Frank McClean

by Philip Jarrett

  CHAPTER 2

  1909: The Struggle to Fly

  In January 1909, as Oswald Short’s entry in the company’s order book records, McClean ordered ‘One aeroplane complete (Shorts No 1)’ from Short Bros. This was to be the first aircraft designed by Horace for the company.

  In February the Aero Club’s first ‘aerodrome’ was opened on a tract of level marshland between Leysdown (Shellbeach) and Shellness Point (also called Shelness Point and later Shell Ness) on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Through Brewer the club leased 400 acres of land from a local estate company, then sub-let half an acre to the Short brothers for their factory. McClean bought the farmhouse Mussel (or Muscle) Manor (now renamed Muswell Manor) for use as the club house, together with flying rights over several hundred acres over the adjacent marshes. He also paid for the work to prepare the airfield, and had a private aeroplane shed erected on site. It was also reported that the coastguard station was being converted for sleeping and other accommodation. Late in March the uncovered airframe of Short No 1 was exhibited at the first Aero and Motor Boat Show at Olympia, London.

  The Short Brothers’ aeroplane works at Leysdown, Sheppey, in 1909. The site soon proved problematical and the factory was relocated to Eastchurch. (AUTHOR)

  McClean’s Short No 1 under construction. This was the very first aeroplane built by the Short Brothers, but unfortunately it proved not to be the success that was anticipated. (AUTHOR)

  A three-quarter-front view of McClean’s incomplete Short No 1 on display at Olympia in March 1909. Although the skeleton looks quite complete, most of the fabric covering has yet to be applied and the engine and the chain drive to the propellers have yet to be installed. The triangulated supports for the propeller shaft are temporary wooden struts, replaced by tubular steel structures in the finished aeroplane. (AUTHOR)

  A three-quarter-rear view of McClean’s incomplete Short No 1 at Olympia in March 1909. The outermost of the twin port rudders has been covered. The aircraft was completed in July. (AUTHOR)

  Nonetheless, McClean was still eager to obtain a Wright Flyer, and asked Brewer to pursue the matter during the latter’s planned visit to the brothers at Pau, France, in February. By 20 February the Wrights had decided that, owing to the small British market for their aeroplanes, they should run the business themselves and subcontract the construction of the aircraft. They therefore broke off negotiations with the various syndicates and asked Brewer if he could recommend a contractor. Unhesitatingly, Brewer proposed the Short Brothers. Brewer returned to England, and on 3 March he wrote to Wilbur and Orville at Pau, saying:

  On my return to London Mr McClean was very anxious to find if I had succeeded in getting him a Wright aeroplane. I told him that I had not done so, although as you had decided to have six machines manufactured in England I had no doubt this would enable you to take his order. He says that if the price does not exceed £1,000 he would like to definitely order the first machine that is ready. If he cannot have the first he will willingly take a subsequent one, but I think he deserves the first machine, if it is available, as a reward for his persistence. Would it not be possible for you to accept orders for machines in rotation* (*giving each machine a number) without specifying any date of delivery If you could do this and also definitely settle on a price, I believe I could get you direct orders for one or two machines beyond that of McCleans’ [sic].

  Before leaving Pau I propounded a little plot with Eustace Short and which I can let you into in confidence. This was to get Shorts to hustle with the first machine so that when you passed through England on your way to America and you possibly came to their erecting shop on the Island of Sheppy [sic] to inspect the work, that an aeroplane and starting apparatus should all be complete and only require one of yourselves in order to fly in the air. Given that the day was calm I should think you would be unable to resist the temptation and would try the machine, thus creating a further step in English history. I am obliged to let you into this secret so as to induce you to see that an engine is supplied for the first machine to enable them to fit it on its bearers and get the flyer in flying order.

  On 18 March Orville wrote to Brewer from Paris, saying: ‘In regard to the machine for Mr McLean [sic], the first and second machines are already taken, but we should like to enter his order for one of the other six now under construction.’

  Horace immediately went to France and made a set of working drawings of the Flyer, and in March the contract for the construction of six Flyers was let to Shorts, the order following immediately after McClean’s aeroplane on the Short’s order book. Brewer later wrote: ‘In advancing this project McClean gave his generous support and probably it is due to him more than to any other English sportsman that Short Brothers were able to carry through their somewhat ambitious effort to start aeroplane designing and building in England.’ On 31 March McClean ordered one the six Wrights, at a cost of £1,000 (£200 downpayment), and was allocated Short-Wright No.3. Moore-Brabazon also ordered a Wright, but sold his slot to The Hon. Maurice Egerton before delivery.

  On 27 April McClean was given permission to make solo balloon ascents, and made several in the small Comet. (Curiously, he did not enter these ascents in his log book of ‘balloon voyages’, perhaps not considering them ‘voyages’ in the true sense of the word.) On 18 May he was awarded RAeC Aeronaut’s Certificate No 11.

  On 4 May the Wright brothers visited Shellbeach; they were to do so twice more in 1909, on 17 August with their sister Katherine, and on 25 October, but they never made any flights there. On 7 May Ogilvie, who had expressed a desire to join the Aero Club, received a letter from McClean, enclosing a membership application for Ogilvie to complete. McClean wrote:

  McClean’s Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Aeronaut’s certificate, No 11, awarded 18 May 1909. (FLEET AIR ARM MUSEUM)

  Dear Ogilvie,

  I enclose an application for membership of the Aero Club. Will you fill it in, together with the name of your seconder and return it to me.

  I have the promise of the third of the Wright machines which Shorts are building. They will probably all be ready about the same time (a couple of months?).

  Rolls, who has one, is going to be taught how to drive in France. I am trusting to luck and any experience I may get with my Short machine.

  McClean was still making occasional balloon ascents, and on 22 May he took his sister Anna aloft from Hurlingham with two other passengers in an international balloon race, but descended near Romford in Essex. Anna would soon be making aerial passenger flights of a somewhat different nature with her brother!

  Orville and Wilbur Wright visiting the Short factory at Leysdown on 4 May 1909 to see where the Short-Wright Flyers would be manufactured. Wilbur (left) and Orville are the central figures in bowler hats. Second and third from the right are J T C Moore-Brabazon and Griffith Brewer (AUTHOR)

  Orville (left) and Wilbur Wright leave the Short factory at Leysdown on 4 May 1909. In the doorway are Horace Short and (right) Griffith Brewer (AUTHOR)

  This famous group photograph was taken outside Mussel Manor, Leysdown, on the occasion of the Wrights’ visit on 4 May 1909. Standing, left to right, are: T.D.F. Andrews, the owner of Mussel Manor; Oswald, Horace and Eustace Short; Frank McClean; Griffith Brewer; Frank Hedges Butler; Dr W J S Lockyer and Warwick Wright Seated. Left to right, are J T C Moore-Brabazon, Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright and The Hon. C S Rolls. (AUTHOR)

  First attempts

  The Short No 1 was delivered to McClean in July, and he began testing it at Leysdown in August. Although evidently Wright-inspired, the biplane differed in several respects, most notably in having rigidly-braced three-bay wings, whereas the outer bays of the Wright Flyers’ wings were able to be twisted (‘warped’). The airframe was principally of spruce, covered with rubberised Continental balloon fabric. Lateral control was achieved by warping extensions of the wing trailing edges at the outermost bays. A biplane elevator with a fixed fin between the surfaces was carried
on booms extending forward from the wing cellule, but there was no tail. Instead, four rudders were fitted between the warping extensions at the wingtips, two on each side. The pilot controlled the elevator using a lever in his left hand, the rudders with a lever in his right hand, and the warping through a foot control. The single engine drove a pair of 10ft-diameter laminated spruce two-bladed pusher propellers through a chain drive. The undercarriage comprised a pair of robust ash skids attached to numerous struts; there were no wheels. Launch was to be achieved using a starting rail.

  Accounts of McClean’s attempts to fly Short No 1 are scant, and have been confused with his later initial flights on his Short-built Wright. The Wright-type, French-built engine was still awaited in July, so McClean bought a secondhand Nordenfeldt car and had its engine installed in his aeroplane. This was far too heavy, and when the first trials were made in August and September the aeroplane could not even reach the end of its starting rail. However, the Morning Post of 12 August reported that McClean had ‘fluttered’ on the aircraft on 7 August, and Flight for 14 August reported vaguely that he had ‘carried out tests’. Three days later, the day of Orville Wright’s visit, he performed ‘balancing feats’, making runs down the launch rail to get the feel of the machine. When a reporter from The Aero visited Shellbeach in November he inspected the machine in McClean’s hangar, stating: ‘… in the light of the development of the last few months even, it looks tremendously massive and unnecessarily heavy,’ but adding ‘However, it has shown its ability to fly with an ordinary Bariquand & Marre engine, and it is to be considerably lightened, so more will be heard of it later’. The nature of any ‘flight’ it might have made is unknown, but it was unlikely to have been more than a brief hop.

  McClean wrote in 1938 that:

  No suitable engine of light weight was obtainable and the motor car engine installed proved too much for the planes to support; in other words, it would not fly. By the use of a catapult it had to go into the air, but being unable to remain there, it returned hurriedly to terra firma, the consequential damage being localised by deliberately weakening the undercarriage. Perhaps it was just as well that the engine was heavy and did not give the centre of pressure and the centre of gravity a chance to come to loggerheads in the air.

  McClean in Short No 1 on its launch rail at Leysdown, August/September 1909. The fuel tank is above and behind him, the tall vertical tube radiator is behind him on his right, and the chain-and-shaft drives from the engine to the propellers are plainly visible. The heavy construction of the skid undercarriage is evident. (AUTHOR)

  Short No 1 after a run along its starting rail at Leysdown on 7 August 1909. It proved incapable of flight. (AUTHOR)

  In 1950 he wrote, in similar vein:

  [The Short No 1] never flew as its motor-car engine (installed in place of a non-existent aero-engine) failed to keep it in the air, after the momentum obtained by dropping 1,4001b of lead from a height of 25 feet had died out. Luckily this loss of momentum happened very quickly, as otherwise the damage due to re-contact with terra firma might have extended beyond the undercarriage.

  The aircraft was probably soon abandoned, as McClean was already trying out his new Short-Wright biplane. Nothing more was ‘heard of it later’, but, if The Aero’s contemporary report was correct, and McClean’s late-life memory at fault, the French-built Wright engine in his Short-Wright No 3 could have been ‘lent’ to Short No 1 to give McClean a trainer. There are ‘windows’ for such a transfer both immediately after delivery of Short-Wright No 3 on 16 October and then after a major smash on 6 November (see below).

  Meanwhile, evidently aware that his Short No 1 was too heavy and cumbersome, on 3 August (as the Shorts’ order book confirms) McClean ordered a new machine, designated Short No 3. The intended engine was not specified.

  Back to ballooning

  On 3 October McClean, still an enthusiastic aeronaut, piloted Mortimer Singer’s new Short-built balloon Planet (78,000 cu ft), which had a cotton and rubber envelope (known as Continental fabric), as the British representative in the fourth International Gordon-Bennett race, starting from Zurich with Singer, a ‘most capable pilot’, acting as his aide. The task had fallen to McClean because the Aero Club’s first choice for pilot, Griffith Brewer, was too ill to take part. The Planet had made only one previous ascent, and its equipment ‘included every possible necessity for a long-distance trip’. The balloon was taken to Zurich in charge of Oswald Short, and remained in his care until the ascent. McClean was usually frustratingly quiet about his own accomplishments, but he made an exception in this case and provided Flight with a first-hand account of this eventful voyage. It appeared in its issue for 27 November 1909, and is given here in full.

  McClean makes a brief take-off from the rail in Short No 1 on 7 August 1909. He was reported to have ‘fluttered’ on this day, but nothing resembling a true flight was accomplished on this machine. (FLEET AIR ARM MUSEUM)

  Starting at 3.59pm, in beautiful weather, with a gentle wind of 15 or 16 miles an hour, we travelled in a north-easterly direction, and passed low over Kloten and Wulflingen. But the sky behind us was watery, and before long there were clouds in every direction, and the occasional rain that fell was a forerunner of the storm that caught us during the night. We had been warned not to travel too close to the ground, owing to the danger from high-tension electric wires, and we kept our trail-rope up for some distance to avoid possible contact with them. About a quarter-past five we came close to the American balloon in charge of Mr Mix, and found that they had used 4½ bags of ballast as compared to our 5. This cheered us a little, as we had up to then feared that there was something wrong with the balloon, but we were unable to accept their very kind invitation to come over to dinner. They rose to a considerable height and went ahead, so we followed to over 4,000ft in order to get the same wind.

  At 6.18, when it was getting dark, we were over the Zeller Zee, an arm of Lake Constance, and were moving in a more northerly direction than any of the other balloons, of which there must have been ten or a dozen in sight. As we were rising, we now had dinner, consisting of cold chicken, cake, pears, and white wine; but before we had finished we plunged into a cloud at a height of 5,200ft and a quick drop followed. We finished our thirteenth bag of ballast at 8 o’clock at a height of 3,600ft. It was raining but fairly clear, and the lights of hundreds of villages twinkled up at us from the ground. But they were unrecognisable one from another, and all we could do was take our direction, which at this time was about 15° north of east. From 8.20, when the moon rose, till 2 o’clock, we took alternate periods of rest. All this time it was raining hard, and at intervals we were enveloped in cloud. The light from the moon was almost negligible, but we could see enough to mark our direction as about north-east to east-north-east. Till 11.30 the Planet never attained equilibrium, and in order to save ballast we poured away our water, and at every available opportunity threw away food and stores, but only when near enough to the ground to see that all was clear.

  At 11.30 we passed some distance to the north of a large town, which presumably must have been Munich, but at the time we thought we were further north still. Then after trailing over some high ground, when we rose to 7,000ft without the use of any ballast, we crossed a large river running north and south, and our troubles began. In front of us was high ground, and the balloon seemed unable to make up its mind on which side to pass it. First it tended one way and then the other, but very slowly, and for nearly half an hour we remained in doubt. Then suddenly we made straight for the highest point and over it into dense cloud. We could tell that we had reached another valley by the precipitous fall of the balloon, and then the trail-rope touched and another tree-clad mountain rose right in front of us and far above. A bag and a half of ballast only cleared us by some 50ft, and again we were in dense fog, while the wind whistling through our ropes showed us that we were in another ravine. For over an hour this continued, and when at last we saw land below us, we were travelling at
some 40 or 50 miles an hour in a direction only a few degrees from the north. It was this period that upset all our calculations, for we took it that north had been our course all the time, whereas it must have been nearly south to land us where it did.

  With dawn we sighted one other balloon to the north-east of us, but the downpour that followed blotted it out, and we were left in solitude, with a bleak and lake-strewn land below us, through which wound a river in a deep and rocky gorge. This river we followed for hours, at one time clearing it easily and at another rushing at express speed right into its chasm. All the time ballast was required, for the rain literally beat us down. It poured in rivulets from the rain-band, but much followed down the leading lines, and prevented any possible sleep in the car, which quickly became soaked through and through.

  We had entirely lost our position, as we judged ourselves to be between 100 and 200 miles further north than we were; in fact, we were looking out for the Baltic Sea. Our belief in this was confirmed by the lagoons we passed over at about 8 o’clock, with muddy, sloping banks, and every appearance of being tidal.

  In view of the new rule disqualifying anyone who descends in the sea, we consequently attempted to keep within sight of land, and when at a quarter to nine we again entered the clouds, we valved sufficiently to drop once more into the open. This was the beginning of the end, for we again came on to the trail, and it was only with the throwing of much ballast that we cleared the next hills. Then after crossing some cultivated land at a speed of not more than 15 miles an hour we plunged suddenly into a thick white mist, so thick that we could not see the ground even when our trail rope was touching, and here, although we still had some ballast left, we came to earth so gently that we sat on the same spot till assistance arrived and we were lifted into a patch of grass alongside. A crowd soon collected, among them a policeman with fixed bayonet, but all were good-tempered and willing to help in the packing. Luckily one man could speak French, and he showed us the way to the village, where we got the Mayor to sign the ‘Livre de Bord’. We were naturally annoyed when we found we had landed far south of our supposed position, and were at Remenin in Bohemia, especially as we could have lasted an hour or two longer.