Harold Shelton test flew hundreds of the 1065 Beaufort bombers and Beaufighters made in Australia during WW2. They were produced during a mammoth growth period of Australia's aviation manufacturing industry in which he was very much at the pointy end.
Harold soon found that factory fresh planes could be seriously flawed-an especially dramatic example being a Beaufort with off-the-clock engines when descending from 24,000 feet during high altitude testing. "The elevators assumed an inverted lift section as the plane gathered speed," he recalls. "The controls were locked solid and I could imagine a very large hole in the ground opening straight up in front of me-right through to the other side of the Earth. Three technicians in the cabin section would have joined me in being killed. They had no idea what was happening.
"After reaching an estimated 620 mph I managed to pull the Beaufort out of its dive at 7000 ft. On the way down its airspeed indicator nearly went around twice. All the wing fairings, tail plane fairings, oil cooler cowlings and some engine cowlings were torn off making the aircraft look like a plucked duck. It later had to be virtually rebuilt."
Tall athletic build Harold, for long known to all and sundry as "Slim", clocked up 1244 hours and over 2000 test flights between August 1942 and July 1947 as a civilian test pilot at the Commonwealth Government's Department of Aircraft Production (DAP), Fishermen's Bend, Melbourne. One of the two main DAP Beaufort Division assembly plants was located there, the second being at Mascot, Sydney. When Beaufort and Beaufighter construction ended Harold went on to test fly those that received post-production work, including Beaufort conversions to Beaufreighters-and the first 12 Australian-built Lincoln bombers. He typically flew alone due to dangers involved.
To their considerable credit none of the Beauforts, Beaufighters, Beaufreighters and Lincolns flown by DAP test pilots were lost and none of the pilots was killed.
Test flying, understandably enough, is not for everybody. Test pilots have to be way above average as fliers and they also require very sound supportive technological knowledge to survive. Even though Harold amply satisfied these criteria he was confronted with, as he puts it, "a lot of narrow squeaks." Apart from congratulatory inter-office memos, however, he has never been officially recognised for his exemplary WW2 test flying performance.
At 92 years of age Harold Shelton still flies-gliders-in his home State of Victoria, Australia. "These days, of course, I've got to have a baby sitter," he snorts a little indignantly, referring to the imposition of a tandem pilot due to his mature years.
Reputedly, Harold hasn't lost any of his touch at the controls. "He's as smooth as silk," one of his co-pilots recently marveled. But, then, Harold has had quite a few thousand hours at the wheel-starting 71 years ago. Born just seven years after the Wright brothers Kittyhawk feat, he is believed to be the oldest Australian still flying any kind of aircraft.
Late in 1918 Harold saw an Australian Flying Corps aeroplane fly over his country school at Avenel, near Melbourne. He ran to take a close-up look when it landed in a paddock nearby and spoke to the crew. "I was most impressed and I decided to pursue a career in aviation," says Harold. "After all these years, I'm still thrilled at the whole idea of flying."
In 1928 Harold had his first flight as a passenger, appropriately enough when his later prime role there as a test pilot is considered, at Fishermen's Bend. He learnt to fly at the then Victorian Aero Club (now the Royal Victorian Aero Club) in 1931, gaining an "A" licence then a commercial "B" licence. Following advanced training he went to England in 1934 and became a test pilot for Monarch Experimental Engines, at Bristol. Later, he performed factory liaison work for another English aviation firm-Phillips & Powis Aircraft Ltd, of Reading.
Eventually disenchanted with England's cold leaden skies, Harold early in 1936 returned home to a somewhat sunnier Australia. While in London, he had met a local girl, Violet Dibble, who later followed him to Australia where they were married.
After flying a DH.50 biplane whose task was to noisily broadcast commercial advertisements low (and not always welcomely) across Melbourne Harold helped to pioneer a rural Victorian feeder airline to Horsham. While he was barnstorming in New South Wales and Victoria in 1937, budding transport tycoon, Reg Ansett, hired him as a pilot. Harold flew an Airspeed Envoy on regular passenger-cargo flights way between Essendon, Melbourne, and its base at Hamilton, Western Victoria. The twin engine Envoy, which could carry eight passengers, had earlier belonged to Lord Nuffield.
Harold was among the roughly first half dozen original Ansett Airways pilots out of subsequent thousands and is now the oldest still alive. After a shaky start, Ansett developed into a major operation, eventually flying not only nationally but also internationally and spectacularly folding up in March 2002 after 66 years of operation. But during the 1930s Australian flying rules and aircraft performance standards were decidedly still seat of the pants compared to today.
Faulty engine parts repeatedly forced the Envoy to forced land in paddocks on average about once a week, invariably with a full load of passengers. Harold endured two separate engine failures in a single day! "The engines were so awful that sometimes they were literally using as much oil as petrol," he recalls. "The Envoy was routinely terribly overloaded with passengers and freight. It took the full length of the aerodrome to get off-just."
While mechanics tinkered with the Envoy's wheezy oiled-up engines yet again Harold was kept busy flying a likewise long suffering high wing monoplane Fokker Universal airliner. "It was very noisy and my ears used to ring for well over a day after flying it," Harold recalls. "That noise was absolutely dreadful."
One way or another, after flying six days a week on passenger-freight services and flight testing on Sundays, Harold finally felt worn out by Ansett. He obtained a job flying Dragon Rapides for Australian National Airways (ANA) in 1938, later moving on to DC2, DC3 and DH86 aircraft with ANA before joining Guinea Airways early in 1941 mostly as a Lockheed 10 captain flying such lengthy routes as a 12 hours 1850 miles run from Adelaide to Darwin-at the galley slave pace of up to 155 hours a month.
Harold volunteered to join the Royal Australian Air Force in 1941 but was directed instead to keep on with the good work of flying with Guinea Airways-airlifting servicemen and supplies in and out of embattled Darwin in between raids as Japanese bombers and fighters blitzed the northern Australian gateway harbour town. He was diverted from flying into Darwin during the second raid by just 20 minutes, later landing at night amongst unexploded bombs as Army searchlights probed the sky.
Almost by way of rest and recuperation, Harold in August 1942 began test flying for the Commonwealth Government's Department of Aircraft Production (DAP) at Fishermen's Bend, Melbourne. But it was, of course, no holiday.
"After the planes were assembled they were taken to Flight Shed Department where final inspections were made by aeronautical inspectors and engineers," says Harold. "They would then give me a certificate which said that, in their opinion, a particular Beaufort or Beaufighter to be tested by me was perfect. Unfortunately, all too often I'd find that just wasn't so.
"Lots of problems arose, like vibrating propellers, instruments out of adjustment, instrument needles unsteady; engine fires...all sorts of stuff like that. Literally, any or more of thousands of things could go wrong with a brand new plane. I would put each one through high speed dives, high speed turns and just about anything I could think of to make sure that everything was in order.
"After that I would record all the glitches on what we called a Snag sheet, bring the aircraft back to the production line airfield at Fishermen's Bend, hand in my Snag sheet and discuss the problems with various electrical and/or mechanical engineers involved. As it happened, I had qualified in both mechanical and electrical engineering before I became a pilot, so that was a help to me.
"Next, I would re-test the aircraft to make sure that all the shortcomings I'd noted had been corrected. If they weren't I had to retest it sometimes three or four times till the thing was made perfect.
"All of this at first did not make me very popular with certain trade union officials and other employees at DAP. They weren't very happy with my diagnoses and I had a lot of staff troubles. So, I went to the Director of the Beaufort Division, Mr. John Storey, as my boss was away at the time, and he explained to me the problems that management was having on the assembly line.
"I decided to go down to Flight Shed and insisted that the chief inspector should come up in the air with me. He was very reluctant to do so at first until I said: 'Right! Go and get a parachute. We're not flying the aircraft until you get in!' So, very reluctantly, he boarded a Beaufort and sat near me. I handed him the test flight sheet and said: 'Now, you're going to Snag this aircraft and I'll check what you've done.'
"By the time we landed back at the airfield his Snag sheet was filled with comments. This led to the whole attitude of the Beaufort Division-the main assembly area, inspectors and engineers dramatically changing their attitude towards me. They understood from then on that my flight test performance assessments were correct and that there really was a war on!
"They could see that my sole aim was to ensure that every Beaufort, and later every Beaufighter, tested was good enough for it to go into action at the hands of the young RAAF pilots who had to fly them. When I'd done my job each aircraft would then be accepted by the RAAF and taken to Laverton, a nearby Service airfield, to be fitted with all the necessary armament-and that was usually the last I saw of them.
"Of course, I would later read about some of their exploits in the newspapers as they helped to drive the Japanese war machine away from Australia in the Allies' Pacific island-hopping campaigns. Naturally, I felt a lot of pride in what I'd done to help many of our airmen to defeat such an incredibly die-hard enemy.
"I'd had the privilege of sitting in hundreds of those pilots' seats first and got them into the air, on the way to the battlefronts, for the very first time. Believe me; I take my hat off to those brave young men and their ground crews. They did a marvelous job for their country under often incredibly difficult conditions.
"In September 1943 I visited Beaufort squadrons at Nowra, Camden and Richmond, New South Wales, and at Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, lecturing pilots on the handling and performance of their Beauforts.
"Once, I had to fire full armament from a Beaufighter over Port Phillip Bay, not far from Melbourne. A shag perched on a wooden pile which was my aiming point very wisely winged away at right angles as I lined up the sights. Then I let fly. I saw for myself the fantastic firepower that one of these aircraft could pump out from nose cannon, wing-mounted machineguns, and rockets. It was a very exhilarating experience.
"I flew several times a day for nearly five years on flight testing at DAP and found such a lifestyle extremely interesting, to put it mildly. In the process, I got away with all kinds of life-threatening experiences by sheer luck and a certain amount of skill, so that here I am still in one piece today."
"I used to give an aerobatic display for DAP staff with every one hundredth aircraft off the production line and nearly came several gutzers as a result of my over-enthusiasm. Once, I almost crashed into the factory of Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC), next door to DAP, during a low level dive. On another occasion, I fell into the cockpit of a Beaufort upside down during a full roll.
"Since I'd very carelessly neglected to secure my harness, I dropped out of it and all I had to hold onto was the control wheel. All the chaps on the ground who were watching me fly, though, said it was the most fantastic flying exhibition they'd ever seen. They had no idea that the last roll was done by the aircraft with no help from me. It reminded me, though, that you that just one thoughtless mistake in flying an aeroplane could very easily kill you."
Bert Rosen, manager of DAP's experimental drawing office, remembers Harold from time to time performing beat-ups over the factory roof. "He was a bit of a devil at that sort of thing," says Bert.
After leaving DAP Harold rejoined ANA late in 1947 as a commercial pilot, leaving in 1950 with a First Class Licence. "In December 1948 I had a nasty prang in a DC3 (VH-UZJ "Kyilla") during the early hours of the morning after bad weather flying," he says. "The altimeter in this particular aircraft had a faulty capsule within it.
"I descended to low altitude on a blind approach to the airfield at an emergency field in Victoria called Mangalore. Even though the altimeter showed 1000 ft which would have given me 500 ft clearance above the ground I was actually at tree top level. The next thing I knew was that I hit a tree in a clearing, took the wing off and the aircraft was a write-off.
"Luckily, we had no passengers on board and none of the crew was hurt. Despite the altimeter playing up, the accident led to my dismissal by ANA. I was sworn to secrecy as an ANA test pilot and could not defend myself property at the subsequent investigation.
"I decided to switch from commercial flying to running my own automotive electrical engineering firm in a suburb of Melbourne. But it's hard to keep a bird man on the ground forever, so in 1966 I became an active member of the Gliding Club of Victoria and have enjoyed this kind of flying ever since." |