a while they found an engineer with the maintenance books and put him in the tower. They cleared the circuit for me and I did a series of very low level passes so that they could visually look at the undercarriage from the balcony. Under different circumstances that would have been great fun! The starboard leg was down and appeared to be OK. The engineer looked through the circuit diagrams and thought the most likely explanation was an electrical failure. So I decided it was time to land.
Fortunately the wind direction was such that there was a wide expanse of grass on the right hand side of the runway and so if the starboard leg did collapse, the machine would slew to the right on to the grass. I did the usual things, slow approach, soft touch down on the port wheel and held the dicky wheel off until I ran out of aileron and the starboard wheel held! I still had two greens, but great! The leg appeared to be OK so I taxied back to the hangar. I really should not have done that because when they jacked the Tiara up, the starboard leg dangled and swung to and fro. I had just been lucky.
On the rear face of the main spar, on both sides of the wing and within each undercarriage bay was a length of rubber of circular cross section, maybe 0.6 inches diameter with an integral eyelet at each end. It was part of the emergency gear lowering design. When the gear was retracted the rubber was in tension and trying to pull the leg down against the load from the hydraulic jack. The idea was that when you needed to use this device, the valve in the cockpit, with a ring on top was pulled up, all pressures in the undercarriage circuits were dumped and the rubber cord took over and cracked the leg to its ‘over-centre’ position so that it was locked down.
On this flight, the rubber cord had snapped and had become entangled with the U/C retraction mechanism (which was actually a small version of those in Hawker piston monoplanes) and prevented the U/C leg being locked down. It was ironic because there was nothing wrong with the U/C and it was part of the emergency release system that caused the ‘emergency’!
In fact, there were no up locks for the U/C. It was kept retracted by the hydraulic pump raising it and then stopping via a microswitch. As the legs sagged slightly, the switch detected it, started the pump and up the legs went again. Each time the pump started another of those lamps in the cockpit came on and it would flash throughout a flight. So in theory you could not have a wheel that was locked up. As for being locked down, well ????
The last ‘dicey’ event occurred not long after the aeroplane started to run perfectly. I was on my own swanning about over the North Downs, Guildford way, and minding my own business when I heard a horrible, loud but short lived buzzing sound, like a burst from a burp gun. The noise came from the engine and it was then replaced by a loud banging noise. Trouble! But it was still going. I contacted Fairoaks and asked for a ‘straight in’ which they agreed. On the way back I examined every field that was near me in case I had to try and land in it. Got back OK and taxied to the hangars. Later they told me that they thought that a flying tractor was coming their way.
They dismantled the cylinders to find that half the skirts of the No. 1 and No. 2 pistons were missing. They were in bits at the bottom of the sump. The buzzing noise was the engine chopping up the skirts into little pieces. I have No. 1 piston in front of me now and it was the missing part of the skirt that allowed the piston to tilt in the cylinder and for the top of the piston on one side to bash against the cylinder head, hence the banging noise. The maintenance company didn’t have a clue as to how this could have happened.
I was determined to follow this through. The fracture of the piston looked like a fatigue failure to me but I was not an expert so I got in touch with the retired Chief Metallurgist of Farnborough. He confirmed that the burnishing indicated that it was indeed a classic fatigue failure.
I spoke to Rolls Royce, Heathrow who were the agents for Teledyne Continental and by coincidence, considering the rarity of Tiaras, they had heard about a problem with some new cylinders that were being fitted by a company on the south coast. They didn’t seem to fit cleanly and the engineer had queried it.
About 40 flying hours before this event, our Tiara had undergone an Annual Inspection. When they did a compression check on each of the cylinders, all six were down and unacceptable. Apparently, the original cylinders had had steel sleeves pressed into the aluminium finned body and this had proved troublesome because there was poor heat transfer between them which led to distortion of the bores and the resultant lack of compression. TDC corrected this by introducing a sleeve with a contoured exterior and the fins were cast around it so there was intimate contact. We bought six new cylinders.
The engineer fitted these and the Tiara was cleared to fly. In reality, what had happened was that the four holes in the bottom flange of each cylinder had been drilled 1/16.inch out of position to one side during manufacture. The engineer had assembled them on the cylinder block studs and pulled them down against some resistance so the bores were out of place by 1/16.inch. The result was that all pistons now had a side load on them and it took about 40 hours of running for the skirts to fatigue and break off.
Teledyne contacted their base in the US where they found they had to scrap about 400 defective cylinders sitting on the shelf. We were supplied with correct cylinders and not long after Teledyne withdrew support for the Tiara engine. The engine was reassembled at Castle Mill and for the next 50 hours it was as good as gold and 100% reliable.
Unfortunately the aircraft was not getting the business use that would justify its bills and so we sold it to some Germans, Munich way, who immediately painted it red all over. I believe that it is still on the German Register.
Next, back to learning to fly.
Ralph
Wonderful stuff as ever....keep it coming its much appreciated.
Did it again yesterday......that is flew in XR240. There was a small memorial event at the old airfield at Upottery near Honiton, which had of all things arrive a C-47 that was based there at D-Day.
We took along various Austers over the two days and I managed to fly in 5 different examples, the last being 240 taking me home yesterday afternoon.
Martin
Did it again yesterday......that is flew in XR240. There was a small memorial event at the old airfield at Upottery near Honiton, which had of all things arrive a C-47 that was based there at D-Day.
We took along various Austers over the two days and I managed to fly in 5 different examples, the last being 240 taking me home yesterday afternoon.
Martin
Peter,
Thank you. I really appreciate your interest in this thread considering all your experiences.
Paul,
Thanks, I’ll continue for as long as I can.
Martin,
Many thanks. I have just turned a horrible green colour again. This site is starting to make me wonder just why I ever sold XR240.
Those aside, thank you for keeping me aware that my old dear is still going well.
Ralph
Thank you. I really appreciate your interest in this thread considering all your experiences.
Paul,
Thanks, I’ll continue for as long as I can.
Martin,
Many thanks. I have just turned a horrible green colour again. This site is starting to make me wonder just why I ever sold XR240.
Those aside, thank you for keeping me aware that my old dear is still going well.
Ralph
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Trev Clark
- The Ministry
- Posts: 2822
- Joined: 26 Jun 2004, 08:54
- Location: Runway 26 at RAF Tangmere....most Mondays!
Learning to Land Again and the AOP9 Described
I had about 500 hours in my logbook and had reached the stage when I was now flying mainly VFR. I could find my way around (that wasn’t difficult with all the nav. gear on board) and it was very rarely that my landings were not greasers (apart from when there were strong cross winds!). I might add that most serious GA flying accidents occur when pilots of privately owned aircraft with a few hundred hours under their belts and are starting to get a bit complacent, although most are weather related. In my case my next aeroplane knocked any complacency that I might have had, right out of me.
Feeling as though something was missing I started looking for a tail dragger, preferably of military origin, to see if there was more I could learn and enjoy in my flying. I think the military bit was linked to my early days in aviation.
I had a few flights in tail wheel aircraft of various types including several in Austers. The latter had not impressed me - they were just dull and mediocre and I never mastered those damned heel brakes. The only military aeroplane available that was within my price range was an Auster AOP MK9. So I went to have a look at it. It looked well worn from the outside but as soon as I put my head into the cockpit, I picked up THAT smell, a mixture of leather, hydraulic fluid, grease, dope and a bit of fear that you never seem to get in civil aircraft. I was already half way to buying it. It was much bigger than I had expected and looked as different from the J1s as you could get.
Time for a flight in her. It was a very hot August evening and I was taken up by John L. who had about 2000 hours experience, most of them on Austers. We flew around for a short time. It WAS as different from the J1s as you could get. After 10 minutes the engine stopped! Hands were going everywhere. The prop was wind milling and after about five seconds it restarted but that was enough to curtail the flight. It was the first time that John L. had experienced such a thing. Blimey! I thought, even the Tiara hasn’t done that – yet!
It was thought that a vapour lock, to which the AOP9 is prone, had caused the stoppage. Despite that hiccup, I bought it and a few days later flew it again with the same pilot and all was well, at least in the air all was well. It was when I got near the ground that it all started to come apart. I just could not land the damned thing. I bounced and ballooned it all over the place in my attempts to three point it. John L. eventually gave up and handed me over to the CFI at the field. He was equally unimpressed by my efforts and he also gave up on me. I had attempted about 40 ‘arrivals’ with some OK and some decidedly not but there was no consistency.
I mentioned earlier about my ‘Mr Summers’ from the book ‘Think Like a Bird’. He was called George. More about George later but at this time he and I went up to collect it. I did three circuits and we then returned to Booker. On my first landing with him he said, ‘You don’t do it like that!’ What he immediately spotted was that I was too low when rounding out. My experience with nose wheel aircraft had led me to round out a foot or so above the runway with a trickle of power to give authority to the elevator to help to keep the nose wheel up and then to close the throttle as the stick came back. And they just skated along the runway. As the nose went down the lift reduced and it settled. If you were a couple of knots above the stall when the wheels touched, it didn’t matter too much. It most certainly does matter with a tail dragger!
Many books on flying tail wheel aircraft say something like ‘There is no fundamental difference between landing nose wheel and tail wheel aeroplanes’. In my view, this is a simplistic statement.
Forgive me for stating the obvious, at any speed above the stall, with a tricycle gear aircraft the CG is forward of the main wheels and on wheel contact with the ground the aircraft will rotate forward, unless checked, and reduce the lift. With a tail dragger the CG is behind the main wheels and so on wheel contact the aircraft will rotate backwards. Up goes the angle of attack as well as the lift and you’re skyward bound. If you round out just a few inches off the ground, you have virtually no margin for error if you do not maintain those few inches as the stick comes back. At the same time you are experiencing a reduction in visibility as the nose rises.
Well, that my two penn’orth on the subject.
So George told me to start the round out higher, at say two to three feet, and it worked! I was high enough for small discrepancies in the descent rate not to matter as the stick came back and the speed fell off. Of course, with experience easing back the stick becomes smooth and instinctive, but in the early days of my conversion from tricycles, that skill was missing. Mind you, my tail wheel landings were never perfect – generally they were just about 80% less embarrassing than when I first started doing them.
I am mindful of the thread started in April 2006 by Martin (T6flyer) about the flight sim. version of this aeroplane and the fact that there were over 9000 views on it. I am assuming that some of the interest was centred on the AOP MK 9 itself and so I thought that I would spend the rest of this post describing it together some notes on the initial intensive flight trials. I am aware that much of this information has appeared elsewhere but I thought that it would be useful to summarise it here.
The Chief Designer of the MK 9 was ‘Dicky’ Bird, with whom I had a conversation or two. In my opinion, it is a brilliant design which became apparent to me after I had had some experience flying it. Although it was compromised by successive additional requirements demanded by the military, it still retained its unique abilities. They started with a clean sheet of paper and designed it as an Air Observation Post. It was not adapted from any previous Auster designs, as had been the case in the past.
Briefly, the structure of the MK 9 consists of a welded steel fuselage with fabric covering, similar to earlier designs but the wing of five feet chord has a light alloy structure. The leading edge back to the main spar is skinned in aluminium alloy to form a ‘D’ torsion box. Aft of the main spar it is covered with fabric and the ailerons are relatively large. All tail surfaces are of metal construction and aluminium alloy skinned. The undercarriage consists of two sturdy forged legs with a tail wheel. Large flaps are of the split type and are operated hydraulically.
In a bit more detail, for a light fixed wing aircraft it has unmatched visibility from within and has over 50 sq. ft. of Perspex enclosing the cockpit. The blind spot, as with all high wing aircraft is above the wing, but banking the MK 9 enables the pilot to see through the top of the generous upper canopy all the way from sky to ground. It has three seats, the rear one usually facing backward and from there you get an uninterrupted panoramic view of where you have been. Each seat has its own door and all are jettisonable via black and yellow release handles.
The main undercarriage legs and the tail wheel are all fitted with Dowty liquid spring shock absorbers that give a superb ride over the bumpiest airfield grass. It was designed specifically to handle the roughest terrain whilst on military operations, including furrowed ground and mud. The main wheels have large low-pressure tyres and the impressive hydraulic disc brakes are operated by toe pedals, a vast improvement on previous Austers.
The design of the flaps, whilst not unique, is rare. Lowering them produces a simultaneous lowering of the ailerons or droop. Full flap deflects the ailerons 10 degrees downwards with corresponding smaller aileron deflections with less than full flap. This produces an effective additional camber of the wing and greatly improves the low speed performance of the aeroplane. The down side to this is that with full flap there is virtually no prior warning of a stall because despite the washout towards the tips, the wing stalls across the whole of the span at the same time. The only warning that you get is that the ailerons become sloppy. The flaps are pumped down via a hydraulic jack in the roof of the cockpit with a lever. It is used after selecting ‘Down’ on a latch valve integral with the pump and can be set at any appropriate angle. To raise the flaps, you push the latch up and the airflow will retract the flaps with no further input from the pilot. You learn to do all this without even bothering to look for the latch which is above your right ear.
The fuel system includes port and starboard wing tanks, each holding 15 imp galls. The fuel lines from each tank are routed downwards to a non-return valve and then join in a tee and fuel is then fed to the engine via a single tube so there is no tank selector. I will come back to this arrangement in a future post. The fuel injector pump does not match its delivery with the demand and the excess fuel is dumped into the starboard tank. This produces an imbalance in the tank fuel levels. When the engine is off the fuel cross feeds and after a time the tank levels are equalised. The MK 9 suffered for a long time with serious vapour locks leading to numerous engine stoppages. The solution was to fit a collector tank complete with internal booster pump, to separate the vapour and vent it to atmosphere. This ‘crash proof’ tank was positioned centrally in the cockpit below the panel.
The engine is a four cylinder inverted in line air-cooled Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier 208 that is fuel injected and drives a Fairey Reed fixed pitch metal propellor. It is reputed to produce 180 bhp but I don’t think that any of them ever got above about 160 bhp in service and it seemed to me to have a pretty poor power/weight ratio. However, the beauty of it being fuel injected is that, if needed, the throttle can be slammed forward to get an instant response with no suggestion of a rich cut, etc. It is another engine with duplex mags, which I did not care for and it has two Amal engine driven fuel pumps and a fuel injector pump. With the booster pump there are no less than four fuel pumps on board! Whilst in service, the engine used a Coffman cartridge starter.
The purpose of the intensive flight trials was to put the aircraft through a rigorous series of tests under simulated operational conditions to see how it responded. The trials were a combination of both flight behaviour and servicing exercises and the former were to include heavy landings and rough handling. They would normally have been conducted at Boscombe Down but due to A&AEE’s commitments and the need to get the MK9 operational as soon as possible because it was needed in Malaya, Austers were asked to carry out these trials at Rearsby under the supervision of Boscombe.
The prototype MK9, WZ662 first flew in March 1954. The first production aircraft were available for testing in September 1954 with the trials themselves starting on 4 October. WZ664 was used and they were completed on 30 December 1954.
The assistant chief test pilot was Les Leetham who I am delighted to say is still around and I was able to speak to him today. I am indebted to him for his permission to publish some of the information appearing below. They needed five pilots for the trials. He was in charge so what about the other four? Believe it or not, they recruited four members from the Rearsby Flying Club! Can you believe their luck?
To start with, the designated area from which the aircraft operated was a circle, 200 yards diameter crossed by an ash road with verges, the poorest surface on the airfield. They also used a stubble field which had been ploughed with furrows, 6 to 8 inches deep at right angles to the landing direction. The furrows were about every 20 yards.
150 hours of flight time were to be used to perform a series of tasks starting with take offs, circuits and landings within the appointed area. Landings were made at AUW of 2115 lbs. All results were satisfactory.
Low flying and cross-country reconnaissance flights were made to assess its suitability for these operations and it was found to be suitable for these jobs.
Rough handling included dives and recovery, evasive action, side slipping, stalls and steep turns. Originally the maximum diving speed was 170 kts. It was decided that because of the very steep diving angle needed to achieve this speed and the care needed in the recovery, the maximum speed was to be 140 kts during the trials. This is the figure that has been used ever since. I must say that I would have be a bit less apprehensive when diving at this speed for Permit Renewal purposes, if I had known that there were 30 kts in hand. Needless to say all tests were satisfactory.
Endurance flights at various heights were made to check fuel consumption rates and two flights continued until the tank had run dry. This checked the total useable amount of fuel when the tank was refilled.
45 intentionally heavy landings were made by either Les or by Ranald Porteous, CTP. Some landings were ‘flown in’ with no attempt to flare and the others stalled and ‘dropped in’ from three or four feet. They recorded up to 3.75g, which is very high. I seem to remember from my stressing days that a figure of 2g was used for the landing case, which always struck me as being low. I cannot remember the figures for the asymmetric case when the landing was on one wheel. There was no trouble or damage during these landings.
They also tested rough use of the throttle by sharply opening and closing it over a period of three minutes in a series of short flights. Faultless responses occurred in all cases.
Startings were ‘cartridge starts’ but later, after a fracture of the starter exhaust tube, hand starting was done without difficulty.
The official report does not include the one major mishap when a pilot made an attempt to land from an impossible height. The undercarriage collapsed and the trials were temporarily halted. It was fortunate that the tests were being held at Rearsby because all the facilities for a quick repair were on site and it was flying again within five days.
Next time, a bit about MK9 operational use and then on to my years with XR240.
Ralph
I had about 500 hours in my logbook and had reached the stage when I was now flying mainly VFR. I could find my way around (that wasn’t difficult with all the nav. gear on board) and it was very rarely that my landings were not greasers (apart from when there were strong cross winds!). I might add that most serious GA flying accidents occur when pilots of privately owned aircraft with a few hundred hours under their belts and are starting to get a bit complacent, although most are weather related. In my case my next aeroplane knocked any complacency that I might have had, right out of me.
Feeling as though something was missing I started looking for a tail dragger, preferably of military origin, to see if there was more I could learn and enjoy in my flying. I think the military bit was linked to my early days in aviation.
I had a few flights in tail wheel aircraft of various types including several in Austers. The latter had not impressed me - they were just dull and mediocre and I never mastered those damned heel brakes. The only military aeroplane available that was within my price range was an Auster AOP MK9. So I went to have a look at it. It looked well worn from the outside but as soon as I put my head into the cockpit, I picked up THAT smell, a mixture of leather, hydraulic fluid, grease, dope and a bit of fear that you never seem to get in civil aircraft. I was already half way to buying it. It was much bigger than I had expected and looked as different from the J1s as you could get.
Time for a flight in her. It was a very hot August evening and I was taken up by John L. who had about 2000 hours experience, most of them on Austers. We flew around for a short time. It WAS as different from the J1s as you could get. After 10 minutes the engine stopped! Hands were going everywhere. The prop was wind milling and after about five seconds it restarted but that was enough to curtail the flight. It was the first time that John L. had experienced such a thing. Blimey! I thought, even the Tiara hasn’t done that – yet!
It was thought that a vapour lock, to which the AOP9 is prone, had caused the stoppage. Despite that hiccup, I bought it and a few days later flew it again with the same pilot and all was well, at least in the air all was well. It was when I got near the ground that it all started to come apart. I just could not land the damned thing. I bounced and ballooned it all over the place in my attempts to three point it. John L. eventually gave up and handed me over to the CFI at the field. He was equally unimpressed by my efforts and he also gave up on me. I had attempted about 40 ‘arrivals’ with some OK and some decidedly not but there was no consistency.
I mentioned earlier about my ‘Mr Summers’ from the book ‘Think Like a Bird’. He was called George. More about George later but at this time he and I went up to collect it. I did three circuits and we then returned to Booker. On my first landing with him he said, ‘You don’t do it like that!’ What he immediately spotted was that I was too low when rounding out. My experience with nose wheel aircraft had led me to round out a foot or so above the runway with a trickle of power to give authority to the elevator to help to keep the nose wheel up and then to close the throttle as the stick came back. And they just skated along the runway. As the nose went down the lift reduced and it settled. If you were a couple of knots above the stall when the wheels touched, it didn’t matter too much. It most certainly does matter with a tail dragger!
Many books on flying tail wheel aircraft say something like ‘There is no fundamental difference between landing nose wheel and tail wheel aeroplanes’. In my view, this is a simplistic statement.
Forgive me for stating the obvious, at any speed above the stall, with a tricycle gear aircraft the CG is forward of the main wheels and on wheel contact with the ground the aircraft will rotate forward, unless checked, and reduce the lift. With a tail dragger the CG is behind the main wheels and so on wheel contact the aircraft will rotate backwards. Up goes the angle of attack as well as the lift and you’re skyward bound. If you round out just a few inches off the ground, you have virtually no margin for error if you do not maintain those few inches as the stick comes back. At the same time you are experiencing a reduction in visibility as the nose rises.
Well, that my two penn’orth on the subject.
So George told me to start the round out higher, at say two to three feet, and it worked! I was high enough for small discrepancies in the descent rate not to matter as the stick came back and the speed fell off. Of course, with experience easing back the stick becomes smooth and instinctive, but in the early days of my conversion from tricycles, that skill was missing. Mind you, my tail wheel landings were never perfect – generally they were just about 80% less embarrassing than when I first started doing them.
I am mindful of the thread started in April 2006 by Martin (T6flyer) about the flight sim. version of this aeroplane and the fact that there were over 9000 views on it. I am assuming that some of the interest was centred on the AOP MK 9 itself and so I thought that I would spend the rest of this post describing it together some notes on the initial intensive flight trials. I am aware that much of this information has appeared elsewhere but I thought that it would be useful to summarise it here.
The Chief Designer of the MK 9 was ‘Dicky’ Bird, with whom I had a conversation or two. In my opinion, it is a brilliant design which became apparent to me after I had had some experience flying it. Although it was compromised by successive additional requirements demanded by the military, it still retained its unique abilities. They started with a clean sheet of paper and designed it as an Air Observation Post. It was not adapted from any previous Auster designs, as had been the case in the past.
Briefly, the structure of the MK 9 consists of a welded steel fuselage with fabric covering, similar to earlier designs but the wing of five feet chord has a light alloy structure. The leading edge back to the main spar is skinned in aluminium alloy to form a ‘D’ torsion box. Aft of the main spar it is covered with fabric and the ailerons are relatively large. All tail surfaces are of metal construction and aluminium alloy skinned. The undercarriage consists of two sturdy forged legs with a tail wheel. Large flaps are of the split type and are operated hydraulically.
In a bit more detail, for a light fixed wing aircraft it has unmatched visibility from within and has over 50 sq. ft. of Perspex enclosing the cockpit. The blind spot, as with all high wing aircraft is above the wing, but banking the MK 9 enables the pilot to see through the top of the generous upper canopy all the way from sky to ground. It has three seats, the rear one usually facing backward and from there you get an uninterrupted panoramic view of where you have been. Each seat has its own door and all are jettisonable via black and yellow release handles.
The main undercarriage legs and the tail wheel are all fitted with Dowty liquid spring shock absorbers that give a superb ride over the bumpiest airfield grass. It was designed specifically to handle the roughest terrain whilst on military operations, including furrowed ground and mud. The main wheels have large low-pressure tyres and the impressive hydraulic disc brakes are operated by toe pedals, a vast improvement on previous Austers.
The design of the flaps, whilst not unique, is rare. Lowering them produces a simultaneous lowering of the ailerons or droop. Full flap deflects the ailerons 10 degrees downwards with corresponding smaller aileron deflections with less than full flap. This produces an effective additional camber of the wing and greatly improves the low speed performance of the aeroplane. The down side to this is that with full flap there is virtually no prior warning of a stall because despite the washout towards the tips, the wing stalls across the whole of the span at the same time. The only warning that you get is that the ailerons become sloppy. The flaps are pumped down via a hydraulic jack in the roof of the cockpit with a lever. It is used after selecting ‘Down’ on a latch valve integral with the pump and can be set at any appropriate angle. To raise the flaps, you push the latch up and the airflow will retract the flaps with no further input from the pilot. You learn to do all this without even bothering to look for the latch which is above your right ear.
The fuel system includes port and starboard wing tanks, each holding 15 imp galls. The fuel lines from each tank are routed downwards to a non-return valve and then join in a tee and fuel is then fed to the engine via a single tube so there is no tank selector. I will come back to this arrangement in a future post. The fuel injector pump does not match its delivery with the demand and the excess fuel is dumped into the starboard tank. This produces an imbalance in the tank fuel levels. When the engine is off the fuel cross feeds and after a time the tank levels are equalised. The MK 9 suffered for a long time with serious vapour locks leading to numerous engine stoppages. The solution was to fit a collector tank complete with internal booster pump, to separate the vapour and vent it to atmosphere. This ‘crash proof’ tank was positioned centrally in the cockpit below the panel.
The engine is a four cylinder inverted in line air-cooled Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier 208 that is fuel injected and drives a Fairey Reed fixed pitch metal propellor. It is reputed to produce 180 bhp but I don’t think that any of them ever got above about 160 bhp in service and it seemed to me to have a pretty poor power/weight ratio. However, the beauty of it being fuel injected is that, if needed, the throttle can be slammed forward to get an instant response with no suggestion of a rich cut, etc. It is another engine with duplex mags, which I did not care for and it has two Amal engine driven fuel pumps and a fuel injector pump. With the booster pump there are no less than four fuel pumps on board! Whilst in service, the engine used a Coffman cartridge starter.
The purpose of the intensive flight trials was to put the aircraft through a rigorous series of tests under simulated operational conditions to see how it responded. The trials were a combination of both flight behaviour and servicing exercises and the former were to include heavy landings and rough handling. They would normally have been conducted at Boscombe Down but due to A&AEE’s commitments and the need to get the MK9 operational as soon as possible because it was needed in Malaya, Austers were asked to carry out these trials at Rearsby under the supervision of Boscombe.
The prototype MK9, WZ662 first flew in March 1954. The first production aircraft were available for testing in September 1954 with the trials themselves starting on 4 October. WZ664 was used and they were completed on 30 December 1954.
The assistant chief test pilot was Les Leetham who I am delighted to say is still around and I was able to speak to him today. I am indebted to him for his permission to publish some of the information appearing below. They needed five pilots for the trials. He was in charge so what about the other four? Believe it or not, they recruited four members from the Rearsby Flying Club! Can you believe their luck?
To start with, the designated area from which the aircraft operated was a circle, 200 yards diameter crossed by an ash road with verges, the poorest surface on the airfield. They also used a stubble field which had been ploughed with furrows, 6 to 8 inches deep at right angles to the landing direction. The furrows were about every 20 yards.
150 hours of flight time were to be used to perform a series of tasks starting with take offs, circuits and landings within the appointed area. Landings were made at AUW of 2115 lbs. All results were satisfactory.
Low flying and cross-country reconnaissance flights were made to assess its suitability for these operations and it was found to be suitable for these jobs.
Rough handling included dives and recovery, evasive action, side slipping, stalls and steep turns. Originally the maximum diving speed was 170 kts. It was decided that because of the very steep diving angle needed to achieve this speed and the care needed in the recovery, the maximum speed was to be 140 kts during the trials. This is the figure that has been used ever since. I must say that I would have be a bit less apprehensive when diving at this speed for Permit Renewal purposes, if I had known that there were 30 kts in hand. Needless to say all tests were satisfactory.
Endurance flights at various heights were made to check fuel consumption rates and two flights continued until the tank had run dry. This checked the total useable amount of fuel when the tank was refilled.
45 intentionally heavy landings were made by either Les or by Ranald Porteous, CTP. Some landings were ‘flown in’ with no attempt to flare and the others stalled and ‘dropped in’ from three or four feet. They recorded up to 3.75g, which is very high. I seem to remember from my stressing days that a figure of 2g was used for the landing case, which always struck me as being low. I cannot remember the figures for the asymmetric case when the landing was on one wheel. There was no trouble or damage during these landings.
They also tested rough use of the throttle by sharply opening and closing it over a period of three minutes in a series of short flights. Faultless responses occurred in all cases.
Startings were ‘cartridge starts’ but later, after a fracture of the starter exhaust tube, hand starting was done without difficulty.
The official report does not include the one major mishap when a pilot made an attempt to land from an impossible height. The undercarriage collapsed and the trials were temporarily halted. It was fortunate that the tests were being held at Rearsby because all the facilities for a quick repair were on site and it was flying again within five days.
Next time, a bit about MK9 operational use and then on to my years with XR240.
Ralph
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DispatchDragon
- Battle of Britain
- Posts: 4925
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Thanks Ralph
It seems to be old memories week here at CBFS - Seems Austers have
always been in the periphery of my life.
My father flew one of the "many" that Brian (Bridon Bear) recalls
at Staverton in the late 50s and early 60s , he and a gent by the
name of Harold Wingham used to go out and photograph archeological
sites in the Cotswolds. From those photographs I got a sort of early
learning of photographic interpration - Darned if I can remember the
registrations of that Auster. I do remember the next three in my life.
They were owned by Luton Flying Club - G-AIGT (first aircraft I ever
chucked up in) G-AGXH , that my older brother soloed in 1965, and
G-AIJI which I always assumed was a J1N but unlike the other two
had a full two place seat in the back rather than odd three quarter
turned single seat. After they disappeared there was a rather twee
AOP6 that Air Commode Wheeler used to arrive at Shuttleworth open
days in....and then....I came to the states....20 years goes by and
a gent by the name of Bob Rust had bought a load of ex RAF Chipmunks
and had them stashed at a little airfield south of Atlanta Ga. - One day
sitting outside the office at my then "local" airport (South Expressway,
in Jonesboro Ga - long gone to Office parks) I heard the beautiful sound
of a Gypsy and thought we were about to be visited by one of Bobs
Chippies....Lo and behold turning base was a J1N - the upshot was
the gent flying had bought it from Bob Rust (He had three Austers
with the group of Chipmunks) and wanted to base it at South Expressway. First time he took it flying I was sitting in the office when
one of the "lineboys" came in and asked me if I knew how to start
the "British taildragger" - it seems everyone was scared of hand
propping Gypsys because they "went the wrong way" - Ten minutes
later and about five pull throughs I was sitting in the Right seat of
th Auster 2500 feet above North Georgia
Thanks Ralph
You keep managing to reawaken old memories so please keep
giving us these wonderful installments
Leif
It seems to be old memories week here at CBFS - Seems Austers have
always been in the periphery of my life.
My father flew one of the "many" that Brian (Bridon Bear) recalls
at Staverton in the late 50s and early 60s , he and a gent by the
name of Harold Wingham used to go out and photograph archeological
sites in the Cotswolds. From those photographs I got a sort of early
learning of photographic interpration - Darned if I can remember the
registrations of that Auster. I do remember the next three in my life.
They were owned by Luton Flying Club - G-AIGT (first aircraft I ever
chucked up in) G-AGXH , that my older brother soloed in 1965, and
G-AIJI which I always assumed was a J1N but unlike the other two
had a full two place seat in the back rather than odd three quarter
turned single seat. After they disappeared there was a rather twee
AOP6 that Air Commode Wheeler used to arrive at Shuttleworth open
days in....and then....I came to the states....20 years goes by and
a gent by the name of Bob Rust had bought a load of ex RAF Chipmunks
and had them stashed at a little airfield south of Atlanta Ga. - One day
sitting outside the office at my then "local" airport (South Expressway,
in Jonesboro Ga - long gone to Office parks) I heard the beautiful sound
of a Gypsy and thought we were about to be visited by one of Bobs
Chippies....Lo and behold turning base was a J1N - the upshot was
the gent flying had bought it from Bob Rust (He had three Austers
with the group of Chipmunks) and wanted to base it at South Expressway. First time he took it flying I was sitting in the office when
one of the "lineboys" came in and asked me if I knew how to start
the "British taildragger" - it seems everyone was scared of hand
propping Gypsys because they "went the wrong way" - Ten minutes
later and about five pull throughs I was sitting in the Right seat of
th Auster 2500 feet above North Georgia
Thanks Ralph
You keep managing to reawaken old memories so please keep
giving us these wonderful installments
Leif
Re: Very new old boy
Well, I've learnt a lot more about the 9.....keep it coming, its so much appreciated. Will if its ok, print out the last instalment and take up to Eggesford this weekend as WZ662 is alive and well with us and I'm sure the owner Geoff Houlgrave will find it as interesting as we have.
Thank you.
Martin
Thank you.
Martin