Frank McClean

by Philip Jarrett

  The chief trouble with the Short seems to have been that owing to the brief time available in which to build it, the makers were unable to test thoroughly what amounted to a new combination of engine and machine. The engine appears to have been giving its power all right, but has suffered from radiator trouble, on one occasion the water all running out of the radiator and letting the engine get so hot that it had to be taken to pieces and a piston replaced. Then tests of different propellers had to be made, and afterwards the surface of the planes themselves was increased, a considerable amount being added to the leading edges of the planes and extensions being put on the lower planes, as, of course, there was no time to fit new planes. As a result Mr McClean withdrew definitely from the competition on Saturday, but he still intends to have the machine put right and do a sufficiently big flight on it to show that if official sanction had been given for the holding of the race in time, he would have been able to put up a good show.

  In a last desperate effort to get the S.68 up to scratch, different propellers were tried and its wings were hastily modified, a considerable amount being added to their leading edges and the lower wings being extended to match the span of the upper wings. In this rare photograph of the modified machine the lower-wing extensions are noticeably lighter in colour than the original surfaces to which they have been added. (AUTHOR)

  This ‘robbed the event of competitive interest’, leaving Hawker as the only remaining entrant. When he suffered a bad crash while making a forced descent near Dublin, injuring his passenger and wrecking the machine, the Daily Mail made him a £1,000 personal gift in recognition of his skill and courage in covering 1,034 miles out of the full distance of 1,540 miles. The contest was abandoned. In an April 1914 survey of aircraft suitable for military impressment McClean’s S.68 was recorded as ‘about to be fitted with a different engine’, and it is believed it might have become naval aeroplane 182, described as a Short Type 74 dual-control seaplane with a 100hp Gnome.

  This debacle evidently met with the RAeC’s displeasure, as a meeting of its Competitions Committee was held on 9 September, and instead of being on the committee as usual, McClean, along with Tom Sopwith, attended at the committee’s invitation. The regulations for next year’s £5,000 Circuit of Britain were discussed, and ‘the Secretary was instructed to place the views of the Committee before the Proprietors of the Daily Mail.’

  An unusual item appeared in the 6 September issue of Flight, in the form of a poem by someone writing under the pseudonym of ‘The Governor’, and entitled ‘To Little Willie’. From its content it is clear that Frank McClean was its subject:

  A man who calls a spade a spade,

  Who flies for sport and not for trade,

  Green-engined Short, all British made.

  Two Gordon-Bennetts thou hast sailed,

  The trim ‘Corona’ oft hast trailed

  O’er many lands till ballast failed.

  The Moon describing its ellipse,

  Has drawn thee thrice to an eclipse,

  Thy sole reward – dark maiden’s lips.

  When planes the Navy could not buy,

  Who helped the sailor boys to fly

  At Eastchurch in the summer sky?

  On days when others fume and swear

  Seldom dost thou pollute the air,

  With language flying men can’t bear.

  Flying on thine aeroplane

  When the sun begins to wane,

  Gnomeing round the sheds again.

  Gliding gently back to earth,

  To the land that gave thee birth.

  Smiling in thy merry mirth.

  Dreamy eyes so meek and mild

  Full of goodness as a child,

  Soft as violets growing wild.

  Generous beyond compare,

  Loved by ladies everywhere,

  Both by ‘filly’ and by mère.

  May maidens all thy vows believe,

  And many may’st ye yet deceive,

  Before the day thou hast to leave.

  This was no bardic masterpiece, just a simple, light-hearted compliment by someone who evidently knew his subject. What McClean made of it we cannot know, for in his usual reticent manner he did not respond. However, there is no disputing the fact that McClean frequently took ladies aloft and evidently enjoyed their company, and they his. The nickname ‘Little Willie’ was probably an intimate familiarity used by his fellow pilots, as it does not appear in popular use elsewhere. As noted earlier, this nickname was also applied to one of the Short biplanes loaned by McClean to the navy for training.

  Test-pilot troubles continued to hamper Short Brothers. Having put a new Short biplane through its Admiralty acceptance tests on Tuesday 16 September, Sydney Pickles was flying the Champel biplane at Hendon on Saturday 20 September, the day of the second Aerial Derby. While he was taking Mrs De Beauvoir Stocks (herself a pilot) for a passenger flight a spiral dive ‘terminated in a sudden dive from about 60ft to the ground’. Pickles suffered a fractured leg and other injuries, and Mrs Stocks suffered concussion and injuries to her back. Both were hospitalised.

  That same day the RAeC’s grounds at Eastchurch were visited by 120–170 members of the Kent Automobile Club, who inspected the aeroplanes and were shown round the Short Brothers’ works. Luncheon was partaken in a hangar placed at their disposal by McClean, and in the afternoon they were treated to exhibition flights by naval officers, and a large number of passengers were taken aloft by Samson and McClean. Flight reported, ‘Mr McClean and Commander Samson were kept busy taking up members of the fair sex as well as mere man, sometimes at the rate of two per trip’. The visit ended with the guests being ‘entertained to tea by the RAeC’ In 1931 McClean, speaking at a dinner given by the Forum Club to some aviation pioneers, recalled an incident that occurred during this event. He said that he took up two old ladies for a joy ride, and that when he had got them firmly fastened in they looked round and said, after due inspection, ‘We think, sir, that should it be necessary, we just have room to be sick without inconveniencing you’.

  On 22 September the Home Office issued an order in connection with the Aerial Navigation Act, 1911, stating that, ‘for the purpose of protecting the public from danger’, the navigation of aeroplanes over the area of the County of London within a circle of four miles radius around Charing Cross was prohibited, other than for aeroplanes exempted for special reasons. This was reinforced by a resolution passed by the RAeC Committee on 11 November, which added to the Club’s rules a prohibition of ‘flying to the danger of the public’, particularly ‘unnecessary flights over towns or thickly populated areas, or over places where crowds were temporarily assembled, or over public enclosures at aerodromes at such height as to involve danger to the public’. Flying was also prohibited over river regattas, race meetings and meetings for public games and sports, unless the flights were specifically arranged by the promoters of the events.

  During the Reims and Gordon-Bennett Trophy Meeting at Bethany in France on 26–29 September a conference was held between the Aero-Club de France and the RAeC, concerning a planned London-to-Paris and return race in the spring of 1914. The RAeC was represented by Messrs. Frank McClean, J H Ledeboer and H E Perrin, the secretary. It was decided to make it an annual event, and to make Paris the starting and finishing point in 1915.

  A new Nile machine

  The Nile flight was still in the planning, and on 6 September McClean had ordered a new 160hp seaplane designed for the purpose, the S.80. This big twin-boom pusher biplane had an elevator mounted on the front of its wide nacelle, which accommodated two pairs of side-by-side seats and was powered by a 160hp two-row Gnome rotary engine, essentially two 80hp engines joined together, in the rear. Known as the ‘Nile Seaplane’, it had folding wings that spanned 67ft when spread.

  At Eastchurch on 29 September, immediately upon his return from France, McClean was ‘flying well at a good height’, and on 1, 2 and 3 October he made several flights carrying passengers. On th
e 6th he flew solo and with passengers, and he was again flying passengers on the 15 th and during the following week. Reports of these flights do not specifically identify the aircraft types used, but the S.58 was one of them.

  In September and October it was announced that Short Brothers had acquired a site on the River Medway at Rochester, just above Rochester Bridge, and were erecting a subsidiary factory solely for the production of ‘waterplanes’. Once launched, new aircraft could be towed into the Medway for testing. The company had also acquired a small area of land at Harty, on the Sheppey bank of the Swale about four miles from Eastchurch, for experimental work.

  McClean was present at Eastchurch on 23 October when the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr Winston Churchill, paid a visit. Churchill first arrived at Sheerness dockyard aboard the Admiralty yacht Enchantress, where he watched seaplanes from the Isle of Grain performing evolutions. He then boarded a steam pinnace and was landed on the pier, to be received by Commander Samson, commanding the Eastchurch Naval Aviation School, and Captain-Superintendent Prendergast. Samson then drove his guest to the aerodrome, where Churchill inspected the aeroplanes, ‘drawn up in parade order’, the hangars and Short Brothers’ factory. Churchill was then taken up by Samson in Short biplane No 3 (S.38-type pusher constructor’s No S.78, a rebuild of c/n S.39, the Triple Twin) for an extended flight to the Isle of Grain. There the First Lord boarded Naval Airship No 3, the Astra Torres, which cruised over to Eastchurch and performed some ‘graceful evolutions’ over the aerodrome, then returned to Grain. This was Churchill’s first airship flight.

  According to his own diary notes, McClean made his first trials of the S.80 Nile seaplane at Eastchurch on 8 November*, it being fitted with a land undercarriage for his initial flights. A Flight report on the week’s activities at Eastchurch, in the 15 November issue, stated:

  Mr F.K. McClean had his new large 160hp Short machine out during the latter part of the week, several nice flights being satisfactorily accomplished. The machine makes an imposing sight in the air owing to the struts, planes, &c, being white. The machine is fitted with a self-starting arrangement to the engine, and for the preliminary trials land wheels were fitted, the intention being to fly the machine to Mr McClean’s hangar at Harty and there affix the floats.

  With its twin pontoon main floats and twin air bags under the lower tailbooms the S.80 showed its weight-carrying capabilities when McClean took four passengers aloft from Harty Ferry on 19 November and flew along the Kent coast, as Flight described in its 29 November issue. The Aeroplane, in its issue for 27 November, reported:

  It has been known for some time that Mr Frank McClean contemplated making a trip up the Nile, accompanied by Mr Alec Ogilvie, on a Short waterplane, this winter. The machine on which the trip is to be made is now packed for transport to Egypt and passed through its trial most satisfactorily last week. The machine is a Short propeller-driven [i.e. pusher] biplane with span of 67 feet, a chord of five feet and a gap of five feet, and is fitted with a Gnome engine of 160hp. There is a small front elevator, which, as Mr McClean explains, is there more for company than for any particular use, as the tail elevator control is quite sufficient. The speed of the machine is about 70mph. The tank capacity is 37 gallons, which is sufficient for 3 hours’ flying. The main planes are built so that they can be folded back alongside the tail for convenience in housing or towing, the method employed being that recently patented by the Short Bros.

  During these tests on Wednesday last Mr McClean took up with him four passengers, the crew being perhaps the most notable that has ever gone up in one aeroplane. Mr McClean himself has, of course, been flying ever since 1909, and with him on the pilot’s thwart was Mr Alec Ogilvie, who is also one of the earliest fliers in this country, and perhaps our leading practical experimenter. In the passengers’ seats were Mr Horace Short, the head of the firm of Short Bros., and Commander Samson, RN, Commandant of the Naval Flying School at Eastchurch, and Captain Courtney, RMLI, one of the chief instructors at the school. With the crew on board and full tanks the machine weighed 3,6001b, yet it got off the water in 22 seconds from the time the engine was opened out, although Mr McClean did not force her up, but simply let her fly off the water. A machine of this type fitted with a gun and wireless apparatus in place of two of the passengers and minus the front elevator is obviously of considerable promise for naval purposes.

  On the afternoon of Thursday 4 December McClean was flying at Eastchurch with a passenger, and he was aloft there again on Sunday 7 December. Then, on the morning of Friday 12 December he, Ogilvie and Spottiswoode left England for Cairo, from where they planned to start their seaplane trip down the Nile to Khartoum ‘on or about’ 1 January 1914. The S.80 and its mechanics had departed some weeks earlier aboard the Corsican Prince, and arrived at Alexandria on 27 December. It was claimed to be the first time that a seaplane had been sent to Egypt, and The Aeroplane optimistically postulated:

  … it seems highly probable that waterplanes will be largely used on the great Egyptian waterway as a rapid means of communication between the Egyptian and the Soudanese [sic] capitals, and it is quite possible that there will be a regular air service long before there is a continuous railway from Cairo to Khartoum, which is already becoming a popular winter resort for well-to-do Europeans with whom expense is comparatively little object.

  * It has previously been written that the first flight of McClean’s S.80 was made by Gordon Bell on 2 October 1913, but from the description of the machine flown by Bell published in the 11 October 1913 issue of Flight it is evident that it was not S.80, but the S.65 seaplane for the navy, which had folding upper wing extensions, rather than wings that folded back at the centre section, plus wingtip floats. Bell flew it off to ‘Grain Hydroplane Station’, and it was given the naval serial number 82. Subsequently S.80 has been confused with S.79, which must have been under construction simultaneously at Eastchurch and was given the naval serial 80.

  CHAPTER 7

  1914: The Nile Expedition and the Last Peacetime Flights

  Writing of the Nile flight in the November 1955 issue of The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Alec Ogilvie recalled:

  McClean had first asked Commander Samson, RN, to come with him on this 1914 Nile trip but he could not go, and Frank asked me.

  As it turned out, McClean would have done better to have taken a really experienced Gnome Engineer, who would have been able to see what was our basic engine trouble, which was overheating. McClean would have avoided a vast amount of trouble and expense, but that was not his way. He wanted his friends with him in his adventures and was prepared to put up with difficulties.

  In November 1913 the Nile machine was on trial, first with wheels at Eastchurch and then with floats on the Swale at Harty Ferry.

  It was then taken down, crated and sent by ship to Alexandria.

  The Dockyard people there gave us every possible assistance and with the help of a couple of Short’s own fitters and my mechanic [Graves], we had the machine assembled for trial by 2nd January 1914. In a manner typical of the next three months, the machine with its 160hp engine was carried bodily into the water by a large party of Dockyard hands. I forget what it did weigh but the wings had a span of 60ft [actually 67ft] and the general construction was of the solid Short type. It must have been in the neighbourhood of 3,000lb [3,600lb all-up]. In a calm or steady air condition it flew well and it was very pleasant to sit in front with a fine view, but in gusty weather it was a nightmare to fly and it was as well for all of us that Frank had a strong hand as well as a steady head and plenty of experience. The range of speed was about 55 to 65mph and it could climb at 150ft per minute. We had some 2,000 miles to go. The tanks would only carry supplies for 100 or 120 miles, so a great many fuel depots had to be laid down some in perfectly outlandish places.

  Before we started for Egypt the question came up, were we to go around Dongola Bend or across it. It will be remembered that Kitchener in his Mahdi war had a railway built ac
ross this stretch and put the job in the hands of Percy Girouard. Frank had not quite made up his mind on this question and so we went to see Sir Percy Girouard in his London home. He strongly advised fitting the machine with wheels at Wadi Haifa and going straight across to Abu Hamed [i.e. across the Nubian Desert]. On this, Frank, who was an obstinate man in some ways, decided to stick to his floats and go round. As long as we were near the railway, supply arrangements were reasonable, but some places entailed camel journeys of five days.

  Miss Anna McClean, McClean’s sister, was an absolute tower of strength on the ‘morale’ side and we two might have packed up before reaching Khartoum if it had not been impossible to let her down.

  A sketch map of the Nile, from Alexandria to Khartoum.

  In addition to the aircraft’s limited fuel capacity, suitable petrol for the Nile flight was available to Alexandria and Cairo, but not beyond, and this was another reason that depots had to be arranged along the route, sometimes by camel. A railway wagon full of spares for the aeroplane accompanied the flight (though it would frequently be many miles away when its contents were required), and, as the machine’s weight had to be kept to a minimum, suitcases containing changes of clothing were dotted about the Sudan. All of this ‘ground support’ was Spottiswoode’s responsibility.

  On 31 December a reporter for the Egyptian Gazette interviewed McClean at the Arsenal at Alexandria, where he was superintending the assembly of S.80, describing him as ‘most courteous and patient throughout’. Initially McClean stated: ‘I don’t want to say much be-forehand, except this, that mine is purely a pleasure trip; I feel under no obligation to the public and so should prefer that no itinerary of my doings is published in advance.’ He underlined the casual nature of the flight at the end of the interview, saying ‘… mine is a pleasure trip, so there’s no need to train. I am “going-slow,” traversing a sufficient distance each day as not to make the journey tedious’. As it transpired, however, things would go slower than even he intended.