Frank McClean

by Philip Jarrett

  The adventure begins

  As related above, after erection at the Naval Dockyard by McClean, Alec Ogilvie, Horace Short and mechanics Gus Smith and Graves the S.80 underwent trial flights on 2 January 1914, the day the Egyptian Gazette published its interview. The next day McClean, Ogilvie, Horace Short and Smith took off from Alexandria at 9.20am, flew over the sea to Rosetta and then along the Nile to Cairo, a 160-mile trip, arriving at 1.18pm, having stopped at Kafr el Zayat for petrol. The Egyptian Gazette reported in its 5 January issue that the aeroplane’s arrival at Kafr el Zayat had been awaited by ‘a huge crowd of boats and a vast concourse of natives’, and that ‘the majority of the latter gazed awe-struck at the machine as it approached, while others threw themselves to the ground in abject terror or took speedily to their heels’.

  The beginning of the great adventure. The S.80 seaplane during assembly at Alexandria, on 30 December 1913. (ROYAL AERO CLUB)

  On the 6th McClean departed from Cairo at 11.15am accompanied by his sister, Ogilvie and Spottiswoode and flew to Minieh, taking on fuel at Beni Suef en route and delayed only by a faulty sparking plug, while Horace Short went on to Assiut, ready to take Anna’s place. At 9am the following day they took off for Assiut, and Deirout was reached at 9.40. After leaving Deirout a broken ball race ‘distributed itself in the crankcase’, and they proceed by short flights as far as the Assiut Barrage, which was reached at 1.30pm. The aircraft then had to be ‘ignominiously towed through the locks at Assiut with its planes folded back’. Several days were spent there, replacing one cylinder and piston, Horace Short returning to Cairo on the 10th to obtain a component. At Assiut Anna left the party and returned to Cairo.

  Following a test flight on the 13th, McClean, accompanied by Ogilvie and Gus Smith, continued to Luxor on the 14th, with a stop for fuel at Girgeh, the leg from Assiut to Girgeh being described as ‘very rough’. The only trouble was a broken oil pipe, which Gus Smith had to hold in place for half an hour. At 9am on 16 January McClean left Luxor and, after stopping at Edfou ‘for petrol and a smoke’, reached Aswan at 11am, alighting near the Savoy Hotel off Elephantine Island after an ‘uneventful and pleasant’ flight with only ‘a falling off in power’ and being met with an ‘enthusiastic reception from the natives’. It was reported that the broken desert ground for the last 20 miles had ‘made the machine fret a good deal’. The S.80 was later taxied under its own power to a site by the railway station, where they ground in the valves. McClean left the aircraft and visited the Mudir, who invited him to dinner at the Cataract Hotel, where McClean was staying. Two days later McClean made some flights to entertain the ‘great crowd’ who had come to see the aeroplane. In its 15 January issue The Aeroplane reported that the aeroplane ‘has been having engine trouble owing to the immoderate consumption of petrol’.

  The assembled S.80 on the Nile at Cairo, 3–4 January 1914. Horace Short is standing on the nearest float. (AUTHOR)

  The S.80 at Assiut during 8–13 January 1914 with its wings folded. This capability proved useful when the seaplane had to be manoeuvred through narrow waterways. (ROYAL AERO CLUB)

  Removing the big two-row Gnome engine at Assiut, 8–13 January. (ROYAL AERO CLUB)

  After they had taken off at 9.50am and flown 30 miles south towards Khartoum on Monday the 19th they crossed to Cataract and put down above the dam to refuel. Then they ‘went on Al for 60 miles’, as McClean recounted in a letter to Jim Lockyer dated 27 January, but ‘came down unexpectedly having got careless and found that one cylinder had nearly seized’. They filled it with oil and cut out its ignition. The return to Aswan was mostly made by taxiing on the Nile, and they ‘got back to the dam with an inch of petrol in the bottom of the tank’. Ever the optimist, McClean said: ‘I must say that our bad luck is somewhat helped out with good luck.’ The engine was then dismantled with the help of a Gnome mechanic from Cairo. On the 26th the repair was completed, but five minutes into the test flight they had to descend with another cylinder badly heated. Of this brief flight McClean told Lockyer: ‘Haif a gale was blowing right at the dam & making a fine commotion at the top. We got into it & had a real worry worry. Getting out of that we had to get through a nasty gorge. Then we descended.’ The next day the engine was again dismantled and a telegram was sent to the Gnome engine factory in Paris requesting four new cylinders, ‘and many other parts’. In a letter to a friend in England, dated 20 January, McClean wrote: ‘It is most annoying. The flying out here is perfect except for occasional bumps. The dam gave us a beauty on Monday and we shall avoid that spot in future.’

  Ogilvie later recalled:

  During the first part of the trip from Alexandria to Aswan, my flight maps are missing, but when getting away from the big expanse of water above the Dam, the power was so much down that I had to get on to the back of the plane, or rather the floats, before Frank could get her off. This was a bad sign and the engine was only making 1,160 revs instead of 1,200. During the next 40 miles, it slowed up still more and we had to anchor.

  It was obvious that the back row of cylinders had been getting seriously overheated and after another short trial, Frank decided to go back to the workshops at the Dam and take the engine right down.

  As a result of the examination, he found it necessary to order a lot more cylinders and other spares, which would have to come from Paris and would take about a month to reach us. We felt that a month’s hang up, and a prolonged spell of “Bar to Barrage and back,” as Frank put it, would seriously impair our morale, so a trip was planned to enable us to have a look at the Cataract between Merowe and Abu Hamed.

  All reports on the state of the river showed that the Nile was lower than it had been for 50 years with the result that many unusual areas of rocks were appearing above the surface and this particular patch should be investigated.

  Frank’s sister came with us, we inspected some of the worst places and had a very enjoyable trip.

  A reconnaissance trip

  Frank and Anna McClean and Ogilvie went on a river steamer to Wadi Haifa, just across the border in Sudan, en route to Abu Hamed to look at the rapids, or, as Frank put it to Lockyer, ‘to look at our future troubles’. Meanwhile, Spottiswoode went off to Luxor and Cairo for other spares. The trio left Haifa for Kareima on 29 January. Anna had been staying with the railway people and had secured a saloon carriage, borrowed a cook and got in a supply of food and drink. She joined the party, sleeping in the saloon while her brother and Ogilvie were turned out when the train reached Abu Hamed on 2 February and were put up by another railway man. The next day they set out for Kareima across the desert, only sighting the Nile near El Keb, where a supply of petrol was awaiting them.

  At Kareima they were lent a river steamer in which to live, ‘with a bath & all’. On the Sunday they called on Colonel Jackson, the governor of Dongola Province, at Merowe, and in the afternoon they ‘visited some temples & climbed a hill to get our geography correct’. The next day they investigated the bottom 5 miles of the cataract; ‘about 4 hours on camels. Beastly things,’ McClean commented to Lockyer. ‘Next day,’ he continued, ‘we were in our glory. We had a special train – starting at 6.30am, stopping 6 hours at a place called Amralo & continuing on to Abu Hamed.’

  Those 6 hours were fair hell. Across the desert for 5 miles then up & down gorges, crossing dry water courses getting as much idea as possible of the middle of the cataract, & back to the train 8am to 2pm and the camels smelt like it. A Me [Anna] really lasted out best but even she had a Al thirst. We, Ogilvie & I wallowed in it, beer, gin & ginger, whiskey soda, tea, all found a place in our systems.

  Back at Abu Hamed, McClean and Ogilvie again stayed with the railway employee, and on the next day, Tuesday 3 February, they returned to Haifa.

  On the Wednesday, after laying in a fresh supply of food and drink, McClean and Ogilvie started off up the second cataract, covering ten miles that afternoon and then sleeping in a native house. On Thursday they went ‘15 miles out to near Sarras & back to Gamai[?] wi
th an hour’s hard walking as a rest from the everlasting tango of the camel 7.15am to 5.30pm but luckily quite cool.’

  On Friday they returned to Haifa and caught the boat for Aswan to await the arrival of the replacement parts. The exhaust valves were already there. Horace Short left to return to Eastchurch at this point. Because of all the problems they had already encountered, McClean informed Jim Lockyer in a letter dated 7 February: ‘We shall not try to fly back down the river. The wind would be against us & there is little water left. If all goes well we shall continue to Khartoum & possibly beyond – but shall dismantle at Khartoum.’

  French aviator Marc Pourpe’s Morane monoplane at the Aswan Dam on 24 January 1914. (ROYAL AERO CLUB)

  During this hiatus McClean was present when the French airman Marc Pourpe landed in his single-seat Morane-Saulnier monoplane, and ‘received his colleague in a very friendly way’. Pourpe also stayed at the Cataract Hotel, and McClean gave a big dinner to the French aviator and his friends in ‘this celebrated hostelry’.

  Back in the air

  The engine parts arrived on 12 February and McClean made a ‘very successful’ trial flight at noon on the 14th, the propeller being changed and then changed back. The engine was giving 1,200 revs. Although they were ready to depart at 9.15am on the 16th, rare persistent rain delayed departure until the following day, when the 192-mile flight to Wadi Haifa was resumed at 9.30am, with Ogilvie and Gus Smith as the passengers. McClean later explained: ‘From Aswan to Haifa and on to Argo in the Dongola bend all went well. The machine, being a seaplane, had to follow the river, which entailed a distance from Haifa to Abu Hamed of 600 miles instead of the 250 miles direct across the desert, the route taken a month before by Pourpe in his Morane-Saulnier. He was the first person to fly to Khartoum.’ At 9.25am on Tuesday the 17th McClean, Ogilvie and Smith, ‘followed by the good wishes of everybody at Aswan, where [McClean] has made himself extremely popular’ set off again. A stop at Korosco for petrol and oil at 11.05am, 116 miles into the leg, was protracted because, as McClean described to Jim in a letter from Haifa on the 19th, the locals:

  The S.80 with its starboard float removed at the Aswan Dam on 10 February 1914. (ROYAL AERO CLUB)

  … took about ½ an hour finding a boat, then started out to us without the fuel, then went back & brought some of it, then had to bring out the head man of the village to shake hands. In the end it was almost 1 o’clock when we got going again. And it was going. Bumps of every sort & description. On the water below us were long streaky gusts, short triangular gusts & worst of all circular ones, raising spray and twirling while they raced across the river. Sometimes it felt as though we had hit a brick.

  We reached the Sudan boundary & were received by a beauty that shifted Ogilvie in his seat & made him say things. We reached Haifa in a procession of right hand wing lifts that made me perspire.

  Wadi Haifa was reached just after 2.40pm on the 17th, where the S.80 was pulled ashore. Examination revealed that an engine frame wire was broken, the throttle stop had shaken out, there were two dents in the propeller and the bracing was generally slack.

  The S.80 beached at Wadi Haifa on 18 February for general repairs and adjustments after a turbulent flight from Korosko. (ROYAL AERO CLUB)

  The 18th and 19th were spent putting things to rights and studying maps. In his letter of the 19th McClean remarked:

  Can’t say I’m happy. The map 1/50,000 shews the Nile at full water & that is bad enough. Now the water level is lower than any recorded summer level. No stretch of actual rapid appears to reach more than 7 miles – but neither do the good parts. We have petrol at Sarras only 30 miles on but DV [Deo Volente – God willing] shall not call there. At Kosheh [sic: Kosha] 106 miles from here there is petrol & oil, again at Delgo 180 miles and at Dongola 280 miles from here. We’ve got to get there tomorrow for any kind of accommodation. The other places are mud huts.

  From there we shall go to Debba & Merowi [sic: Merowe] for the night. Then Abu Hamed. Worst cataract of all. This Dongola reach of nearly 600 miles is the worst going of any on the river. Pourpe only had to do some 250 miles across the desert – good landing all the way.

  Spottiswoode & our mechanic have gone on by train today to Merowi. Our van load of spares goes to Abu Hamed on Saturday. My sister is uncertain when she goes or where. She is enjoying life.

  The leg from Haifa to Argo was flown on Friday 20 February, departing at 6.30am. There were cataracts only six miles ahead, so, after taking off, McClean rose to a height of 100ft and went five miles north of Haifa and back, ‘rising gradually’, so that on re-passing Haifa the aircraft was at 1,100ft and ‘climbing very busily’. In a letter to Jim Lockyer, written at Argo on 23 February, he wrote:

  The engine did its best, the air was smooth and we crossed Absuiv rock at 1,600ft. At that point if the engine had stopped we would have had difficulty in landing, but only for about a minute and then we could have glid down [sic] to the south end of the second cataract. However all went well and climbing, first to 2,000, and then to 2,800, we did some proper corner cutting sometimes being a couple of miles from the river. All the time the air was perfect, but the view below was horrible. Rocks projecting out of water cataracts, small and large; at one place the river narrows to 45 yards between high rocks. But all this time there were pieces within reach that looked good for landing and you bet that FK’s eyes were on them all the time. On either side was endless desert, seen as it had never been seen before in this neighbourhood. The local name meaning Belly of Stone suits it. On the east bank were endless black hills, with endless black valleys, twisting and turning and looking like black furnace slag. On the west bank was a certain amount of rock but mostly golden red sand. And the river twisting in the middle. It was wonderful and so interesting that it was impossible to feel nervous. And the engine ran well.

  The first refuelling stop was made 80 minutes later at Kosha, 108 miles on. McClean remarked:

  If you deduct 10 minutes for starting upwind and turning upwind at the end, it means some speed [about 92.5mph]. At Kosheh [sic] there was a nice little piece of water probably 1½ miles long, but so smooth that one could not see the surface and the landing had to be judged by the sand banks on either side.

  After taking in petrol and oil we taxied to the upper end of the smooth water, turned and started off. We had got to about 150ft when broken water was reached, and did not turn till about 300ft up. Then we began climbing and did not level out till about 2,000ft. The country now was not quite so rough but the river was not pretty from our point of view. Then after half an hour, bumps began and we rose to 2,500 where they were not bad. Our next petrol place was Delgo [Delga] and when within ten miles of it and a nasty gorge below, the engine half struck work. Down went her nose for a smooth piece of water (there were actually two possible pieces) but when down at 1,500ft the engine took on its job again and we continued. By this time and at this height it was getting very bumpy and at Delgo we had a beautiful vertical drop which shifted Ogilvie in his seat. The turn just after this – to turn into the wind – was bad partly from the weather and partly from nerves which had been jolted, but we landed and finding a nice sandy shore we ran aground. Here we found the magneto were [sic] loose and had a general overhaul – in addition to taking in petrol.

  Tricky flying and a bad landing

  Between landing at Delga at 10 o’clock and departing at midday the heat increased, and as McClean puts it, ‘hell was not in it when we again got going’. He continues:

  A full diary of the hour and a bit between there and here [Argo] is impossible and even Ogilvie’s maps are disjointed and his note book almost empty. He was too damned busy holding on to his seat and I was jambing myself tight between the rudder bar and the back of my seat and using the steering wheel as a safety stop when I rose to the bump. I did actually hit the wheel with my knees once. It started before our turn down wind, it got worse at 600ft, it developed into a corkscrew at 1,000 and I gave it up later. The wind was slightl
y from the east side of the river – though mostly behind. I tried the west bank and we were thrown up by hundreds of feet. I tried the left and down we went in spite of the machine climbing to the limits of its power. Over the river was a macedoine of movement when there was a clear channel but when there were 2 or 3 channels with various shaped islands – then there was real trouble. The poor air hadn’t a notion where it should go to and we had to take pot luck. Gus saw one dust devil. I’m glad I did not. One time we rose 500ft in about a minute with the nose down. Again in 2 seconds we rose 100ft. That means lifting 1½ tons at a speed of 50ft a second. Thank goodness Short builds strong.

  The so-called third cataract was the worse we have passed. As a matter of fact we have crossed twenty or thirty. It was just a bristle of rocks with a few inches of water between. Here again if the engine had petered out we should have found trouble. But the engine ran well. After crossing it I shouted to Ogilvie if we should come down but he called back that Argo was near where there was a telegraph station. He was no keener than I was but there would have been much alarm if we had landed nowhere in particular. So we stuck to it and then from 2,500ft we descended. It was impossible to cut the engine off as it was continually required when the bumps threw the nose up. It had to be shut off suddenly when the nose took charge. It had to be left alone when both hands had to control the warp [ailerons]. It was the devil. Finally close to Argo we landed on a good bit of water. I thought it was a good land [ing] at first, until the left wing caught in the water and turned the machine round and tore the tip off. Ogilvie says that one float was several feet above the other. I thought it was level – but it could not have been. Certainly we were all glad to be down and I’m damned if I could tell one position from another. As the machine righted I saw water come off the top plane.