by Phil Delnon
Whilst at College, Penrose was sent on visits to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, to de Havilland's, and to Vickers at Brooklands, where he saw an advert for a brief instructional training flight. The cost, one guinea (£1.05), was all the money he had. Penrose paid up. Once airborne, the instructor allowed him to handle stick and rudder for a brief time. Shortly afterwards at de Havilland's he was allowed to handle the Moth, then a brand-new venture being taken up quickly by Britain's flying clubs; and this time the experience cost him nothing but the embarrassment of his inexpertise.
Naturally enough, Penrose chose de Havilland's for his works placement. That proved impossible, and he was sent to the far less prestigious Westland Aircraft Branch of Petters Ltd, out in the sticks at Yeovil.
Petter's Ltd was actually an engineering firm who had started aviation as a side-line: it was the sort of thing which happened at that time, and as far as the Westland Company was concerned it was just as well, for in a competitive field under great economic pressure, the fly-boys needed all the support they could get.
Penrose's start was hardly propitious: on the train journey he managed to put his head through a closed window, driving a sliver of glass into his face close to the eye. Having had his own brush with disaster, on arrival he was first introduced to Captain Keep, MC, BSc, who until the previous Spring had been Westland's chief test pilot. Keep's last flight had been in the Westland Dreadnought, a futuristic low-wing monoplane passenger aircraft whose deep wing-roots held cabin space for passengers: on take-off the beast had stalled, and Keep now went around on two tin legs and a pair of sticks. Just to round things off, Penrose and his fellow-student were put to dismantling wrecked DH9As: anyone else might have had the sense to try something less dangerous, such as alligator wrestling, tightrope-walking across Niagara, hunting landmines in bare feet at night, or marriage. Not Penrose.
It was pretty obvious that Westland's had hardly enough business to keep themselves ticking over, and the students had plenty of time on their hands to indulge themselves in such projects as building a biplane hang-glider. In the meantime he wheedled a flight with Westland's new test pilot in their seriously-underpowered Widgeon monoplane. The wretched thing promptly developed engine trouble at a very low height, and there was a fairly hairy landing in the nearest suitable field. To compensate, Penrose was soon afterwards given a flight in a more reliable machine, the Limousine, a four-seater designed as a short-haul commuter aircraft.
It's worth remembering that at this time -the early 1920's- the possibilities of air travel were limited only by the imagination of the designer and the quality of the construction. So on the one hand, people were dreaming of using aircraft instead of motor cars; and on the other hand, aeronautics and aero-engines were scampering along some way behind. The concept of the aircraft as a huge public carrier was imaginatively and technically far over the horizon. Apart from a handful of freaks, the biggest load-carriers remained as yet the bombers, and most of those were still single-engined biplanes such as Westland's Yeovil Bomber.
As you might expect, Penrose contrived a flight in the Yeovil, though not yet as pilot. In passing he notes that he had to sign a "blood chit" absolving Westland's of any liability for injury or death, and that there were no parachutes. At 22 that did not worry him.
So he went up in the Yeovil, keeping careful records of how long it took to climb each 1,000 feet up to the ceiling of 16,000 feet - higher than the RAF flew at that time, and about the maximum height achievable without oxygen.
The course was coming to an end. In 1926 he was one of the many impoverished students who drove buses, trams and tube trains during the nine days of the General Strike: and shortly afterwards he passed his examinations - and found himself joining the massed ranks of the unemployed job-seekers. The irony seems to have escaped him.
At any rate he applied to join the RAE, who were offering £5 per week, and whilst waiting for their reply applied to join Westland's for £3 per week. Westland's replied first, and he accepted. Three weeks later the RAE offered him a job. They were too late: Penrose was back in Yeovil, this time to stay.
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