Love, Death, Chariot of Fire

by Winton Higgins

  ‘And what about slots along the leading edges? You haven’t drawn any in.’

  ‘Deliberately. However popular they may be with other designers these days, they’re clumsy devices on a high-performance aircraft. Together with their mountings they contribute to drag. And they’re just another thing that can go wrong. We can design a much cleaner wing that supersedes them altogether.’

  ‘Music to my ears, Bev!’

  Mitchell stares intently at the roughly drawn sketch, trying to find a hidden flaw in its logic. At last he breaks his silence.

  ‘So far, so good. But we’ve only been thinking about the plane in two dimensions. Especially when it comes to agile fighter planes, wings have to be extraordinarily versatile. So their designers have to work their way through a thicket of three-dimensional factors. Where do you think we should start with that?’

  Shenstone frowns as he takes his time pondering the sketch between them.

  ‘All right. What we could do is start with the curvature of the wing’s cross-section as we move from the wing root to the wing tip. Our American friends in the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics could help us out here with their new NACA 2200 series of aerofoils. We could adopt one of their thicker ones at the root and make our way to one of their thinnest ones for the slim wing profile at the tip.’

  ‘But will the outer wing be able to withstand the lift it’ll have to bear if we do that? And won’t this arrangement add to the tendency for the tip of the inner wing to stall in a tight turn, and throw the aircraft into a spin?’

  ‘You’re right about that danger. But we can avert it. We can twist the wing slightly to spill the washout and so shift the centre of lift towards the root, which is structurally stronger. That way the wing root would stall before the wing tip does so, as the plane enters the stall sequence. Which means the ailerons would remain responsive, and the pilot would have time to take any necessary action to avoid a total stall, a dropped wing, and a spin.

  ‘If we get the twist just right, so we shift the lift distribution, we can reduce lift-induced drag. And that, of course, would give us yet more speed.’

  ‘Good God!’ Mitchell exclaims. ‘Now we’ve got a twisted wing shaped by asymmetrical ellipses and formed around at least two different aerofoils! It’s beginning to sound more like an abstract sculpture than an aeroplane’s wing.’

  Shenstone laughs. ‘My dear RJ, just have another look at your own sketches. The sculpting starts right there! The grace and beauty starts right there – even a complete beginner can see that. What I’m suggesting would be invisible to the beginner’s eye. But it would massage the airflow over, under, beside, and behind the plane. It would give us the silky smooth airflow we want, lifting in the right places, not dragging. An airflow that caresses the plane and speeds it on its way, rather than pummelling it and tripping it up!’

  Shenstone’s words intoxicate Mitchell. Can he trust this intimation that they’re on the verge of a breakthrough? The fighter plane he wants is shimmering before his mind’s eye, clearer than ever. He straightens up and looks across at his colleague.

  ‘How do you know how much to twist the wing? How will you recognise the right aerofoils?’

  ‘Well, obviously I don’t know these things yet. It’ll take quite a bit of time and effort to arrive at them. Research. Careful calculus with my new mathematician friend, Ray Howland at the university here in Southampton. We’ll need experiments in wind tunnels, among other things to calculate the best tilt for the wings – the optimal dihedral, in other words. We’ll need detailed discussions with our draughtsmen and engineers. But all of this is within our reach – of that I’m sure.’

  ‘Do you know of any existing aeroplane anywhere at all that has wings like this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Assuming we arrive at the right answers to all our detailed questions, do you know of any service aircraft that could match what we’re planning in speed and agility?’

  Shenstone cocks his head. ‘You’re in a better position than I am to answer that question. After all, you’ve designed a succession of planes that have broken world speed records, RJ! But with a thousand horses pulling our little plane across the sky, I’d say it’d be in a class of its own.’

  A once-familiar feeling surges up again in Mitchell – he’s hitting his straps. He slams the palm of his hand down on the desk top as he stands up.

  ‘Right, then! Let’s throw everything we’ve got at it. This project comes first as far as I’m concerned. I’ll start in on more detailed drawings right away, so you’ll have a better idea of the plane’s overall layout and dimensions. You can then develop the finer details of the wing design. We can change them in the light of our progress.

  ‘But right now we need to work up a brief to hand over to Joe Smith as chief draughtsman. Then he and his merry men can start in on the detailed drawings. I’ll tell everyone here who needs to know what we’re up to. And that they’re to drop everything and be immediately available to us when we come calling.’

  Shenstone also seems to be struggling to contain his excitement. He gets to his feet as well.

  ‘Aye, aye, captain!’ he says, and mimics Vera’s salute.

  Chapter 11

  A mock-up

  Supermarine works, Woolston. Friday 26 April 1935, 7.30 am. Reginald Mitchell enters the aircraft erecting section of the works. No hands have arrived yet. He has to throw the main light switch himself, since the grey light of early morning, struggling through the grimy windows on this wet day, barely suffices for safe passage around the jigs, lathes and other bulky machine tools scattered around the shop floor. They maintain their expectant silence, waiting for the company of fitters and riggers to enter and begin leading them through their daily ear-splitting recital.

  Mitchell ignores them, transfixed as he is by the wooden mock-up of a small monoplane standing in a space usually reserved for the construction of real and bulkier aeroplanes. As if trying to justify its claim to that space, the mock-up sports a fresh coat of light-blue paint, as well as RAF roundels on its flanks and just in from its wingtips.

  Chief draughtsman Joe Smith has overseen the development of the plane’s detailed drawings, so he has also taken responsibility for translating them into the object now entrancing its designer. Mitchell feels a surge of gratitude to Smith, as one might feel towards a clinician who has just skilfully delivered one’s child. But in such a moment as this, of course, it’s the child who enthrals.

  The mock-up’s purpose is mundane enough – to meet a requirement in the development contract with the ministry and allow Mitchell and his design team to identify shortcomings in the intended prototype’s layout. Yet there’s nothing mundane about Mitchell’s engagement with it.

  How many hours of intense design work have brought him and his team to this point?! Hundreds of drawings, and long consultations with colleagues hanging over drawing boards, before the draughtsmen could even get started on final drawings; intricate tests of wing and tail shapes in off-site wind tunnels; and intense conversations with Alf Faddy, Alan Clifton, Agony Payn and others about the remorseless engineering demands of his and Bev Shenstone’s conception, with its unprecedented features.

  All this, while keeping the original inspiration of the plane alive. How do you make a beautiful shape like this fly through the air at hitherto unattainable speeds and execute seemingly impossible tight turns – without risk of it breaking up, or endangering the pilot in any way? How do you harness the raw power of a thousand-horsepower engine to achieve these demands in obedience to the light touch of a pilot’s hands and feet?

  How do you build grace and agility into such a muscular machine?

  ‘Grace’ is the word that springs to his mind right now, as he slowly circles the mock-up. He delights in its flowing curves and sweeping planes. It’s sheer cleanliness as a sculptural form. From his drawing classes all those years ago he remembers William Hogarth’s notion of the S-shaped ‘line of beauty’, the quin
tessential expression of life – as against the lifelessness of straight lines.

  Even the fin and tail planes pick out and replicate the elliptical curves of the wings. As do the windscreen and canopy over the cockpit. He discerns that serpentine form from almost every angle wherever he stops to drink in the mock-up. In an intensely private sense it’s not a machine at all – it’s a sinuous creature, a swift bird of prey that should soon awaken to life and take to the air.

  As its creator, he’s intimate with its every detail. Recently he’s had to refute in tedious detail all the objections from the ministry’s technical boffins who wanted him to replace the neat little tail with a conventional one of barn-door proportions. But the mock-up transcends all that now.

  The shape is quite uncanny. It’s taken on a sublime form that so exceeds his own visualisation of it through the design process as to make it strange and unfamiliar. ‘What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’ William Blake asked the tiger. He finds himself asking the same question of this mock-up. He himself can barely lay claim to it. When he put pencil to paper he must have been channelling a source of inspiration from another place.

  His excitement builds on his current sense of wellbeing. The colostomy remains a given in his life, of course. But a year and eight months have passed since his operation without a recurrence of his cancer. In his personal diary he keeps careful note of the passage of time since his surgery. He’s almost halfway to the decisive four-year mark when – if he’s still cancer-free – he might cautiously expect to live a normal lifespan.

  In the meantime he’s living a full enough life. He’s enjoying another spring in the garden at Hazeldene – the flower beds are ablaze with colour, and the air laden with the fragrances of spring. Last summer he flew solo, received his pilot’s licence soon after, and in the autumn won the Eastleigh spot-landing competition he’d set his sights on. Whenever appropriate these days – such as visiting the Rolls-Royce works in Derby, or the Vickers head office in Weybridge – he flies there in one of the flying school’s Gipsy Moths.

  Recently, too, he accompanied Flo, Gordon and the McLeans on a wonderful skiing trip to Austria. What a vital, shared family adventure that turned out to be! And now he’s mastered and relished a whole new sport!

  Also last summer, Mutt Summers successfully flew the Stranraer prototype – Mitchell’s design for a scaled-up Scapa twin-engine biplane flying boat. The RAF’s orders for it are in the pipeline. But the Stranraer would look like a Heath Robinson contraption beside the mock-up in front of him.

  With difficulty he returns his mind to the business of the day. His pretext for being down here with it at all is the imminent visit of the man from the ministry. As a mere courtesy he sent a letter to its Operational Requirements Section to report the finalisation of the mock-up as a fail-safe step towards building the Type 300 prototype. He’d hardly expected a reply – the ministry’s main interest lay in the performance of the prototype of any new machine it was financing, not the various stages in bringing that machine to the testing ground. So he was surprised when Squadron Leader Ralph Sorley, head of the section in question, rang in response to his letter and asked if he could come down to Woolston to see the mock-up for himself.

  Mitchell counsels himself not to gush when the man from the ministry arrives. Sorley probably isn’t the sort of chap one could discuss aesthetics with. The thought of discussion of any sort prompts him to get the foreman of this work area to do what he can to minimise noise in it – divert his men to other tasks – for an hour from 10.15. Sorley will no doubt have questions to ask.

  10 am. The internal phone on Mitchell’s desk rings.

  ‘Squadron Leader Sorley is here to see you, RJ.’

  ‘Thanks, Vera. Show him in.’

  Mitchell walks around his desk to offer the uniformed visitor his hand. Sorley transfers the portfolio he’s carrying to his left hand so he can reciprocate. The men exchange greetings formally, using titles. Sorley seems to be slightly younger than his host, of similar height, and sparely built. His swept-back dark hair is thinning and receding – elongating his face, which is lightened by a friendly grin. Mitchell notices the decorations on the left breast of his tunic. Among them he identifies the Distinguished Service Cross – indication that his visitor is no mere career bureaucrat, but a war veteran, probably a flyer, whose exploits made an impression on his superiors. Mitchell gains an initial good impression of the man, which sharpens his usual impatience with formality.

  ‘I’ve had quite a lot to do with RAF people over the years. They always call me Mitch.’

  Sorley’s grin broadens. ‘Thanks, Mitch. I’m Ralph. By the way, do you mind if I smoke?’ he asks as he brandishes a pipe he’s fished out of his big tunic pocket.

  Mitchell warms to him further. Pipe smokers are blood brothers. ‘I’ll join you,’ he says.

  As they both light up Mitchell takes advantage of the casual moment to follow his curiosity. ‘While I’m flattered by the ministry’s interest in our mock-up of the Type 300, Ralph, I’m also wondering why it’s interested in this particular stage of the plane’s in-house development.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t attribute that to an undivided interest within the ministry as a whole, Mitch. Its leadership is too close to our dithering government, and the air staff still contains too many old battle-axes whose ideas about front-line aircraft are stuck in the last war. But given the increasingly acute political situation – Germany and so on – I’m seriously interested in your plane myself. As is my superior officer, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding. “Stuffy” as we call him. The member of the air staff responsible for research and development. He prompted me to call you and arrange the visit.’

  Mitchell appreciates his guest’s candour and implicit trust that their conversation will remain in the room. ‘Right. I’m familiar with Dowding’s input. He got us the grant of £10,000 at the end of last year to produce the Type 300 prototype, to add to the £7,500 that Rolls-Royce are contributing. Will you be reporting back to him how well or quickly we’re spending his money?’

  Sorley laughs. ‘Hardly! He’s well aware of your and your firm’s way of doing business, and has complete trust in both. It’s much more a question of how well and quickly this country can prepare itself to fend off a German attack. The ministry and some of the air staff have at least got to the point of recognising that probability as the starting point for their strategic thinking. Churchill has got through to them at long last. Not least to Stuffy Dowding.’

  ‘I’d have thought Hitler himself had a hand in bringing the laggards in the ministry around to some idea of the threat we face.’

  ‘Yes of course, Mitch. You’re probably thinking about that well-publicised speech of his six weeks ago. About rearming Germany. Reintroducing conscription to bring the German army up to over half a million men. Formally establishing an air force. All in defiance of the Versailles Treaty.’

  ‘How quickly can the Nazis make it all happen?’

  ‘It won’t take them long at all. Last month the Foreign Secretary met Hitler, who told him that the German air force already has more front-line aircraft than we do. Our own intelligence has since confirmed it. The bloody Germans have been rearming clandestinely for the last twelve years. Training troops under the guise of police units, party militias, sporting clubs, boy scouts and so forth.

  ‘Yes, but how did their air force grow so big?’

  ‘The bastards have had a factory – Junkers, actually – developing military aircraft outside Moscow all that time. Nine years ago they started a training school for fighter pilots outside Lipetsk, also in the USSR. When Hitler came to power, though, Stalin closed down the flying school for ideological reasons. But not before it graduated over a hundred pilots.’

  ‘Dowding seems to have been one of the very first to see the writing on the wall,’ Mitchell muses. ‘But how much influence does he actually wield over basic strategic decisions? And what does it mean for the mi
nistry’s plans to buy new combat aeroplanes like ours?’

  Sorley looks around the office, as if checking for eavesdroppers. ‘Well, he’s at last won his battle to get his colleagues to accept – in theory, at least – the superiority of single-seat forward-firing monoplane fighters as the backbone of the country’s air defence. Hopefully, then, we’ll hear no more of biplanes and lumbering two-seat turret fighters. That’s handy, because the government is moving towards a major expansion scheme for air defences, however unpopular that may be with the army and navy. So we’re set to acquire a lot more front-line aircraft, including fighters.’

  ‘What’s the rationale for the priority given to air defence?’

  ‘Intelligence reports indicate that the Germans are giving the further development of their own air force high priority. Which makes sense in terms of their potential warmongering in the not too distant future. They can build warplanes far more cheaply and quickly than warships. It would take them many years before they could challenge our naval supremacy. And no matter how vast the army they might recruit, it wouldn’t be able to swim across the Channel.’

  Sorley grimaces. ‘Ironically, our government follows the same fiscal logic. We too can rearm more cheaply and effectively by spending our money on the air force. And fighters are cheaper than bombers. Even in these dangerous times, the Cabinet gets so excited about the fiscal saving from giving the air force priority that the defence of the realm ends up being a secondary consideration.’

  ‘No wonder people call economics the dismal science!’

  ‘In this case we’re lucky it’s – quite coincidentally – backing the right horse. If we’re to defend this country at all, we’ll have to do it in the air. Against an invader with a lot more planes than we have.’