Ladys in aviation

[RickH]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez81N-YFGtM For all the ladies of aviation check this out. When I stumbled upon this on the Internet I was blown away. Goood on you girls.

 

 

[RickH]

These women have flown it all.

 

 

[kgwilson]

Superb tribute to the many women who did not get the recognition for the huge effort they made during WWII until 2008. Their dedication and tenacity is amazing and the few who were left and able to take part in this documentary talk of their time with such humility. They did this in a time when women were not supposed to do such things but succeeded beyond expectations and have earned complete respect from everyone who has heard their story.

 

I too was blown away by this. Thanks for posting.

 

 

[Flying Mum]

I recorded this on TV it was called Spitfire Women. Great documentary.

 

 

[Geoff13]

That was awesome. So much humility from some extremely brave Women.

 

The conversion to jets will stay with. "Is there anything I need to know?"

 

Yes watch the fuel guage it goes down very quickly and you want to be on the ground when it gets to empty.

 

And who would thought that the Spitfire was built with Ladies in mind.

 

Excellent story thank you for posting.

 

 

[Deskpilot]

As old as I am, I never knew this story. Sure, I'd heard of female ferry pilots but never knew such a super story was untold. Bless them all for their efforts in keeping the RAF fed with replacement planes.

 

 

[facthunter]

There were manuals printed and made available that gave all the necessary characteristics, quirks and essential limits weight speeds etc.for all the aircraft likely to be flown. I've actually read a fair part of one. Impressive pieces of information. RAAus should produce something similar. Might help people choose an aircraft and fly one they haven't before. or refresh their minds. Nev

 

 

[RickH]

There were manuals printed and made available that gave all the necessary characteristics, quirks and essential limits weight speeds etc.for all the aircraft likely to be flown. I've actually read a fair part of one. Impressive pieces of information. RAAus should produce something similar. Might help people choose an aircraft and fly one they haven't before. or refresh their minds. Nev

there is something similar produced for most aircraft it'scalled a Pilots Operating Handbook or POH

 

 

[facthunter]

Similar but not the same, Rick. It's warts and all guide to the planes characteristics dangerous faults etc and operating the aircraft with systems not operating, damaged removed etc for ferry purposes to enable them to get to places to be repaired. The gear might be locked down some engines not fitted. temporary electrics etc the planes were often not airworthy in the normal sense. Nev

 

 

[Yenn]

The first part of this post is not available. I get server not found, but I assume it is about the Air Transport Auxilliary.

 

ATA was the ferry pilots and they had Pilots handling Notes for all the aircraft they flew. In some cases they were not allowed to use the same procedures that RAF pilots could use. For example they were not allowed to use the auto pilot on the Liberator, which made it a pig of a plane to fly, as it was designed for auto pilot use. They flew about 140 different types of aircraft ranging from Tiget Moths to 4 engine bombers.

 

 

[facthunter]

The Liberator was a high altitude flyer with turbocharged 1830 pratts At above 30,000 feet any "normal" plane is hard to fly without an autopilot. You have to put a lot of concentration into it.

 

I doubt the ferry ladies would be flying that high. Nev

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

..... At above 30,000 feet any "normal" plane is hard to fly without an autopilot. You have to put a lot of concentration into it. ....

Ain't that the truth.

 

Back in the good old days before locked cockpit doors and airline flight marshals I used to ask to visit the flight deck on every long-haul flight and was very rarely refused. I used to pass a note to the Captain via the Flight Director expressing my interest/qualifications in aviation and sometimes spent the majority of the flight on the deck.

 

On one memorable occasion after asking about the apparently low airspeed indication they explained the huge difference between IAS and TAS at FL350 and thus I came to understand the benefits and effects of high altitude for airliners - in particular that being up there allowed the aircraft to fly at best L/D, which meant that a 747, as this was, might be crossing the ground at 500kts or so, but was flying at the apparently low indicated airspeed of only 1.3Vs1. Somewhere over India (it was QANTAS flight QF1, Singapore to Heathrow) I was invited to 'feel' the controls, as long as any movements I made were kept minimal enough to not be noticed by the pax.

 

With the autopilot dis-engaged I was astounded to find that the controls were quite mushy, I'd expected a very positive feel, after all we were travelling at not all that much below Mach 1. A slight easing back on the controls didn't produce the expected climb at all, in fact it just changed the attitude a little and then, due to the less efficient flight 'regime', the thing tended toward a descent rather than a climb. A slight pressure forward and the nose lowered and the beast definitely started to descend and had I not had the controls whisked away from me promptly, that descent would have been hard to arrest without application of power and a definite positive attitude change to accompany it.

 

Roll was positive but required definite and sustained opposite application to arrest the rolling. It was very quickly obvious to me that no novice could just jump behind the controls of a large liner at high altitude and fly it, as the movies might have you believe.

 

Years later I was in Darwin and they needed a replacement hovercraft pilot for the 10pax machine that was up there doing harbour and river trips. It took me a lot longer than expected to get a hang of it because everything happened some while after the control input. For example, the pax loaded at the top of a launching ramp, being rather steep due to the large tides in Darwin. You'd lift the machine up into a high hover then point it down the ramp. At one of the bases there was a narrow creek at the bottom, running at right angles to the ramp, so you needed to make a sharp left turn at the bottom. This meant giving it heaps of left as soon as you left the top of the ramp, and full thrust power at the same time. As soon as the thing hinted it was turning left you gave it full right and gunned it again - and kept the power on. If you didn't, it'd keep turning left until you ended up hitting the water backwards and wiping out a few mangroves on the other side. Ask me how I know about that ...

 

That hovercraft reminded me a lot of that flight high over India.

 

 

[RetiredRacer]

The yanks had girls delivering to the US training air fields as well. They were called the "WASP" squadron and like the African-American "Red tails" they had to fight to get excepted as well. To get excepted for training they had to have minimum of 1000 hours in their logbook and had to proove that they were exceptional as a pilot as well as a navigator.

 

One report I read on the WASP's was a training group somewhere in the states, sitting it out because of extreme bad weather heard a multi engined aircraft go low over-head and when they rushed out side they could only just make out a B17 that was being delivered to them by a WASP, coming in to land on a snow covered runway.

 

The WASP's believed that they could not afford to be sitting on the ground if there was a chance someone else was up there flying! Unfortunatly this also resulted in the WASP's loosing a lot of female delivery pilots!

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

What a great and interesting video. I was not aware either that they used to do this. Women worked building the aircraft and also in munitions but really interesting about the ferry flying