McClean records that he was ‘Gliding with Ogilvie’ on 20 April. Ogilvie had altered his old Wright-type glider, built by T W K Clarke, by doing away with the front elevator and fitting an ‘elevator tail’, and it was probably on this that McClean enjoyed a bit of unpowered flying.
On 13 April the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was constituted by Royal Warrant, and the structure of the Air Battalion of the Corps of Royal Engineers, which had preceded it, was officially absorbed into the new body in May. The RFC was to comprise a Military Wing, a Naval Wing, a Central Flying School and a Reserve. The Reserve was seen as a way to make use of the growing number of qualified civilian aviators who might be called upon to come to the aid of their country in the event of war, by bringing the squadrons’ strengths up to war establishment. Initially the Reserve was to be divided into two classes, and a War Office memorandum of 12 April specified that ‘… the officers of the First Reserve should be required to produce on the first day of each quarter satisfactory evidence that they have performed during the previous quarter flights amounting to an aggregate of nine hours in the air, and including one cross-country flight of not less than one hour’s duration’. ‘Flyers of the First Reserve,’ it added, ‘should be given facilities for their obligatory flights every quarter at one of the naval or military establishments, or if this is impossible, at a private aerodrome.’ It was specified that ‘no aeroplanes should be purchased for the Reserve of the Royal Flying Corps at this stage’, but that ‘the Commandant of the Central Flying School should keep a register of privately owned aeroplanes, which might usefully be purchased for the use of the Royal Flying Corps in case of emergency’. It was suggested that ‘Members of the Royal Flying Corps who own aeroplanes should be encouraged to bring these to the Central Flying School, when they undergo their training there, and to naval and military manoeuvres.’ ‘The Government believe,’ the memorandum continued, ‘that a considerable proportion of the qualified flying men in this country can be attracted to this Reserve, which will then be of real value, being available in any part of the world and for either service.’ Announcement of the creation of the Special Reserve, as it eventually became, brought a large response, and one of the foremost among the qualified pilots who volunteered their services was Frank McClean. Effectively, however, he was already making a substantial contribution at Eastchurch.
Flight for 27 April reported that the naval authorities proposed to erect at Eastchurch ‘a structure resembling the deck of a battleship on which tests of alighting and starting by aeroplane may be practised’. In its issue of 2 May The Aeroplane reported: ‘Eastchurch is getting busier and busier, and the Short Brothers’ premises are rapidly evolving from a workshop into a regular factory.’ There was plenty of work in hand, a great deal of it ‘purely for Government purposes’ and therefore of a secret nature (doubtless including the S.46 and S.47, of which more later). However, the magazine reported that ‘those critics who are so fond of decrying British design and ability are likely to receive something of a shock when some of the latest Short products “take the air,” or the water, as the case may be’.
The temporary encampment at Lodmore early in May 1912, in readiness for the Naval Review at Weymouth. A Nieuport monoplane and a Deperdussin monoplane with flotation bags are in the foreground, and a Short biplane, also fitted with flotation bags, is behind them. (AUTHOR)
Early in May one Short biplane, a Short monoplane, a Deperdussin monoplane and a Nieuport monoplane were temporarily encamped at Lodmore, and a Short tractor biplane at Portland, in preparation for the Naval Review at Weymouth. The battleship HMS Hibernia had been fitted with a scaffolding arrangement extending from the top of the forward turret to the bow, from which an aeroplane was to be launched. The structure took the form of two parallel troughs in which the aeroplane’s wheels ran. As The Aeroplane pointed out, this was hardly a practical fitting for war purposes, as it effectively put the two 12in guns in the forward turret out of action and reduced the arc of fire of the two forward 9.2in guns by half. But the arrangement was intended purely for demonstration purposes. Hibernia arrived at Portland with four aircraft aboard and three were offloaded on Friday 3 May, whereupon Commander Samson immediately tested ‘HMS “Amphibian’”, alias the Short S.41 100hp tractor biplane recently built for the navy, fitted with three torpedo-shaped floats to make it into a ‘hydro-biplane’. He entered the water from the boat-slip in front of the hangar at Portland, circled the Fleet at anchor and returned to his starting point. He made three trips on the following day, and on Monday flew twelve miles out to sea to meet the incoming fleet and escort them in. Despite fog, various flights were conducted on the 8th, including bomb-dropping demonstrations. In the evening of Thursday 9 May Samson flew the float-equipped S.38 pusher biplane from Hibernian’s launching platform and flew round the bay before landing at Lodmore.
On 18 May 1912, shortly after the Weymouth review, Lieutenant (Acting Commander) Charles Rumney Samson was appointed Commandant of the RFC’s Naval Wing. Many years later Samson stated that McClean’s generosity ‘started the Navy flying’. (AUTHOR)
On 18 May it was announced that Lieutenant (Acting Commander) C R Samson, who ‘has been in charge of the naval aviators at Eastchurch for some time’, had been appointed Commandant of the RFC’s Naval Wing. In its issue of 30 May The Aeroplane reported that land had been purchased adjoining the RAeC ground at Eastchurch on which sheds and workshops for the Naval Wing of the RFC were to be erected, one large building being almost complete. It was also reported that McClean was flying on 25 May and on S.36 in the evening of the 26th.
The repaired S.40 had its new float undercarriage installed by Shorts at Harty Ferry on 28 May, this final part of the job being signed off as completed on the 30th. Also on the 28th, Shorts received an order from McClean for ‘one pair of planes’ for S.36. On Thursday and Friday the 30th and 31st McClean was testing his ‘hydro-aeroplane’ (S.40) at Harty. In addition, on the 30th he took off from Eastchurch in S.36, carrying a passenger, and flew to Dover, circled Dover Castle and the National Harbour at about 2,000ft and returned to Eastchurch after a flight lasting an hour and a half. One of his passengers at this time was his sister Anna. He carried several passengers in S.36 on 8 June, including Captain Bidder, Mrs Bidder, Miss G Brown and Captain W S Stafford. Each was given a trip round the island, attaining a height of about 500ft. Then, on the following day, he was flying S.40 at Harty Ferry, again carrying passengers. Captain and Mrs Bidder had further flights, and also Alec Ogilvie, the aircraft ‘behaving in a highly satisfactory manner’. Later Ogilvie flew over Harty Ferry with F B Fowler, the owner of Eastbourne Aerodrome, as his passenger to watch the hydro-aeroplane experiments. McClean was flying S.36 again at Eastchurch on 10 June, after which the weather turned bad.
The S.38 (left) and S.41 stowed on the makeshift launching platform erected on HMS Hibernia for the Naval Review at Weymouth in May 1912. (AUTHOR)
After brief initial use as a trainer for the Territorials, S.40/Short-Sommer No 10 went back to the manufacturer for conversion to a twin-float seaplane, re-emerging in this form at Harty Ferry at the end of May 1912. (AUTHOR)
Three small snapshots of S.40 at Harty Ferry during Frank McClean’s early trials. (AUTHOR)
Reverting to his test-pilot role, at Eastchurch in early June McClean tested the S.43 and S.44 ‘Ordinary Type’ biplanes ordered by the War Office on 5 March for the Central Flying School. They were delivered to Upavon in July.
Aerial marine photography
The demonstrations of naval flying at Weymouth led to assertions that the submarined days were numbered, as it could easily be discovered by scouting aeroplanes. To determine the truth of this claim, Hugh Spottiswoode, chairman of The Sphere, a glossy weekly illustrated broadsheet newspaper, set about ‘organising an initial experiment which should give some idea of the penetrability of water above a sunken vessel’. The magazine professed that it ‘did not hold a brief either for the submarine or the air scout. It does n
ot favour one arm of our national defence more than another, but it feels that this is a question into which it is highly desirable to impart some quantity of definite fact.’ Although the newspaper implied that the experiment was its own idea, The Aeroplane, in its issue of 20 June, had suggested that the project was McClean’s, and that he was being ‘assisted by some of the cleverest Press photographers on the staff of one of the big illustrated papers’.
To this end The Sphere arranged for an aeroplane flown by McClean to carry a photographer to take aerial photographs of the liner Oceana, which had sunk seven miles off Eastbourne in March after colliding with the barque Pisagua. The Oeeana lay on grey mud with some 40ft of water above her decks, the approximate diving depth of a submarine. ‘The vessel was therefore a conveniently fixed objective which ought to give the air scout a fair chance of proving his contention,’ the newspaper stated. ‘The decks are certainly no longer white but are covered with green slime.’
Initially the weather conditions were entirely in the submarine’s favour, surface winds on and near the shore being ‘very troublesome’, and for ten days no aeroplane could set out from Eastbourne with any degree of safety. ‘During this period,’ said The Sphere, ‘submarines could have been patrolling or investigating the coast without hindrance from any airman.’ Meanwhile, on 13 June, McClean had Shorts fit S.36 with ‘floats’ and cut a hole in the fuselage underside ‘for photographic work’. This work was completed the following day, and on the 17th, with his chief mechanic as passenger and also carrying some luggage, he set off in S.36 for Eastbourne Aerodrome, which had been kindly made available as a base for the experiment by its owner Mr Fowler. The aircraft was sighted over Pevensey shortly after 6am, and landed at Eastbourne after a splendid vol plane from about 500ft, McClean thus completing his longest direct cross-country journey to date, covering over 60 miles and lasting 1 hour 17 minutes. On the way he had made a detour to fly over his home at Tonbridge ‘to wake up the establishment’. In fact the S.36 had not been fitted with floats to make it a seaplane, but had been fitted with a pair of flotation bags to keep it afloat in the event of ditching. Curiously, these were attached to the outer sides of the innermost pair of interplane struts, low down in the gap between the upper and lower wings, so that, had the machine descended on the water, the lower wings would have been sub-merged. It can only be presumed that this was done to avoid any top-heaviness that might cause the aeroplane to capsize in choppy water.
In mid-June the S.36, fitted with inter-wing emergency flotation bags, was used by McClean to take aerial photographs of the sunken P & O liner Oceano. The aircraft is seen here at Eastbourne Aerodrome, from where McClean took off for the site off Beachy Head where the submerged liner lay. (AUTHOR)
Towards the end of the third week in June the weather turned, and on the 21st McClean saw his opportunity. With Sphere photographer Charles Cusden in the rear cockpit with his ‘special camera and fast plates’, he took off from Eastbourne. The plan was to fly out to Oceana and circle the liner three times at different heights. Cusden was to watch through his trap in the cockpit floor and take a photograph each time they passed over the ship.
After take-off, McClean climbed to 300ft, and as he rose to 500ft over part of the beach at 10am the radiation under a very hot sun created some very disturbing air currents. The going was better once he was over the sea, but at 1,000ft a cloud hid everything from view. He descended to 900ft, and then made his three circles over the Oceana, with the salvage steamer Ranger across its stern, Cusden taking his three photographs in bright light and a stiff breeze at 900ft, 500ft and 300ft. The return flight was made through ‘very stiff and troublesome wind’, but ‘a fine vol-plane brought the aviator and passenger safely to earth’.
Cusden’s photographs were published in the 6 July issue of The Sphere. The outline of the submerged liner was not as clear as might have been hoped, but the magazine said that, at 900ft, despite the green slime on its decks and the intervention of ‘much thick chalky water’, the outline of the vessel ‘was looming through the water’. At the lower altitudes the Oceana’s outline was harder to distinguish owing to a great deal of reflection from the broken-wave surface of the sea, but the magazine claimed that ‘with a calmer sea there is no doubt that a very much clearer result would have been obtained’.
In assessing the results of its experiment, The Sphere said:
It is evident that at 900ft altitude the form of the submerged vessel was becoming visible, and this under the conditions of a choppy sea with broken light-reflecting surfaces and thick water full of chalk solution from the neighbouring cliffs. Had the clouds permitted photographs would have been taken at 1,000ft and 1,200ft altitude, and it seems reasonable to believe that at these heights the vessel would have appeared with increasing clearness. Height appears to render the local movements on the water less disturbing to general form of the submerged object.
On the other hand, it was pointed out that:
It is evident that weather conditions will often shield the submarine from the unwelcome attentions of the air scout and that the thick water which swashes backward and forward far out into the channel from the chalk cliffs will be a welcome covering from sharp eyes poised overhead. The gusty, dangerous airs off the cliffs would in the present state of aviation prove too much for the air scout, leaving a free unchallenged field for the submarine. The heated air rising from the shore was found to set up the most undesirable movements from the aviator’s point of view
McClean set out from Eastbourne on 2 July to fly back to Eastchurch, but encountered rain and fog. He therefore landed at his family home in Tunbridge Wells, and S.36 was dismantled by Shorts on the 4th and returned to Eastchurch by road. During his 300ft pass over Oceana he had encountered blown spray, and the engine had to be overhauled, the fuselage re-covered, and the wings were found to be waterlogged and had to be replaced.
Also on 2 July, McClean ordered from Shorts ‘One twin 70h.p. Tractor Biplane’, which Shorts designated S.53. The project seems to have been abandoned very quickly, as no more was heard of it.
Taken to court
In June 1912 McClean was elected an Associate Fellow of the ASGB. However, his flight from Eastchurch to Eastbourne on 17 June had angered Thomas Partridge of ‘The Merry Harriers’ at Cowbeach, Sussex, who subsequently brought an action for damages against him. It was alleged that ‘the defendant did so unskilfully and negligently fly over Spratts Farm that a valuable mare was frightened’, and the alleged negligence also included ‘driving an aeroplane too near the ground’ and ‘failing to comply with the Motor Car (Use and Construction) Order of 1904 with regard to silencing exhaust gases’. In addition, as an alternative charge, Partridge claimed damages for ‘entering upon the property of Spratts Farm’, and two further alternatives, that the aeroplane had rendered the house unsafe to live in, and ‘that the defendant drove through the air a dangerous machine, the said aeroplane, so as to be dangerous to persons and property on the ground’. Partridge assessed the depreciation of his mare at £30, and with the addition of veterinary fees and other charges McClean faced a bill for £45. Because an important principle was at issue, affecting all aviators, the RAeC paid for counsel’s opinion on the matter from Mr Clavell Salter, KC, and Mr James Scarlett.
Five questions were put to counsel: (1) Is an aviator in flight trespassing over property below? (2) Does the Roman law ‘Cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum’ (‘Whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven’) apply, and is not the air the property of all and not the special property of any particular persons? (3) Is it an act of negligence to fly over property and frighten livestock? (4) Would such negligence apply to property adjacent, even on the highway, over which he was not actually flying, but was flying near to? (5) Can an aeroplane or airship be called a nuisance by reason of its noise in flight? The counsel expressed the opinion that an aeroplane passing over property did infringe a proprietary right, but that any action of trespass might come under another
legal maxim: ‘De minimis non curat lex’ (‘The law has no concern with trifles’). It was thought that an injunction might be granted against a trespasser, and that at least an undertaking would have to be given that the offence would not be repeated. Counsel said that negligence was always a question of fact. The question was one of whether the aviator used all proper care and skill, and the jury would decide.
Next, the extent of ‘dedication of any highway’ was a question of fact. There was no evidence of any intention to give the public right of passage through the air over the land dedicated any more than through the soil under the surface. Therefore, an aviator over a highway has no more rights than when flying over enclosed lands. Action could only be taken if the aeroplane were a nuisance: and a nuisance involved ‘a sensible interference with the comfort and safety of others’. An aeroplane could certainly not be called a nuisance as a matter of law. It was a question of fact in each case whether the particular aeroplane used constituted a nuisance to the person complaining.
McClean’s S.40, after floats had replaced its wheel undercarriage, at Westgate in 1912. (FLEET AIR ARM MUSEUM)
One of the more unusual aeroplanes flown by McClean in his ‘honorary’ role as Short’s test pilot was the S.47 ‘Triple Tractor’, built for the Admiralty, which he took for its official test flight on 24 July 19 12. This ungainly machine had three tractor propellers driven by two 50hp Gnomes housed beneath a 16ft cowling, and the heat generated by this installation earned the aircraft the nickname ‘Field Kitchen’. (AUTHOR)
Frank McClean Page 11
