Memory Lane

Below are some memories and impressions of those who have flown JT over the years, or anyone with a connection with the aeroplane who have contacted The Auster Diaries. If you would like to add an account, leave a comment in the first instance and you will be contacted by e-mail, or simply include your memories in the comments box.

From Tony Clinch, who flew JT out of Hucknall in 1970 / 71

I flew JT in 1970 and ’71 from Hucknall as a member of the Rolls Royce flying club. Many happy hours at 48 shillings an hour wet! I remember flying her on a tour of the Southwest down to Perranporth. No heater or radio. Permission to land by very pistol from the tower, a different age. On the way back we encountered an F4 Phantom which passed below us in the opposite direction in flash as we pottered along at 80kt. The a/c had recently had the Continental engine fitted but had not been re-trimmed which led to interesting yaw characteristics depending on which way you turned!

The engine prior to the Continental rotated in the opposite direction so the torque effects were reversed with the new engine. I remember it required full rudder to compensate yaw turning in one direction and absolutely none in the other!

By Iain Davidson – Auster Syndicate Member since August 2010

As a fresh PPL I stumbled across ‘JT’ in the hunt for a more affordable means of hour building, commonly carried out by all of us just released from the schools. As is the way of such things in flying, the grapevine fed me rumblings of ‘a little farm group based out of somewhere near Old Meldrum’. Not exactly Yellow Pages detail but a little more hunting got me in touch with John Thorogood.  He confirmed that there was indeed a farm strip at Whiterashes, from which he ran the Aberdeen Auster Flying Group and, even better news, they were looking for new members. My excitement was fuelled further by John advising me that it would be necessary to get a tailwheel endorsement on my licence before I joined the group.

Being a member of the ‘Trike generation’ brought up on big runways, the idea of a little-known taildragger hiding secretively amongst the trees was too much to resist. I’m sure I won’t be alone in thinking that every pilot has a small boy with an adventurous imagination tucked away inside and mine was certainly working overtime – this aeroplane tucked away on my doorstep was an Auster. Biggles flew them.

Admittedly, that was where my knowledge of Austers ceased.

My first impression of JT was, shall we say, mixed. She is a small aircraft but dainty would be an inappropriate description. Viewing the aeroplane sitting on the grass amongst the trees at Whiterashes, there was an air of solidity about the machine and the numerous signs of wear on the rather charming white and silver colour scheme, indicated that here was no hangar queen.

Made in 1946, JT is almost three times my age and I came rapidly to the conclusion that cockpit ergonomics must be a fairly recent invention; getting in is, at best, inelegant, requiring some forethought and a reasonable level of contortionism before finding yourself squeezed onto a bench seat an old Land Rover would be embarrassed by (an impression heightened by the split-sliding side Perspex, complete with mud thrown up from the linear meadow that I am informed is the runway). Once installed in this world of comfort, my eye fell on the instrument panel, which is alarmingly sparse and certainly seems in keeping with the British habit of her time; not so much laying out the instruments as throwing them in and seeing where they stick. Overall this combines nicely with several decades of wear to generate the appearance usually associated with the warbird restoration projects we read about – before they’ve started. This conclusion was validated by the information that several of the instruments don’t work; but it’s OK because they’re the ones we don’t use. Right.

In terms of controls we have a stick where the usual ‘full, free and correct’ pre take-off check will result in a series of bashed knuckles as contact is made sequentially with the instrument panel, the throttle quadrant and the door, whilst the dual control attempts to damage any passenger in a sensitive area if they are not pre-warned. The tailwheel is fully castoring and not steerable so ground control is achieved aerodynamically and by sparing use of the cable-operated, drum heel brakes, which tend to fade after about three applications. To make things more entertaining yet, the view forward for someone of my small stature is such that taxiing requires Spitfire style drunken weaving and long, straight-in approaches are out of the question without assistance from ‘the force’. Perhaps surprisingly, I found myself grinning!

In the air, after what is commonly a rather stately take off, JT’s true character starts to show. I had often read of flight testers talking about control harmonisation and only had a vague idea of what it actually meant. However, as is often the case, a complete lack if it educated me. The controls are unquestionably effective and rudder, at least, can be quite precise, yet they behave so independently as to feel to the uninitiated to be operating on several separate aircraft at once! This necessitates a fairly rapid swallowing of pride and a steep learning curve. With practice it becomes apparent that the aircraft actually has a contented feel in the air when not over controlled and will respond with remarkable patience to whatever you ask of her. This shows that the uncoordinated part of the process was yours-truly and if something goes awry, well, the aircraft’s been doing this for 65 years; you haven’t. Indeed, if we let out the young boy with the imagination again, it could be said that sometimes the aircraft feels like it knows the score and is reminding you the way it should be done, if you aren’t quite there already.

Truth be told, JT has a curious effect on the people who fly her. It takes no time at all for her quirks and weaknesses to become almost as much loved as her strengths and an attachment grows quickly, to the point that we almost take obscure pride in bemusing those used to less ‘independent’ aircraft, with such ground handling antics as having to turn 270° left to go 90° right in certain wind conditions. Combine this with adapting to learn flying farm-strip style and her rather frugal use of fuel and I’d say that my hunt was more successful than I could have hoped; letting me share in a piece of what a museum would be pleased to call ‘living history’. All this amounts to (if you will forgive me another cliché) a total considerably greater than her matured parts.

By Nick Bill – Auster Syndicate member for 5 years during the 1990’s:

I first flew in her as a passenger at the Merlin Flying Club at Hucnall in the early 70s when I was about 5 years old.

I first flew her myself in 1990 with John Thorogood [ founder of the Aberdeen Auster Group – Ed ] & bought a small share in her the following year. Over the next 5 years I flew over 200 hours in her.

What do I remember of her? Well slow & underpowered for sure. But also reliable & predictable, easy to fly but difficult to fly well. A ridiculously long endurance with the centre tank. A very noisy cockpit except when the belly tank runs dry before you expect it to! She always fired up again as soon as the main tank was selected.

I flew her from Insch to Skegness for an Auster fly in (Navigation was easy enough – green on the right blue on the left). The following year I made it to the Auster fly in at Popham via a number of stops but it was a long round trip at 82 mph.

Checking new pilots out for JT could be quite entertaining. I remember one guy trying to fly a heading of 9 gallons! [ JT’s fuel gauge is a float type with a scale that revolves as fuel is used and protrudes from the top of the cowl forward of the windscreen – it wobbles about much like an E2B type compass- Ed ]The P10 compass on the floor was always more reliable than the DI & certainly gave better heading information than the fuel gauge! One instructor told me he’d flown taildraggers before so I thought I’d let him get on with it until our pilot induced oscillations had taken us off both sides of the runway. No heel  brakes on the right of course.

The most fun flying I have done was in JT. I already had a ppl but she taught me to fly! There is a real sense of satisfaction in a good 3 pointer in an Auster. I flew John’s workmaster a few times which was fun in a different way but the controls were  too heavy (sorry John).