大象传媒

In 1941 I was an RAF Apprentice at Cranwell, where various forms of training we carried out. The aircraft used included Whitley, Wellington, Oxford, Wapiti and Wallace. They were all tail wheel aircraft powered by piston engine driving propellers. When they took off, they cleared the airfield boundary and climbed slowly away on their mission.

Our barrack blocks overlooked the south airfield, so we had a good view of the operations taking place. One day in May of that year, on the 15th to be precise, a strange aircraft appeared on the runway.

It had a tricycle under carriage, something unknown at that time, It emitted a loud whine from the engine. There was no propeller and a shimmering heat haze was apparent from the rear of the aircraft. We had never seen or heard anything like it before and had no idea what it could be, but as we watched, the whine became a tremendous roar. The aircraft rapidly gained speed to take off and then to our utter amazement, it climbed steeply away.

A few minutes later it came back to make a pass over the airfield at high speed, much faster than fighters of the time. After a fairly short flight, it landed and taxied into one of the hangars, which quickly closed and was surrounded by heavily armed guards who prevented anyone getting near to the site.

The aircraft made a number of flights over a number of days and we were aware that a number of high ranking people had attended to watch the events taking place. We had no idea what we had witnessed, but we called it the "Flying Flu", which seemed to be an appropriate description.

We learned much later that it was the most successful flight of the Gloucester E28/39, which became known as the whittle jet and pioneered the start of the revolution, in aircraft propulsion.

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