by Phil Delnon
Penrose returned to Westland in September 1926. Trying his hand in the workshops he was quickly made aware that making aircraft involved other skills besides mathematics; and after one spectacularly bungled assemblage the hamfisted youngster was moved to where he was more useful - the theoretical designing for which he had been educated.
One characteristic of good management is the ability to be flexible: that Westland's had this is also shown by the next development: a group of draughtsmen designed a racing aeroplane in their spare time and (rather nervously) took it to the managing director - who promptly suggested some improvements, arranged for a model to be made and tested in the wind-tunnel, had a prototype constructed and found a motor for it. The payoff for the company was that the draughtsmen, suitably encouraged, started to experiment with a construction technique of simple square-section metal tubes which served as a bridge for retraining biplane-building carpenters into monoplane-making metalworkers who moved Westland forwards into the mass-production age.
Meanwhile Penrose had continued to fly -as a passenger- and had had another near escape. Almost all aircraft of the day had large wheels under the wings and a tiny tail-wheel or skid under the rudder. This gave a nose-up configuration which was helpful in getting airborne but which meant that the pilot had very little idea of what was ahead of him until the tail rose. This almost caused a disaster when amateur flyer Dangerous Dan Watt started to take off in his old Sopwith: because what he could not see ahead of him was a petrol pump, Robby the pump attendant, and Harald Penrose. In the ensuing prang the pump was shattered, Robby and Penrose bit mud, and the Sopwith's propeller chewed the air a couple of inches above his head.
Seeing that Penrose was keen to be airborne, Westland's chief test pilot arranged for him to go up as an observer in the twin-engined Westbury. To do this he persuaded the company to insure Penrose for £500 (the test pilot himself rated just £2,000) - and there were still no parachutes for either of them. Having successfully completed that, Penrose was allowed to try flying an old dual-control DH9A. This was enough to inspire him to join the Reserve of Air Force Officers training scheme. Britain's Inter-War Governments are often criticised for lack of foresight: yet there was the need to pay the huge financial debts of World War I and yet build for the future: such schemes as the RAFO were one way of squaring that circle.
Another way of doing it was by ordering a sufficient number of aircraft from the many different manufacturers to keep most of them in existence. On Penrose's own admission, the biplane Wapiti offered to the Air Ministry in 1927 was substantially an old design with a new fuselage which had been mistakenly designed 2ft too short. Somehow the test pilot flew the thing -perhaps his new parachute helped him stay aboard- despite the fact that the rudder hardly worked at all; and the Air Ministry awarded a contract. One has to hope that not too many RAF pilots had to go up in it.
Before very long, Penrose received his call-up papers to report for training as an RAFO pilot. Three weeks before he was due to go, Westland's test pilot was involved in an airborne collision and died rather horribly of his burns. Penrose went anyway...
Remember, she's a female. Treat her gently but firmly. With these words the flying instructor gave Penrose control of an RAFO trainer. Another slogan was: Don't worry or flurry or you'll die in a hurry. Penrose describes this as one of the most pleasant interludes of his life. Almost before he knew it he had gone through a clever instruction programme -maximum experience in minimum time- and was flying solo. He made a perfect three-point landing, and adds: "Lest that was a fluke I made two more." With Chuck Yeager it's brashness, with Harald Penrose it's an overt modesty: but the self-confidence is the same.
Penrose was (metaphorically) brought back down to Earth before long: having graduated to the training version of the WWI Bristol Fighter, he was on his way back to base when a something flew past his head and bent the tailfin: a mechanic had left a big steel spanner on top of the engine: had it passed a little lower it might have decapitated him. From then on Penrose checked his planes himself...
His self-confidence had grown enough so that on another solo flight he tried out a loop and an Immelmann turn - neither of which were in his training programme - and having indulged himself so far, he then decided to beat up the Westland airfield, which happened to be nearby. Only afterwards did he have qualms about possible come-backs in the form of complaints to the RAFO. But it was too late: his fate was sealed.
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