The overhauled motor was back in place, the fuselage carefully enamelled inside and out, the floats painted, ninety-six new screw threads drilled through the manhole rims, the wings loosely assembled in pairs ready to fit to the fuselage, the bent float boom repaired, and the bruised longerons strengthened with steel plates.
Now came the most critical a part of all: setting the wings at just the right angle. Back at de Havilland a whole floor area would have a permanent jig set at the perfect right angle to do the job. Francis himself had often ‘watched in awed silence a rigger performing this semi-mystic ritual’. Now he studied the de Havilland manual:
The wings must be dihedrally rigged, 3½ degrees upwards, and this angle must be correct to one sixth of a degree, measured with a variable inclinometer. The leading edge of each wing had to be higher than the trailing edge, so that the wing made an angle of 3½ degrees with the horizontal fore and aft. After that we had to rig for ‘stagger’ – the upper wings had to be 3½ inches ahead of the lower wings.
All very well, but the island had no solid floor and no inclinometer. I doubt if they had ever heard the word before. There was no library, let alone access to the Internet on which to look up instructions. All they had to go on were Francis’s recollection of seeing riggers go about their ‘semi-mystic ritual’.
Three days later he had his solid floor and inclinometer.
The following day all four wings were in place and the rebuild completed. But would she fly? The necessary bottle of brandy was broken over the prop.
I went aboard at once for a trial flight, thinking that if I waited I should get nerves, imagining all the things that could be wrong with the seaplane. I taxied well out, faced into wind and opened the throttle. The seaplane left the water as easily as a fairy dancing off. Now I began hurdling. I put her through her paces, increasing the strain steadily. She had never been more fit, I thought. Then I jumped her up 200 feet, and trimmed the elevators for hands-off flying. I left the stick alone – she flew dead level. The rigging by our island plane factory was perfect first shot.
The team relaunching Madame Elijah
His enthusiasm was infectious and within a few hours half the island’s adults had been up for a joyride. But Francis was noticing that each time she took off, she did so a little more reluctantly and when landing would yaw to starboard. Of course he suspected the leaking float, but on checking he found them dry. It was becoming more and more mysterious.
The next day Francis loaded her up for a trial flight with the weight for the third and final part of the Tasman crossing. She was flying more sluggishly with each kilo added. Having already sacrificed the dinghy in Norfolk Island, he was now reduced to syphoning off petrol, so that he only just had enough to make Sydney. Still he refused the shorter crossing to Macquarie Island. It was as though he was upping the odds against himself all the time. The islanders were now worried too: they gave him two homing pigeons to release in case of a sea landing. If the pigeons did not return home, they would know he had made it.
Still she did not like taking off. Francis wrote: ‘It is hard to understand why I did not realise that the starboard float was nearly full of water, and that a few more gallons would have sunk it’.
(The mystery would only be solved later: earlier in its life the starboard float had been dropped on the deck of a warship. The keel had to be repaired and the only material to hand was stainless steel, which reacted electrolytically with the duralumin rivets and skin of the rest of the float. This reaction caused the top part of the float to be pressed away from the keel, and the water flowed in. As soon as they came out of the water, the water inside pushed the sides of the float against the keel and stopped the leak.)
Looking around for other weight to leave off, Francis chose his spare parts kit – after all, he could always replace them in Sydney and he would hardly be using them before he reached there. The same was true of all unnecessary clothing, in fact anything and everything not entirely essential to completing the next leg of the flight.
He was becoming desperate with Madame Elijah’s reluctance to fly, yet the cause still eluded him. What to do?
I changed my tactics, keeping the seaplane down until she had long outrun the distance usually sufficient. Off? Yes! No, touched again. I held her down for another cable’s length. Now, back with the stick. Would she hold off? Yes-no-yes. She was off. It had been a horrible take-off, but I determined to stay up.
The seaplane had no flying speed, and I had little control over it; it was quite unresponsive. Slowly it righted, and lurched heavily. I pushed the stick hard over, and it righted to an even keel. Suddenly the port wing was struck down by an air bump, and the seaplane seemed to collapse on its side. I struck the control-stick hard over. It had no bite, and the ailerons flopped. The seaplane continued its slither to the sea. ‘That’s the finish of it!’ I thought.
My anxiety ceased and I felt resigned. Then the wings seemed to cushion on a layer of air a few inches from the water, and the seaplane slowly righted. Only the slots hanging out like tongues of dead-beat dogs gave me the least control. The wall of palms ahead blocked my path, and it was impossible to turn right or left. The only chance was to keep down in the thicker surface air to gain enough speed to jump the palms. They rushed at me. Every nerve rebelled, urging me to rise now. But too soon meant certain destruction.
At the last moment I jumped the seaplane as high as possible. I knew that the jump would lose me all the flying speed gained; and I knew that the seaplane must drop after the jump. Could it get flying speed before striking the trees? The foliage came up at me, but suddenly a strong gust of wind reached the plane. I could see its blast spread on the tree-tops; it gave the wings lift, and the controls grip. It saved us.
Finally, nine weeks later, riding their luck and a following wind Francis and a sorry version of Madame Elijah were bound for Sydney – and glory.
But it had been, and was still to be, a damn close run thing.
Francis’s first two trans-Tasman solo flights had started off cheerily enough but both soon descended into fear and desperation and ended with a close shave. The third leg was no different; it wouldn’t be a Francis flight if it were all plain flying.
After the first hour he had covered over 100 miles under a blue sky in perfect visibility, with a stronger than expected tailwind. I’m sure a strong wind from any direction would have caused him concern, as they can only back or veer. This one backed. Half an hour later it had blown him miles too far south. He altered course 15 degrees to the north, certain that the backing was a trend.
Then, calmly settling down to his new course, he had a tremendous shock: out of nowhere the engine gave a loud backfire. It had never done this before in flight. He knew there could only be two causes, electrical or fuel flow. He sat utterly upright, waiting for the engine’s final splutter and death – and his death too. He flicked to the port magneto and back; the revs dropped and the running was rough. A defective magneto – but he had two. Thank God it wasn’t the carburettor; he only had one of those.
Still on edge, he took another sight. The wind was backing even more and he was steering her even further north. Looking at the chart he noticed – as if for the first time – that the ‘Australian coastline had a receding chin, and that every degree I flew south of the course rapidly increased the distance to land which might soon become greater than my range, whereas every degree north of the course would have shortened the flight over the sea’. Still, he pressed on for Sydney rather than head due west for the nearest piece of coast.
Now he was becoming fraught, with the engine uncertain and the ever-backing wind, a new problem arose. Clouds. He could see that soon he would be unable to take a sun sight. At first he was not too worried; after all, he had a 2,000-mile target of the Australian coast to aim for. But still the wind backed and Madame Elijah was flying like a crab into the wind to keep across the course. If it backed more it would become a headwind – and there wasn’t enough fuel to su
rvive that. He could only turn her further north to keep a south-easterly heading – and hope the wind would veer or die down.
Instead it backed further and now brought rain, heavy rain. The drift was becoming alarming and now he had drastically reduced visibility. The rain was now a downpour, just like a Dutch East Indies monsoon. Water was everywhere: pouring down his neck, filling the cockpit floor and spraying off the windscreen. The rebuild had not been 100 per cent true after all: the old Madame Elijah had draining for the cockpit and a slightly higher screen or lower seat. Francis recalled:
I was flying blind, as if in a dense cloud of smoke. I throttled back, and began a slanting dive for the water. Panic clutched me: if I got out of control, I would be too low to recover. But panic meant dying like a paralysed rabbit. I remember saying out loud, ‘Keep cool! Keep cool! K-e-e-p c-o-o-l!’ The seaplane passed through small sudden squall bumps, which shook it violently.
He was now flying blind by instinct and engine note; if the revs increased, the dive was steepening. He dared not try to climb blind, for if he stalled and spun he would not know where the sea was to give him a levelling-off point. He sat still and tense, looking for glimpses of the sea and the compass. If the revs increased he would ease back the joystick.
But intense concentration can only be kept up for so long. Just in time, out of the wall of water he saw the spume off the waves below the port wing-tip. He opened the throttle but the engine only misfired. He opened it wide, nothing to loose. Certain death. This time it shook and backfired but gave him just enough power to lift the nose clear off the spume. Heaven knows what his course was; all his energy was given to keep her flying in any direction.
I dared not take my eyes off the water to look at the compass or the rev indicator. One thing helped me – the violence of the gale itself. Although the seaplane headed in one direction, it was being blown sideways, so that it crabbed along. I could see the next wave between the wings instead of its being hidden by the fuselage. I steered by the drift, keeping the angle of it constant. Otherwise I should have wandered aimlessly about the sea. There was a furious cross sea. Waves shot upward, to lick at the machine, but were slashed away bodily southwards by the sheer force of the gale.
After 10 minutes of hanging on, hanging in there, Francis thought he must navigate again. The compass showed that he was 55 degrees off course, heading too far south towards Tasmania. The wind must have backed another 45 degrees; he was in the eye of the storm.
I had to think hard. I picked up the chart case on which my chart was rolled, but the soaked chart was useless. Before the storm I had drifted so far south that I was right on the edge of the chart; during the storm I was blown farther south at the rate of a mile a minute, and was now far off it. I had been only four hours thirty-five minutes in the air: it seemed a lifetime.
But the eye of a storm is good news too: once through it, all that went before is reversed. The gale was now helping him along and behind the front he found enough of a break to take two sun sights. Soaked to his skin, with water up to the rudder pedals, distracted by a backfiring and spluttering engine, it took him half an hour to work out where he was and how much fuel remained.
The wind now veered. Helpful. Yet only now did he give up the idea of reaching Sydney; any piece of Australia would do. He flew due west, as he should have done hours ago.
I felt intensely lonely, and the feeling of solitude intensified at every fresh sight of ‘land’, which turned out to be yet one more illusion or delusion by cloud. After six hours and five minutes in the air I saw land again, and it was still there ten minutes later. I still did not quite believe it, but three minutes later I was almost on top of a river winding towards me through dark country.
It was Australia – but he had no idea which bit of it, only that he must be north of Sydney. Actually he wasn’t even sure if he was in New South Wales. To the south, in the fading light, he saw a bay. Wherever it was, he would land there and find directions. Closer in he saw three grey ships: the Royal Australian Navy. At random, he chose to land, exhausted, next to HMAS Albatross.
Incredibly, Francis’s first thought was to replenish himself and Madame Elijah and fly down the coast south to Sydney. A naval launch came out to meet him and told him he was at Jervis Bay, 80 miles south of Sydney, not north. Such was his disorientated. He asked them to hold Madame Elijah while he started her, so that he could complete the flight that evening. Standing on the float, he noticed the engine cowling streaked in soot from the backfires. Still he insisted to himself he must fly to Sydney; only when she failed to reach anything approaching take off speed did he ask for sanctuary.
HMAS Albatross
On board he was fêted by the officers and a few whiskies later he resigned himself to a good meal and dry berth on board the Albatross. Yet even now Francis felt the self-inflicted pain of failure just as all the officers were acknowledging his achievement and celebrating his success.
Yet I felt isolated, horribly cut off from other people by some queer gulf of loneliness. I had achieved my great ambition, to fly across the Tasman Sea alone, I had found the islands by my own system of navigation which depended on accurate sun-sights worked out while flying alone, something which no one had ever done before and perhaps no one ever would do in similar circumstances.
And then his famous, telling remark: ‘I had not then learned that I would feel an intense depression every time I achieved a great ambition; I had not then discovered that the joy of living comes from action, from making the attempt, from the effort, not from success.’
But that day had one more nasty trick up its sleeve. The duty officer wanted to hoist Madame Elijah on board for the night so that they could steam for Sydney. Francis felt he had to supervise. Mentally and physically exhausted, and several whiskies for the better, he caught his fingers in the winch loop as the crane took up the slack. Francis cried out in agony but by the time the loop was slack his fingers were crushed. Next thing he knew: ‘When I came to I was in the ship’s hospital. My right hand was crushed, but I lost only the top of one finger. The surgeon cut off the crushed bone and sewed up the flesh’. But the evening was not over yet. ‘I then became the guest of the wardroom officers as well as of Captain Feakes, and it is hard to recount such marvellous hospitality. It was like staying in the best club with the mysterious fascination of naval life added.’ They knew, and he knew they knew, what an extraordinary act of navigation, daring and skill he had just pulled off.
Six mornings later the Albatross steamed into Sydney harbour. Francis and Madame Elijah had made it, even if not quite as planned.
In the same way as we didn’t have space here for a blow-by-blow account of Francis’s London to Sydney flight, we don’t have space for a blow-by-blow of his attempt to land-hop his circumnavigation back to London via Asia. He wrote a comprehensive book about those four months, from July to October 1931, Ride on the Wind, from which these are some of the more startling endeavours. Rarely can anyone have packed so many adventures, met so many aspects of humanity, had so many near scrapes and moments of ecstatic relief as Francis had in that short period.
By the time she limped onto the Australia seashore Madame Elijah was in urgent need of some mechanical TLC. Luckily the Australian agent for de Havilland was a flying-works family man, Major Hereward de Havilland, known to everybody in Sydney as ‘D.H.’. D.H. was just Francis’s cup of tea and Francis, with his Moth exploits, was D.H.’s cause célèbre.
Under D.H.’s supervision Madame Elijah had the ultimate makeover and emerged a new girl: engine rebuilt, new prop, rigging tested and tightened – and even that starboard float mended – or so Francis thought. He had his own hand mended and filled his days journeying from consulate to consulate seeking landing and flyover permissions for the first stage to Japan. He needed to find places with empty landing waters every 500 miles, where a seaplane could anchor safely overnight, with access to food for airman and fuel for seaplane and where some sort of pidgin English could
be used. Frustrated by officialdom, Francis’s great bête noire, and delays to Madame Elijah’s rebuild, D.H. asked him why on earth he didn’t just built a yacht and do it the easy, sunbathing way. Francis recorded: ‘Thirty years on, now that I am a sailing man, this idea seems a great joke; I get far more sunbathing in the middle of London in a month than I ever have on a yacht!’
Afloat on Elijah
With an eye on the weather in Northern Canada and Greenland, Francis grew increasingly impatient to leave. None of the consuls was much moved to help, the petrol situation en route was undiscoverable and, to cap it all, the money promised from New Zealand failed to arrive. D.H. rode to the rescue, lending Francis £44, enough to buy petrol and food to reach Japan, by which time the New Zealand money should have arrived.
Eventually, on 3 July, all was ready. Francis said his goodbyes and thank-yous to everyone who had helped him that last month in Sydney. They were all apprehensive about what he was setting out to do; it must have seemed as crazy as it was. Captain Feakes from HMAS Albatross took Francis to one side and said what they all felt: ‘If you find it’s impossible, give it up, won’t you?’ As if! A few moments later Francis was flying again, free as a bird, and wrote in his log what Feakes and the stay-at-homes could never understand: ‘This is the supreme ecstasy of life’.
The flight up the coast was uneventful enough, stopping at Brisbane, Rockhampton and Cairns, mile after mile of pristine emptiness. It wasn’t until passing Cape Lee in Princess Charlotte Bay that the boredom of wonder was relieved. Sharks! A whole fright of them. Francis had always had a fascination with the marauders of the deep and was disappointed not to have flown over any across the Timor Sea seven months earlier. Now, when most of us would have given a shiver and flown on gratefully, he went down to have a look. He landed on the exact spot where they had been, turned off the engine, jumped out of the seaplane, took off his flying suit and lolled about on a float hoping for a good close up. He smoked a pipe and ate some sandwiches. It never occurred to him that his floats must have looked like two juicy seals to his new friends down below. At least I presume it never occurred to him. He waited a few minutes but his natural impatience got the better of his natural curiosity, he fired her up and took off again for Thursday Island.
Never Fear Page 13
