PP1, the first prototype of the EH101, ZF 641. (Paul Thallon)
9 October 1987: Westland Helicopters Ltd. Chief Test Pilot John Trevor Eggington and Deputy Chief Test Pilot Colin W. Hague take PP1, the first EH 101 prototype, for its first flight at Yeovil, Somerset, United Kingdom. The helicopter had been completed 7 April 1987 and underwent months of ground testing.
A medium-lift helicopter, the EH 101 was a joint venture of Westland and Costruzioni AeronauticheGiovanniAgusta S.p.A. of Italy, known then as European Helicopter Industries, or EHI, to produce a replacement for the Sikorsky S-61 Sea King, which both companies built under license. The Italian and British companies merged in July 2000 and are now known as AgustaWestland NV, with corporate headquarters in the Netherlands. After the merger of the two helicopter manufacturers, the EH 101 was redesignated AW101. It is also known as the Merlin.
Canadian Forces CH-149 Cormorant 149902, a search and rescue variant of the AgustaWestland AW101. (Korona4Reel via Wikipedia)
Nine prototypes were built, four by Agusta at Vergiate, Italy, and five by Westland at Yeovil. During testing, Agusta-built PP2 and Westland’s PP4 were destroyed.
PP1, the first prototype, was powered by three General Electric CT7-2A turboshaft engines which were rated at 1,625 shaft horsepower, each. In production, Rolls-Royce/Turbomeca RTM322 engines are optional, as are the more powerful CT7-8s. Produced in both military and civil variants, the Merlin is used in search-and-rescue, anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, airborne early warning and utility configurations. Production began in 1995 and continues today.
The AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin is a single main rotor/tail rotor medium helicopter powered by three turboshaft engines. It is equipped with retractable tricycle landing gear. The helicopter may be flown by a single pilot and uses a digital flight control system. The actual flight crew is dependent on aircraft configuration and mission.
The five blade composite main rotor has a diameter of 61 feet, 0 inches (18.593 meters) and turns counterclockwise as seen from above. (The advancing blade is on the helicopter’s right side.) The blades use a BERP feature that was pioneered on the Westland Lynx AH.1 Lynx, G-LYNX, which Trevor Eddington flew to a world speed record, 11 August 1986. This allows higher speeds, greater gross weight and is quieter than a standard blade. A four blade tail rotor with a diameter of 13 feet, 1 inch (3.962 meters) is positioned on the left side of the tail boom in pusher configuration. It rotates clockwise as seen from the helicopter’s left. The tail rotor pylon is inclined to the left.
PP5, the prototype ASW variant parked aboard HMS Iron Duke (F234). (Royal Navy)
Overall length of the AW101 is 74 feet, 10 inches (22.809 meters) with rotors turning. The fuselage is 64 feet, 1 inch (19.533 meters) long. Overall height of the helicopter is 18 feet, 7 inches (5.664 meters). Its empty weight is 20,018 pounds (9,080 kilograms) and the maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) is 34,392 pounds (15,600 kilograms).
The RTM322 engine was developed as a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and Turboméca, but is now a Safran Helicopter Engines product. The RTM322 02/8 is a modular reverse-flow turboshaft engine with a 3-stage axial-flow, 1 stage centrifugal-flow compressor and 2-stage high-pressure, 2-stage power turbine. The output drive shaft turns 20,900 r.p.m. The RTM322 02/08 is rated at 2,000 shaft horsepower, and 2,270 shaft horsepower for takeoff. It has a One Engine Inoperative (OEI) rating of 2,472 shaft horsepower (30 minute limit). The engine is 3 feet, 10.1 inches (1.171 meters) long, 2 feet, 1.5 inches (0.648 meters) in diameter and weighs 503 pounds (228.2 kilograms).
The AW101’s cruise speed is 278 kilometers per hour (150 knots). The hover ceiling in ground effect (HIGE) is 3,307 meters (10,850 feet). In utility configuration, the Merlin carries fuel for 6 hours, 30 minutes of flight and has a maximum range of 1,363 kilometers (735 nautical miles).
John Trevor Eggington, Chief Test Pilot, Westland Helicopters. (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett, Test and Research Pilots, Flight Test Engineers)
Trevor Eggington retired from Westland in 1988 and Colin Hague became the company’s chief test pilot. In 2003, Hague was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent (OBE) Order of the British Empire for his contributions to aviation.
Deputy Chief Test Pilot Colin W. Hague, with the first prototype EH101, PP1. (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett, Test and Research Pilots, Flight Test Engineers)
Since 2010, PP1 has been used as an instructional airframe for maintenance personnel at RNAS Culdrose, Cornwall, UK.
ZF 641, the first prototype of the EH 101 (AW101) Merlin, at RNAS Culdrose, 2010. (dyvroeth)
27 September 1946: Geoffrey Raoul de Havilland, Jr., O.B.E., Chief Test Pilot of the de Havilland Aircraft Co., Ltd., and the son of the firm’s founder, was killed during a test flight of a prototype DH.108 Swallow, TG306.
Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr., in the cockpit of the second DH.108 Swallow prototype, TG306. (FLIGHT)
De Havilland had taken off from the company airfield at Hatfield at 5:26 p.m. for a planned 45 minute flight. Flying over the Thames Estuary, east of London, England, de Havilland put the swept-wing jet into a high-speed dive from 10,000 feet (3,048 meters). As it approached 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) at 0.88 Mach, (658 miles per hour, 1,060 kilometers per hour), the shock waves building up along the wings’ leading edges disrupted the air flow over the wings, causing them to stall. TG306 pitched violently downward. A NASA report called this “. . . an undamped violently divergent longitudinal pitching oscillation at Mach 0.875. . . .” The extreme aerodynamic loads cracked the main spar and both wings failed. The DH.108 crashed into Egypt Bay, Gravesend, Kent.
The wreck was located the following day. The body of Geoffrey de Havilland was found ten days later. He had suffered a broken neck and fractured skull as a result of his head striking the canopy during the violent oscillations of the aircraft.
(Grace’s Guide)
FLIGHT reported:
Geoffrey de Havilland was one of the outstanding test pilots in the country, and his work has played a vital part in the perfecting of such noteworthy types as the Mosquito, Hornet, Vampire and 108. His death is a serious blow not only to the company but to the country, for in the exploration of the unknown threshold of sonic flight, a combination of skill and cool courage are qualities demanding the utmost of test pilots. Geoffrey de Havilland had these qualities in a very high degree.
—FLIGHT and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER, No.1971, Vol. 1, Thursday, 3 October 1946, at page 364
De Havilland DH.108 TG306. (Unattributed)
The DH.108 was a single-seat, single-engine jet fighter prototype with swept wings and no conventional tail. It was similar in configuration to the Messerschmitt Me-163 rocket-powered interceptor. The first two prototypes, TG283 and TG306, were built using production English Electric DH.106 Vampire F.I fuselages. TG283 had a 43° sweep to the wings’ leading edge, while TG306 had a 45° sweep. The airplane was powered by a de Havilland Goblin 3 centrifugal-flow turbojet engine (a development of the Halford H.1) which produced 3,350 pounds of thrust (14.90 kilonewtons).
The first and third DH.108s also crashed. VW120 was destroyed on 15 February 1950 when it crashed after a dive. The left wing had separated and the pilot, Squadron Leader Stuart Muller-Rowland, also suffered a broken neck as a result of the airplane’s violent oscillations. On 1 May 1950, while conducting low-speed tests, TG283 went into an inverted spin. Squadron Leader George E.C. Genders, AFC, DFM, bailed out but his parachute did not open before he hit the ground and he was killed.
Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr., OBE, exits the cockpit of a DH.108 Swallow prototype. (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett, Test and Research Pilots, Flight Test Engineers)
“David Hempleman-Adams, left, with Saint John resident Jim Rogers on Sept. 26, 2003, just before the balloon launch.” (Kings County Record)
26 September 2003: At 2:38 a.m., Friday, David Kim Hempleman-Adams, O.B.E., lifted off from the athletic field of Sussex Elementary School, Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada, in his Rozière balloon on a four-day transatlantic flight. Hempleman-Adams was in an open 7 feet × 3 feet (2.1 × 0.9 meters) wicker basket.
Hempleman-Adam’s Cameron R-90 being prepared for takeoff on a previous transatlantic attempt, 27 June 2003, at Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
The balloon was built by Cameron Balloons, Ltd., Bristol, in 2000. It was a Cameron R-90, serial number 4751. The balloon was first registered 31 March 2000, as G-BYZX.
The R-90 is a Rozière balloon, which has separate chambers for helium and heated air. This allows the aeronaut to control the balloon’s buoyancy, but the hybrid type uses much less fuel than a hot-air balloon. The type is named after its inventor, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale places the Cameron R-90 in the free balloon sub-class AM-08, for mixed balloons with a volume of 2,200–3,000 cubic meters (77,692–105,944 cubic feet).
G-BYZX had a maximum takeoff weight of 2,654 kilograms (5,851 pounds).
Hempleman Adams had previously flown G-BYZX, then named Britannic Challenge, to the North Pole, on 3 June 2000. Following his transatlantic flight, he would use it to set a FAI World Record for Altitude of 12,557 meters (41,198 feet), 23 March 2004.
During the first day, Hempleman-Adams’ balloon gradually rose to an altitude of 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) as it drifted eastward. On the second day he was at 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), and on Day 3 he reached a peak of 14,000 feet (4,267 meters).
The weather was very cold, with rain and snow. Hempleman-Adams said that the average temperature during the flight was -12 °C. (10.4 °F.). Ice built up on the balloon’s envelope, increasing its weight. It became heavy enough that the balloon began to descend. Hempleman-Adams was unable to prevent the descent by using the propane burners to heat the air and increase buoyancy, and was forced to lighten the balloon by jettisoning six propane cylinders.
During the third day, the balloon was hit by the shock waves of a Concorde supersonic airliner as it passed overhead at 30,000 feet (9,144 meters). Hempleman-Adams felt a very abrupt, but fortunately, brief, descent as a result.
G-BYZX reached the southwestern tip of Ireland at 8:30 a.m., BST, on 29 September, completing the transatlantic phase of his flight. The balloon continued to drift eastward, and at 6 p.m. on 30 September, came to rest near Hambleton, Lancashire, England. The total duration of the flight was 83 hours, 14 minutes, 35 seconds.
Sir David Kim Hempleman-Adams, K.C.V.O., O.B.E., K.St.J., D.L., is an interesting guy. He is the first person to have completed the True Adventurer’s Grand Slam, by reaching the North and South Poles, the North and South Magnetic Poles, and to have climbed the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale online database currently credits him with 49 world aviation records.
David Hempleman-Adams waves at the camera after landing in England, 30 September 2003.
11 August 1986: A modified factory demonstration Westland Lynx AH.1 helicopter, civil registration G-LYNX, piloted by Chief Test Pilot John Trevor Egginton and Flight Test Engineer Derek J. Clews, set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Absolute Record for Speed for helicopters over a straight 15/25 km course with an average speed of 400.87 kilometers per hour (249.09 miles per hour) over a measured 15 kilometer (9.32 miles) course near Glastonbury on the Somerset Levels and Moors, Southwest England.¹ ² ³
Westland WG.13 Lynx G-LYNX, c/n 102. (Vertipedia)
The helicopter was equipped with experimental BERP main rotor blades and two Rolls Royce Gem 60 turboshaft engines with digital electronic fuel control and water-methanol injection, producing 1,345 shaft horsepower, each. The engines’ exhausts were modified to provide 600 pounds of thrust (2,669 Newtons). The horizontal tail plane and vertical fins from a Westland WG.30 were used to increase longitudinal stability and to unload the tail rotor in forward flight. In an effort to reduce aerodynamic drag, items such as steps, antennas and windshield wipers were removed.
During the speed runs, the main rotor blade tips reached a speed of 0.97 Mach.
Four passes over the course were made at an altitude of 500 feet (150 meters). The results of the two best successive passes were averaged. This set records for helicopters; helicopters in the 3,000–4,500 kilogram weight class; and an Absolute World Record for Rotorcraft. Thirty-two years later, these official speed records still stand.
Westland Lynx AH.1, G-LYNX. This is the World’s Fastest Helicopter. (Westland)
Another Westland AH.1 Lynx, flown by then Westland Chief Pilot Leonard Roy Moxham and Michael Ball, had set two FAI World Records for Speed, 20 and 22 June 1972. Flying over a straight 15/25 kilometer course, the Lynx averaged 321.74 kilometers per hour (199.92 miles per hour).⁴ Two days later, the Lynx flew a closed 100 kilometer circuit at an average speed of 318.50 kilometers per hour (197.91 miles per hour).⁵ Both of these records were for helicopters in the 3,000–4,500 kilogram weight class.
Westland WG.13 c/n 102 made its first flight in May 1979. After setting the speed record, G-LYNX was used as a demonstrator and as a test platform, before finally being retired in 1992. Beginning in 2007, AgustaWestland restored the Lynx to its speed record configuration, withe more than 25,000 man hours expended on the project.
G-LYNX was unveiled on 11 August 2011, the 25th anniversary of the world record flight. Today, it is on display at The Helicopter Museum, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, South West England.
On 25 September 2014, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers bestowed its Engineering Heritage Award on G-LYNX. John Wood, chairman of the Institution said,
“The G-Lynx helicopter is a remarkable example of British engineering and vision. It is a testament to the cutting-edge modifications made to the helicopter, that the world speed record still stands 28 years later.
“This award is in recognition of all the people in making the 1986 record possible, but also to the AgustaWestland apprentices who restored the helicopter in 2011 and the Helicopter Museum who continue to maintain the craft in such excellent condition.”
The Engineering Heritage Award was accepted by Elfan Ap Rees, founder of the Helicopter Museum, and John Trevor Egginton, pilot of the world record helicopter.
John Trevor Egginton, O.B.E., A.F.C., FRAeS. Chief Test Pilot, Westland Helicopters. (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett, Test and Research Pilots, Flight test Engineers)
John Trevor Egginton was born in Birmingham, England, 14 March 1933. He was the second child of Alfred T. Egginton and Emma Hammond Egginton. John attended the George Dixon Grammar School at Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham.
In 1951, Egginton joined the Royal Air Force. On 7 May 1952, he was appointed a cadet pilot, with date of service from 2 January 1952. He was sent to the United States for flight training, and returned to England aboard RMS Queen Elizabeth, arriving at Southampton, 17 November 1953. He flew the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.4 with No. 67 Squadron and the Hawker Hunter with Nos. 222 and 63 Squadrons.
In December 1956, Pilot Officer Egginton married Miss Joan Mary Wheeler at Bromsgrove, near Birmingham. They would have three children, Jane, Michael and Frazer.
Pilot Officer Egginton was promoted to the rank of Flight Lieutenant, 2 October 1957. His commission was made permanent, 31 August 1961.
Following an overseas tour of duty in the Colony of Aden, Flight Lieutenant Egginton transitioned to helicopters, training in the Bristol Sycamore. He was then assigned to No. 22 Squadron at RAF Chivenor, on the north coast of Devon, as a search and rescue pilot. The squadron was equipped with the Westland Whirlwind HAR.2, a licensed variant of the Sikorsky S-55. In August 1962, the unit upgraded to the turboshaft-powered Whirlwind HAR.10.
On the night of 2–3 November 1962, the French fishing trawler Jeanne Gougy, with a crew of 18 men, went aground at Land’s End, Cornwall. A Royal Air Force helicopter from RAF Chivenor and a lifeboat from the Sennen Cove life boat station went to the scene. The lifeboat was unable to approach the wreck because of the heavy weather, but recovered two dead fishermen offshore. The helicopter also recovered a body. No other sailors were seen, the the two rescue craft returned to there bases with the remains.
Later that morning, observers from the shore saw several men inside the Jeanne Gougy‘s pilot house. A helicopter and the Penlee lifeboat, Soloman Brown, hurried to the scene, but conditions were still too extreme for the lifeboat to approach the trawler.
The Westland Whirlwind, flown by Flight Lieutenants John Lorimer Neville Canham, D.F.C., and John Trevor Egginton, hovered over the capsized fishing trawler while the winch operator, Sergeant Eric Charles Smith, was lowered to the ship’s pilot house. A rescue line was also rigged to the nearby rocks. Sergeant Smith rigged two men for hoisting to the hovering helicopter and continued searching for additional survivors. Four sailors were rescued by the line to the shore. 12 of the fishermen did not survive.
Westland Whirlwind HAR.10, No. 22 Squadron, hoists a man from the fishing trawler Jeanne Gougy at Armoured Knight Rock, Land’s End, Cornwall, England, 3 November 1962. (RNLI Penlee Lifeboat Station)Sergeant Eric Smith, RAF, is lowered to the wreck of Jeanne Gougy, 3 November 1962. (BFI)
For his bravery during the rescue, Sergeant Smith was awarded the George Medal by Queen Elizabeth II. He was also awarded the Silver Medal of the Société des Hospitalers Sauveteurts Bretons.
The President of the French Republic, Charles de Gaulle, conferred the honor of Chevalier du Mérite Maritime on Flight Lieutenant Canham, Flight Lieutenant Egginton, and Sergeant Smith. On 13 June 1964, Egginton was awarded the Air Force Cross.
In 1965, Flight Lieutenant Egginton attended the Empire Test Pilots’ School at RAF Boscombe Down. On graduation, he was assigned as a helicopter test pilot with D Squadron (now the Rotary Wing Test and Evaluation Squadron, or RWTES). In 1969, Egginton returned to the Test Pilots’ School as a helicopter flight instructor.
Squadron Leader Egginton retired from the Royal Air Force in 1973. He was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air, 2 June 1973. (London Gazette No. 45984 at Page 6463)
Egginton joined Westland Helicopters at Yeovil as deputy chief test pilot, and later became the company’s chief test pilot. He from Westland retired after 15 years.
In the 1989 New Year’s Honours List, Squadron Leader Egginton was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.):
Squadron Leader John Trevor Egginton, O.B.E., A.F.C., F.R.Ae.S., Q.C.V.S.A., Chevalier du Mérite Maritime, died at his home in Yeovil, 23 November 2014. He was 81 years of age.
In April 2013, Trevor Egginton spoke to members of the Empire Test Pilots’ School at The Helicopter Museum, Weston-super-Mare. In this photograph, Mr. Egginton is seated in the World Record Helicopter’s pilot seat. (The Helicopter Museum)
¹ FAI Record File Number 11659: Rotorcraft, Absolute Record for Speed Over a 15–25 Kilometer Straight Course
² FAI Record File Number 1842: Rotorcraft, Helicopters, Subclass E-1e, 3,000–4,500 kilograms (6,613.9–9,920.8 pounds), takeoff weight
³ FAI Record File Number 1843: Rotorcraft, Helicopters, Subclass E-1
⁴ FAI Record File Number 1826: Rotorcraft, Helicopters, Subclass E-1e
⁵ FAI Record File Number 1853: Rotorcraft, Helicopters, Subclass E-1e
Flight Captain Jackie Cochran, R.A.F. Air Transport Auxiliary. (Indian Palms Historical Society)
17–19 June 1941: Jacqueline (“Jackie”) Cochran was the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean when she ferried a Lockheed Hudson from Canada to Scotland. The airplane was a twin-engine Lockheed Model 414 Hudson Mk.V (LR), Royal Air Force identification AM790 (Lockheed serial number 414-2872).
Recognizing that the War would require all available pilots, the United Kingdom’s Lord Beaverbrook and the United States Army Air Forces Chief of Staff, Major General Henry Harley (“Hap”) Arnold, felt the need to demonstrate that civilian women could serve as pilots of military aircraft in non-combat situations. Jackie Cochran, a famous record-setting pilot, was selected for the assignment.
Cochran had previously served as a Flight Captain ¹ with the Royal Air Force Air Transport Auxiliary. After a period of six months, she had returned to the United States at the request of General Arnold, where she served on his staff.
For this ferry flight, Captain Edgar Grafton Carlisle, Jr.,² was assigned as her navigator. The Hudson also carried a radio operator, today only remembered as Coates. Royal Canadian Air Force authorities felt that Miss Cochran was not physically strong enough to operate the Hudson’s hand brakes. The arrangement between her and the R.C.A.F. was that she would be allowed to fly the bomber as First Officer, but that Captain Carlisle would make all takeoffs and landings.³
Cochran, Carlisle and Coates departed Montréal, Québec, at 1920 G.M.T., 17 June, en route to Gander, Newfoundland. They flew 931 statute miles (1498 kilometers) in 5 hours, 4 minutes before landing at 0024 G.M.T., 18 June, and remained there overnight.
Page from Form 68 Watch Log, dated 18 June 1941. (Courtesy of Diana Trafford, Flights of History.)
The following evening, 18 June, at 1857 G.M.T., they took off to fly across the North Atlantic Ocean, a distance of 2,122 statute miles (3,415 kilometers).
Great Circle Route from Montreal to Gander, and on to Prestwick. (Great Circle Mapper)
In her autobiography, Cochran wrote:
Flying the ocean at night didn’t mean much. We were above an overcast and hardly saw water. But just before daylight, we were heard or spotted by radar and suddenly through the darkness tracer bullets came up in front and around us. There was sudden consternation on board. Carlisle rushed up to me and the radio operator came running out of his compartment with his Very pistol. He opened a hatch and by firing a certain colored bullet gave the signal of the day but this really served no purpose because the light could not have been seen from the surface of the water anyway and the firing at us was probably coming from a German submarine or one of our own friendly ships. I thought maybe the pilots in the mass meeting in Montreal were right after all and the Germans were going to make a test case of me. Anyway, the tracer bullets stopped almost as soon as they started and no noticeable damage was done to the plane. After daylight, a hole opened up in the overcast and we saw a ship burning at sea, but could do nothing about it except to make a report by radio because we had no fuel to spare to enable us to go down and cruise around. Then we caught sight of the coast of Ireland in the distance and it kept creeping up on us and growing larger and larger and more friendly. From off the coast of Ireland to Prestwick, Scotland, was a tortuous air route. The route went one way and then another—without any real pattern—and the route was changed daily to make it difficult for enemy planes or submarines to intercept. At the end of twelve hours, we came to a stop on the runway. Carlisle, under the regulation, made the landing.
—The Stars at Noon, by Jacqueline Cochran, Little, Brown and Company, Boston and Toronto, 1954. Chapter VI, Pages 102–103
They arrived at Prestwick, Scotland, at 0605 G.M.T., 19 June, after a flight of 11 hours, 8 minutes.
Page from Form 68 Watch Log, dated 19 June 1941. (Courtesy of Diana Trafford, Flights of History.)
Jackie Cochran would go on to form the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs).
The image below shows the Hudson ferried by Jackie Cochran in service later in the War. It is painted in the Coastal Command camouflage scheme.
The Lockheed Hudson was a twin engine light bomber developed by Lockheed from its Model 14 Super Electra civil transport. Both types were designed by the legendary Clarence L. (“Kelly”) Johnson. The B-14L prototype made its first flight 10 December 1938 from the Union Air Terminal at Burbank, California. It was flown by two Royal Air Force officers, Squadron Leader James Addams and Squadron Leader Randle. The prototype (also identified as Model 214-40-01) was purchased by Great Britain and assigned the R.A.F. identification N7205.
The Hudson flown by Cochran, AM790, was an improved Model 414, Hudson Mk.V. This was identical to the earlier Mk.III, with the substitution of Pratt & Whitney R-1830-S3C4-G Twin Wasp engines. The bomber was flown by a single pilot, with a navigator/bombardier, radio operator and gunner.
The Hudson Mk.V was 44 feet 3⅞ inches (13.513 meters) long with a wingspan of 65 feet, 6 inches (19.964 meters) and height of 11 feet, 10 inches (3.607 meters). It had a maximum gross weight of 20,000 pounds (9,072 kilograms).
The Mk.V was equipped with two air-cooled, supercharged 1,829.4-cubic-inch-displacement (29.978 liter) Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp S3C4-G (R-1830-61) two-row fourteen-cylinder radial engines with a compression ratio of 6.7:1. These had a normal power rating of 1,100 horsepower at 2,550 r.p.m. to 6,200 feet (1,890 meters) and 1,000 horsepower at 2,550 r.p.m at 12,500 feet (3,810 meters). The takeoff/military power rating was 1,200 horsepower at 2,700 r.p.m. to 4,900 feet (1,494 meters) and 1,050 horsepower at 13,100 feet (3,993 meters). The engines turned three-bladed propellers though a 16:9 gear reduction. They were 5 feet, 3.48 inches (1.612 meters) long, 4 feet, 0.19 inches (1.224 meters) in diameter, and weighed 1,495 pounds (678 kilograms).
The Hudson had a cruise speed of 220 miles per hour (354 kilometers per hour, and maximum speed of 246 miles per hour (396 kilometers per hour) at 6,500 feet (1,981 meters). Its service ceiling was 25,000 feet (7,620 meters).
The Hudson was designed to carry four 250 pound (113 kologram) or six 100 pound (45 kilogram) bombs. It was armed with two forward-firing .303 Browning Machine Gun Mk.II mounted in the nose and operated by the pilot, with another two .303s on flexible mounts at the waist position, and 2 additional Mk.IIs in a power-operated Bolton Paul dorsal turret. Eight rockets could be carried under the wings.
409 Hudson Mark Vs were built. 207 of these were a long range variant, the Hudson Mk.V(LR).
During World War II, Hudson Mk.V(LR) AM790 served with No. 500 and No. 608 Squadrons, both units of the Coastal Command, Royal Air Force.
¹ An ATA Flight Captain was an equivalent rank to a Royal Air Force Squadron Leader.
² Edgar Grafton Carlisle, Jr., was born 17 October 1908, at Baltimore, Maryland, and was a citizen of the United States. He was the first of six children of Edgar Grafton Carlisle and Elizabeth Henderson Spafford Carlisle. A former resident of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, Carlisle was a 1928 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
He entered the United States Army as an aviation cadet at Kelly Field, Bexar, Texas, earning his reserve officer’s commission and aviator’s wings in 1930. He served as a lieutenant in the 28th Division Aviation Unit, Pennsylvania National Guard and commanded the 103rd Photo Section.
Carlisle married the former Miss Lillian Matarose Baker at Narberth, Pennslyvania, 9 January 1933. They would have two children.
Carlisle entered the Royal Air Force Ferry Command in September 1940. To do so, he was required to resign his reserve commission in the United States Army. In the King’s New Year’s Honors List, 1 January 1942, Captain Edgar Grafton Carlisle, R.A.F.F.C., was invested an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (Honorary). The insignia of this honor was presented at Government House, 3 February 1942, by Lord Athlone, Governor General of the Dominion of Canada.
Following the War, Carlisle worked in the banking industry. He also taught Aerial Navigation at the University of Vermont.
Edgar Grafton Carlisle, Jr., O.B.E., died at Burlington, Vermont, 27 March 1994.
³ Jackie wrote: “The moment the plane became airborne Carlisle, having complied with instructions as to take-off, turned the single set of controls over to me.” —The Stars at Noon, by Jacqueline Cochran, Little, Brown and Company, Boston and Toronto, 1954 Chapter VI at Page 102
